ugh. so my S550 hex which ive had running for like 3 years now took a genuinely bad crash on the weekend, came in hot when i lost orientation in some trees. two arms cracked at the base where they bolt to the center plate, one motor shaft bent, one ESC is definitely toast (magic smoke happened), and the FC might be messed up too ? it powers on but GPS isnt being detected anymore and i get a weird flickering on the OSD that wasnt there before.

the thing is the frame itself is pretty old and replacement arms for the S550 are not exactly easy to find anymore. i can get knockoff arms but im not confident theyll be the same geometry. and at this point if im buying arms plus a new ESC plus possibly a new FC... im starting to wonder if i should just use this as an excuse to finally move to a proper purpose-built platform.

been thinking about something like a hexacopter built around a better frame, maybe even go X8 coaxial for the redundancy. idk. has anyone gone through this kind of decision and which way did you go

I went through almost this exact thing with an old F550 a few years back. Kept telling myself I'd fix it, ordered some parts, then realized the FC I was trying to keep was so old that half the stuff I wanted to do with it wasn't supported anymore. Ended up just pulling the motors and a couple other bits that were still good and starting fresh. Honestly never looked back. If the frame is becoming a sourcing problem that's usually the sign to move on.

the GPS not being detected after a crash is almost always just a connector that got knocked loose or the GPS module itself took a hit, id check that before assuming the FC is dead. ive brought back FCs that looked totally fried just by reflowing a few caps and checking every connector carefully. not saying dont rebuild but maybe dont write off the FC yet, could save you some money if you decide to stick with the platform