The DJI Spark; brand new out of the box and not even flown yet.
It's time to take it apart.
It's hard to describe how small this thing truly is, so I brought a banana for scale.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
The DJI Spark has some pretty unique construction.
There are a total of 6 screws holding on the top plate.
The screws are accessed on the bottom of the drone, under the battery...including one on
either side of the gimble.
It's a 1.5 allen bit for these screws.
I'll link a tool kit in the description.
An interesting thing is that there are 2 dollops of clear rubber glue on the 2 middle screws.
This probably helps keep the screws tight with all the consistent prop vibrations.
I had to remove both blobs of rubber before my bit would fit inside the screw.
Once the 6 screws were out, the top plate is still extremely secure.
I doubt it will ever come off on its own.
I was able to use my metal pry tool and some aggressive negotiating to remove it - exposing
the pretty incredible circuitry to the camera.
Even the chips are branded with DJI.
The top red cap has vents on the sides to dissipate the airflow from the massive metal
heat sink and fan in the center of the drone.
I think a naked spark would look pretty fantastic.
The different colored Sparks look pretty good of course, don't get me wrong, but the target
market of tech enthusiasts have been building clear computers for years.
And a clear Spark would be pretty darn impressive.
Clear plastics have been around since about 1950.
Just saying, DJI, you might want to consider a clear option for your next drone.
Hit that thumbs up button if you want to see more clear electronics in the future - I know
I do.
The props come off easy enough.
Just press down and spin the blade to unlock the direction indicated on the propeller.
The silver colored circle on the prop indicates which motor they are attached to.
And now for the nitty gritty.
Getting inside this thing is rather complicated.
There's a bunch of silver tape sitting on top of the connectors.
I'm saving the tape to put back in place later.
Remember, normally you'll never need to take apart your own Spark unless you happen to
have a few wrecked Sparks and you're trying to Frankenstein them together to make one
working drone.
I'm unclipping both signal wires at the back and pulling them up and out of the way.
Then I'll remove the 3 screws attached to the silver bracket next to the fan.
The screws are all different sizes so I'm keeping them organized and off to the side.
There are 3 more silver screws around the back side of the drone and some silver tape
covering those connections around the fan - there's a lot of this.
There two connections below the fan are rather interesting.
These are not the normal ribbons that we see inside of cell phones, these have exposed
wires.
I'm assuming these lead to the gimble.
Without supporting ribbons attached to the bare wires, I'm being much more careful with
these plugs.
On the top and the left of the fan we have normal looking ribbons - the ones we are used
to.
The same little Lego connections we see inside of cell phones all the time.
But this time around there's white silicone plopped on either side of the connections
to help hold them in place.
I think this is a fantastic idea.
Since drones typically have a high probability of hard landings and accidental wrecks, the
silicone will help keep the connections from popping off during these events.
It also has the added benefit of water resistance.
With the super tight plastic top and the silicone on either side of the connections inside of
the drone, it will help keep water out.
I'm no advocate for getting your electronics wet, but the silicone is a sign of proactive,
quality manufacturing.
Before the board can fully pull away from the phone there's one more normal ribbon hidden
underneath this metal bracket.
This covers the motor connection.
Unsnap that like a Lego, remove the motherboard, and now we can see inside the Spark.
Here's a close-up look at that fan, the heat sink, and the DJI branded component, along
with the micro USB charging port and the SD card slot.
These are not replaceable, but it's still a pretty compact system for such a powerful
little device.
Now the drone has 4 motors and each of these motors have little black wires headed down
to the backside of the drone.
These are soldered onto one board and the solder joints are covered with that same white
silicone we saw earlier for extra protection.
Then I assume this is the ribbon that controls all 4 motors and leads up to the motherboard.
At the other end of the drone we have the stabilizing gimble.
You can see how it moves around to compensate for the jiggliness of the drone.
This keeps your camera image steady.
And now I have to put it all back together to make sure it works.
The motherboard gets tucked back into place.
The motor ribbon doesn't have any silicone around it because it has it's own metal clamp.
The rest of the ribbon connections need to be lined up perfect so no silicone gets clipped
inside the connector an accident.
It's definitely not the easiest thing to repair but at least it's possible.
Make sure the sliver tape is back into place as well before putting any of the metal brackets
on.
The signal wires are the same type of circular connection that we see inside most cell phones.
These are just a bigger, thicker version.
There are 3 more silver screws around the backside of the board to go in place, and
then the silver bracket and the 3 screws around the fan area go in next.
It's interesting that each of these little screws have a bit of blue loctite on the threads
to help the screws stay in place.
Without the blue stuff, the vibrations of the flying drone might cause the screws to
unscrew on their own.
DJI's attention to detail is a very good thing.
I feel like they built this product to last a while.
The last thing to screws in is the bracket over the motor control ribbon.
And now that everything is back into place, I'll pop in the SD card and it's time for
the bad idea of turning it on and flying in this half-naked state.
So far so good.
Let's see what happens.
[Music playing]
Well I think that went much better than anticipated.
Even with the top gone it was still able to track me and fly around, use GPS, and everything
was still functioning on this device.
The Wi-Fi was even going as well.
Now, I would not fly it like this though.
As soon as I get home I'm going to put that top back on and seal it down just to keep
all the components safe from the dust and stuff.
I'm sure you saw when I was landing it, there was a lot of dust kicking up and now that's
all coating the circuit board.
So flying like this isn't very smart.
But if DJI was able to make a clear cover over the top of this - just saying - I would
buy another one.
Now all of the footage you just saw was filmed in 1080p upscaled to 4k because the DJL Spark
can't film in 4K - just 1080p.
But it should give a pretty accurate representation of what the image quality is like.
I'll leave a link for the DJI Spark down in the video description, along with this rad
power bike that I have behind me as well.
There's a 50 dollar discount code on that one.
If you enjoyed this video, hit that subscribe button for more tech reviews like this in
the future.
And thanks for watching.
I'll see you around.