Need a drone repair for Mavic Air

[Jae Tee]

Hey guys! I had a Mavic air for quite a while, and like any good young adult I crashed it, in to a stream. 

Link: 

Any way as soon as I recovered it I pulled out the battery (i have other 1's), and let it air out and dry for about a week. I was happily surprised when it booted up, but it kept, supposedly, having firmware issues. After some tinkering I got most of it sorted out, but a "battery sensor issue" persisted despite trying with other batteries. Anyway I was prepared to go strait to DJI and pay for a repair but than i saw this,

That is not how I do business, So I went to a local hobby shop and asked if they can repair it, but they said no. He suggested I open it up and look for an issue, but this is above my pay grade (I didn't see anything out of the ordinary exept for the obvious pink liquid damaged patches).

 

So, I'm not looking for A how to repair guide, at least I doubt you'll have ! for me, rather i'm looking for a recommendation for a third party drone repair company.

Any and all info is appreciated.

Thanks.

 

 

[Hackentosher]

If I were a betting man, there's some corrosion on one of the battery contacts. If you included some pictures we could tell for sure, but I doubt there's much wrong with the aircraft. If you really don't want to even think about trying to fix it yourself (I bet you could if you tried), I would try another hobbyshop. If they wont take it, maybe a phone repair shop?

[Jae Tee]

10 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

there's some corrosion on one of the battery contacts

I looked, Its pristine

10 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

If you really don't want to even think about trying to fix it yourself (I bet you could if you tried)

I tried, And there is nothing I could do.

10 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

I would try another hobbyshop

I have a limited selection in my town. I was really hopping for a reputable service online. 

 

At this point I would be happy to jail break it, and use open source software, But i haven't seen anyone try it let alone successfully.

[Tristerin]

Im a hardware guy, so to me, unless the software got corrupted - it isn't the issue.  Im not a software guy, I just reinstall windows if I get issues I cant easily fix.  But the reason I do that is it quickly tells me - is this a hardware or software issue.  Fresh install, issue persists - its hardware.  (basically)

 

If I were to dunk my PC into a stream, and it magically shut itself off in time before some damage occurred to something...Perhaps the battery issue you are having is a bulging capacitor or something on the PCB that isn't communicating right (since a new battery gives same issue).

 

Would you not be more inclined to look up the model of the PCB and see if you can find it on Aliexpress and replace the mainboard?  Flashing would require EPROM programmer, and the right software to download to the chip identified.

 

Guessing here, work with me on the logic.

[Jae Tee]

1 minute ago, Tristerin said:

Would you not be more inclined to look up the model of the PCB and see if you can find it on Aliexpress and replace the mainboard?

I haven't given that a thought. That being said most of the drone works including Photography, It simply won't ALLOW me to fly due to the sensor issue im having. 

[Tristerin]

That's what I would do (take it apart, look for serial numbers, hit up Taobao/Aliexpress/Google for more data on those numbers)

[Hackentosher]

1 hour ago, Jae Tee said:

I looked, Its pristine

Please include photos. Have you taken it apart at all? I bet there's corrosion somewhere on a cap or maybe whatever chip interfaces with the battery and the main board. Have you taken the unit or the battery apart at all? I'd recommend looking inside the aircraft first, be very careful opening the battery as you don't want to puncture the cells. 

Quote

I tried, And there is nothing I could do.

I have a limited selection in my town. I was really hopping for a reputable service online. 

I'm not familiar with any, but maybe mobile phone or camera repair companies.

Quote

At this point I would be happy to jail break it, and use open source software, But i haven't seen anyone try it let alone successfully.

I don't think that would solve your issue or be wise. Guaranteed this is a tiny hardware problem, not a software problem. If it was a software problem, nothing would be working at all. Single lines of code don't just stop working unless they are changed and recompiled. If something got corrupted, the whole thing almost certainly wouldn't work.

[ColinLTT]

Hey, a topic I have knowledge in! 

 

DJI drones are locked down pretty heavily. They're like the iPhone of the cinema drone world, so you're going to get a similar experience when it comes to repair. Repair manuals are not public, and replacement parts are similarly hard to find. Your best answer to getting flying sooner rather than later is to send it to DJI for repair. Its unfortunate, but ultimately that's the best way to get it fixed right. 

 

IF however you want to dive into it to figure it out, you can try watching some repair manuals - here's one I found: 

Ifixit does not have that particular drone unfortunately. 

 

Good luck! 

[Jae Tee]

6 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

Please include photos. Have you taken it apart at all? I bet there's corrosion somewhere on a cap or maybe whatever chip interfaces with the battery and the main board. Have you taken the unit or the battery apart at all? I'd recommend looking inside the aircraft first, be very careful opening the battery as you don't want to puncture the cells. 

I don't have it on me now, but yes I did take it apart and found no corrosion what so ever. 

 

6 hours ago, Hackentosher said:

Guaranteed this is a tiny hardware problem, not a software problem.

Yes, I thought the same which is why I have no problem flying without the battery sensor working, but the software won't let me. Hence my want for jailbreaking

 

1 hour ago, ColinLTT said:

like the iPhone of the cinema drone world

This I found out pretty fast actually. 

