Solo-Teardown

Warning: This project will void your warranty. Proceed at your a risk.

Introduction

This hack is the first step to many others on this site, it is the basic instructions to teardown your Solo. If you would like to view a video version of this tutorial, here you go!

Note: Only a few of these steps need to be done in this particular order and not all of these steps are required for each hack. For example if you only need to access the mainboard you can skip to step 4.

Also before starting, make sure the battery is removed from Solo. 

1. Remove the LED covers

The best practice is to remove the LED covers as the very first step so that they can be used to keep the screws organized as they are removed. This can be done very easily with a small screwdriver by getting under the lid on small side of the cover.

2. Remove Motor Pods

Remove the 4 screws on the bottom of each motor pod, place all of those screws into an LED tray.

Wiggle loose the motor pods to remove it from the Solo Body. Once loose, unplug the two power lines and the connector on the bottom of the board.

3. Remove Legs

Unscrew the legs by removing the two screws in each leg. (These screws can be placed with the motor pod screws as they are the same.) 

Two of the legs have WiFi antennas, remove the cover on the leg and pull the antenna off of the sticky tape.

One has the magnetometer board, remove the foot and unscrew the magnetometer board.

4. Remove the GPS antenna cap

To remove the GPS antenna cap, take a small screwdriver and get under a corner next to the battery bay. Carefully roll the cap off so you don't break any of the tabs (somehow I have done this a number of different times in a number of different ways, and never broken a tab).

5. Remove Battery Tray

Unscrew the 7 screws that hold the battery tray down. Place them all into one LED cover.

Once the battery tray is loose, remove it from Solo and unclip the GPS from the main board.

6. Remove Main Board

Pull all of the cables that run to the motor pods out into the battery bay opening.

Unplug the magnetometer cable from the main board at the base of arm #4.

Unscrew the single remaining screw holding the main board to the body. Place this screw in a new tray.

Carefully slide the board forward, and roll it to the right side of the body. There is a ribbon cable that goes between the main board and the accessory port that can easily break so do this step very slowly. (These two screws are the same that is holding the main board together.)

7. Remove Pixhawk 2

To remove Pixhawk, unscrew the 4 screws on the top of the main board. (I keep these with the single screw from the magnetometer since they can't be mixed up.)

Once the screws are removed the pixhawk should unplug easily.

8. Remove Companion Computer

Remove the 3 screws that are holding the companion computer to the main board. (I keep these screws with the ones that hold the main board and accessory port down since they can't be mixed up.)

Carefully remove the companion computer from the main board. Make sure you are pulling the boards straight apart as their are numbers pins that connect the two together.

You Did It!

You have successfully disassembled Solo and probably made a mess of your kitchen table along the way. 

Reassembly Tips

If you got this far, reassembling Solo is relatively simple, as it is just performing these instructions in reverse. There are two things to note:- Location of Motor Pods (1 & 2 are white, 3 & 4 are black)

• Location of Motor Pods (1 & 2 are white, 3 & 4 are black)
• It is easier to install the motor pod before the battery bay, that way you can push the cabling through the arms if they are inaccessible.
• When reinstalling the main board, make sure to slide it all the way to the back of the body so it is under the alignment notch in the body. The screw hole that holds the board down is opposite a plastic alignment pin that goes in a screw hole on the left side of the board.