so the bottom plate on my ImpulseRC Apex cracked right at one of the standoff holes. not from a crash or anything dramatic, i was mid flight and when i landed and picked it up i just noticed it. there was a tiny hairline crack that wasnt there before as far as i can tell.

now to be fair i did have one pretty decent gate clip a few sessions ago where i hit the top corner of the gate and rolled it pretty hard but i stuck the landing and figured it was fine. the frame felt solid after that.

im not trying to trash the brand because i know plenty of people who swear by ImpulseRC stuff, im just wondering if this is a material fatigue thing that i should have seen coming or if the hit from the gate probably started a stress fracture that i just couldnt see. the crack is clean, not shattered, just a single line through the carbon.

also curious if people bother repairing bottom plates at all or if its just buy a replacement. i saw some stuff about using CA glue and people seem split on whether that does anything real structurally or if its just cosmetic reassurance.

yeah that gate hit probably did it, carbon doesn't always show damage right away. stress fractures in CF plates are real and they can propogate slowly especially around standoff holes because thats where all the flex stress concentrates. the fact that it cracked clean along a single line instead of shattering actually sounds like it was a slow fracture working its way through rather than a fresh impact break.

CA glue on a cracked CF plate is basically just keeping the crack from spreading a tiny bit and making yourself feel better. it does nothing meaningful for structural integrity. id just get a replacement bottom plate, ImpulseRC sells them separately and its not that expensive compared to rebuilding after a proper failure mid flight. the top plate and arms are probably fine if they look okay.

ive cracked two bottom plates in the last year on different frames and both times it was after a hit that seemed fine at the time. carbon is weird like that. one of them i actually flew on for another 3 sessions before i noticed and nothing happened, but that was probably dumb in hindsight.

the standoff hole thing is definitely a weak point on basically every frame. some frames have beefier material around those holes and some just dont. not sure how the Apex specifically compares but worth looking at when you pick your replacement whether there's any kind of gusset design around them.

also slightly off topic but if you're still using stock hardware on the standoffs make sure theyre actually torqued right and not just finger tight, loose standoffs make the flex worse and eat frames faster. found that out the hard way on my own build