 

1 hour ago, ColinLTT said:

Your best answer to getting flying sooner rather than later is to send it to DJI for repair

I would but they refuse to give me any idea of the cost unless I agree to pay $65 an hour UNTIL I SAY YES to a service I might not even want to pay for in the first place. Keep in mind this is before I send ANYTHING back in yet. And like apple it'll probably end up costing almost as much as a new drone.

 

On 7/7/2020 at 7:33 PM, Jae Tee said:

 

 

 

[Hackentosher]

27 minutes ago, Jae Tee said:

I would but they refuse to give me any idea of the cost unless I agree to pay $65 an hour UNTIL I SAY YES to a service I might not even want to pay for in the first place. Keep in mind this is before I send ANYTHING back in yet. And like apple it'll probably end up costing almost as much as a new drone.

Then take it to a camera repair place. From what I gather, cinema drones kinda fall between hobby RC and camera equipment and I believe both types of shops would be at least capable of completing such a repair. Regardless of if you send it to DJI or to a local shop (if you can even find one open right now given the state of the US right now), you're going to have to pay for a professional's time to find your issue, and that's not going to be cheap. You're paying for skilled labor, so frankly I would more or less expect $65/hour to find the problem and fix it. One thing to consider is a DJI tech is very familiar with the hardware as it's their job to troubleshoot these things day in and day out. This means they are more likely to find the problem in an hour or less while a camera, phone, or RC shop may not be as experienced and will almost certainly take longer as they dive into your aircraft, costing you more. @ColinLTT is right in saying that the best service will be to send it back to DJI if you don't want to have a go at it yourself.

[ColinLTT]

8 hours ago, Jae Tee said:

I don't have it on me now, but yes I did take it apart and found no corrosion what so ever. 

 

Yes, I thought the same which is why I have no problem flying without the battery sensor working, but the software won't let me. Hence my want for jailbreaking

 

This I found out pretty fast actually. 

 

I would but they refuse to give me any idea of the cost unless I agree to pay $65 an hour UNTIL I SAY YES to a service I might not even want to pay for in the first place. Keep in mind this is before I send ANYTHING back in yet. And like apple it'll probably end up costing almost as much as a new drone.

 

 

I mean you wouldn't take a car to a mechanic with an odd noise and expect them to diagnose it for free, same goes for DJI

[Jae Tee]

8 hours ago, ColinLTT said:

I mean you wouldn't take a car to a mechanic with an odd noise and expect them to diagnose it for free, same goes for DJI

Oddly, however, every mechanic in my town disagrees with you. Sure if after an initial assessment they still couldn't determine the issue, and had to dig further, then there would be a trouble shooting cost. However this is far from my predicament. I have already out lined to them on there website what the issue is, and it's not like there looking at it yet. At the very least they could tell me what it would cost within given parameters, say for example, if the motherboard needed to be replaced it would cost $X, or if it was a motor failure it would cost $Y.

 

This is what mechanics do. But no. Lips are sealed.

[Hackentosher]

5 hours ago, Jae Tee said:

Oddly, however, every mechanic in my town disagrees with you. Sure if after an initial assessment they still couldn't determine the issue, and had to dig further, then there would be a trouble shooting cost. However this is far from my predicament. I have already out lined to them on there website what the issue is, and it's not like there looking at it yet. At the very least they could tell me what it would cost within given parameters, say for example, if the motherboard needed to be replaced it would cost $X, or if it was a motor failure it would cost $Y.

 

This is what mechanics do. But no. Lips are sealed.

The trouble is they don't know. I guess you could ask them straight up what it would cost for whatever part interfaces with the battery, but they don't know if that board is actually the problem. You pay a premium for an experienced tech to know what to look for and replace it. I could fix anything given enough time and money if I just go about replacing all the parts. However, you are looking to pay for the experience to know what and how a part is broken. As for cost of parts, you also don't know if they take the Apple approach and replace whole boards, or if they repair individual components on boards. This means the cost is inherently variable depending on the damage dealt to the aircraft, and that's assuming the problem is isolated to one part. They can't possibly predict how much something is going to cost to return to factory condition by asking customers questions, and they also can't rely on customers providing accurate enough descriptions of what is happening because DJI doesn't know how much experience and knowledge an individual customer has.

 

Look, I've been there. I've been broke, done something stupid, and needed to send something expensive in for repair. I really didn't want to pay the $200 to replace the main board I broke, but I had no choice. I wasn't equipped at the time with the tools or experience to properly diagnose what happened to my device. In the end, I bucked up and paid the fee for an authorized repair center to troubleshoot my device and fix it. I'm glad I did and I learned many lessons from that experience. 

 

edit: I just realized the box you have to tick is agreeing to pay for a troubleshooting fee only if you refuse to have DJI fix the problem once you find it. To me, this sounds pretty cool of them to not charge you for finding the problem so long as you intend on paying DJI to fix it anyway.

[Jae Tee]

@Hackentosher LogicaldDRM has provided me with a screenshot of prices for general repairs. As to why its not listed directly on there repair page (they already knew i didn't have a warranty) I can't tell you. However as a consumer i probably should have looked farther for this info. False alarm.