Caddx Protos Ascent: A Teardown and a Mildly Alarming Discovery

The new Caddx Protos Ascent kit has landed. Naturally, we took it apart. The goggles are a familiar affair—a Goggles L shell with some new bits inside and, regrettably, fewer antennas. The remote works, assuming you enjoy forked firmware with no official support. It’s all perfectly adequate, if a bit uninspired. But that's not the interesting part.

The interesting part is the battery. It seems someone in the design department thought it would be a laugh to route a pair of microscopically-thin, enamel-coated wires directly over a row of permanently live capacitors. A bit of vibration, a slight scuff, and that thin coating wears away, creating a direct short. It's an innovative feature, really. If your idea of innovation is a potential lithium fire strapped to your face.

Words on a screen don't quite do it justice. We filmed the entire teardown so you can see this engineering marvel for yourself. Popcorn is optional, but a fire extinguisher might be a sensible precaution if you own one of these kits.

So, what's the verdict? The goggles and remote are predictably fine for the price. The battery, however, is a glaring, easily avoidable problem. A single piece of tape could have prevented this. If you’ve bought the Protos kit, we strongly suggest you inspect the battery immediately. For all the gory details and technical specifics, you can read our full teardown here. Seriously, go check.