Gadgetory

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 the DJI spark has some pretty unique construction there are a total of six screws holding on the top plate the screws are accessed from the bottom of the drone under the batteries including one on either side of the gimbal it's a 1.5 allen bit 50 screws I'll link a tool kit in a description an interesting thing is that there are two dollops of clear rubber glue on the two middle screws this probably helps keep the screws tight with all the consistent propagations had to remove both blobs of rubber before my bit would fit inside the screw once the six screws are out the top plate is still extremely secure I doubt it'll 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 side to dissipate the airflow from the massive metal heatsink and fan in the center of the drone I think a naked spark looks 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 TGA I want to consider a clear option for your next drum if 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 in the direction indicator 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 wrecks Sparks and you're trying to frank and send them together to make one working drone i'm unequipping both signal wires at the back and pulling them up and out of the way then i'll remove the three screws attached to this silver bracket next to the fan the screws are all different sizes so I'm keeping them organized off to the side there are three more silver screws around the backside of the drone and some more silver tape covering those connections around the fan there's a lot of this now these two connections below the fan are are 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 gimbal without supporting ribbons attached to bare wires I'm being much more careful with these plugs on the top and left of the fan we have normal-looking ribbons the ones we are used to the same little Lego connections we see inside cell phones all the time but this time around there is 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'll 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 drone 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 heatsink 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 joan has four 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 silicon we saw earlier for extra protection then I assume this is the ribbon that controls all four motors and leads up to the motherboard at the other end of the drone we have the stabilizing gimbal you can see how it moves around to compensate for the jig leanness of the drone this keeps your camera image steady and now I explode it all back together to make sure it works the motherboard gets tucked back into place the motor ribbon doesn't have any silicon around it because it has its own metal clamp the rest of the ribbon connections need to be lined up perfect so no silicone gets clipped inside the connector on accident it's definitely not the easiest thing to repair but at least as possible make sure the silver 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 three more silver screws around the backside of the board to go in place and then the silver bracket and the three 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 it screw stay in place without the blue stuff the vibrations of the flying drone might cause the screws to unscrew on their own DJ eyes attention to detail is a very good thing I feel like they built this product to last a while the last thing that screw in is the bracket over the motor control ribbons and now that everything is back into place I'll pop in the SD card and a time for the bad idea of turning it on and flying in this half-naked day so far so good let's see what happened well I think that went much better than anticipated even with the Top Gun it was still able to track me and fly around use GPS 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 the footage you just saw was filmed in 1080p upscaled to 4k because the DJI 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 to the DG I sparked down in the video description along with this rad power bike that I had behind me as well there's a $50 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