Well it happened: Pilot error and that tree reached right out and grabbed my Chroma!! Without going into a lot of detail, let's just say that when we shook it loose, it fell 30 feet to the ground and broke the right front arm. Nothing electronic was broken (verified using the Chroma GUI found here: FlyChroma.com) so it was a no brainer to order a new fuselage shell from Horizon Hobby. I was a little apprehensive after having a not very good experience with a crashed 350QX2 (really, how many screws in that shell?)

It arrived yesterday and I set to work. Removing the innards from the broken Chroma was easy and I found that ALL screws and plugs are accessible through either the small hatch at the front of the underside(under the gimble mount) or from the battery opening. Very nice surprise after the 350QX experience.

Noting the order in which I removed them and LABELING everything as it came out, the process took a little over an hour. Once I had all the parts removed from the old shell, I began remounting the electronics and hardware into the new shell.

Working in the reverse order, I put the parts back in the new shell one at a time. Everything lined up properly and fit snuggly. Fishing the leads from the motors and LED’s through the arms was a little tricky, but using a small “snake” made from an old guitar string made the process easy.

Once everything was in place, I put a fresh battery in, fired up the controller and the quad and insured that it would be recognized by the ST10+ controller. I then tested that the camera gimble worked and, after GPS Lock was achieved, that the motors spun up (sans props.)

After shutting down I hooked the machine back up to the Chroma GUI and verified that all the sensors were recognized and working. After that I re-calibrated the Accelerometer and the Compass, put on the props and took it outside for a test flight.

I’m happy to report that it flew just as it did straight out of the box!

Bottom line: If you wreck your Chroma, don’t even hesitate, just order the new shell and transfer the electronics. The accessibility of all the innards made it easy and the cost is very reasonable in light of the original cost of this quad.