Bricked?

[Raydonwrecker]

Hi, any thoughts on my predicament would be appreciated.

Over a year ago, about 2 weeks after I bought a spark, it went into a strange frenzy at about 12 feet and crashed onto grass.
It cracked one propeller arm so I sent it to dji (mostly to find out why it had crashed). After countless emails, phone calls and about 6 months neither dji nor the company I bought it from would accept responsibility (the flight logs just stopped dead in the air and so there was no proof.) Dji just said they would fix the arm for more than I wanted to pay so I got them to send it back and I glued it with araldite.

Now when I turn the drone on it just beeps, at first once every 5 seconds and then after a while 3 times quickly every 5 seconds. No lights come on except the battery lights and I can't connect to it. Holding the battery button won't activate pairing mode.
Anyone know what's going on? Is it truly knackered?
Thanks,
Steve.

 

[I B Spectre]

I'm unable to discern from your post how long it has been since the Spark last functioned properly, so please excuse if a few questions seem overly basic:

1) Are you able to charge the battery with it installed on the drone or on a charger while not on the drone?

2) Is the battery indicating a full charge (four LEDs illuminated) when tested while not installed on the drone?

3) Have you inspected the battery contacts both on the drone and on the battery itself?

4) Has the Spark exhibited the described behavior ever since getting it back from DJI?

5) Were any DJI updates attempted since getting it back from DJI?

6) Have you tried more than one battery?

 

[Raydonwrecker]

I'm unable to discern from your post how long it has been since the Spark last functioned properly, so please excuse if a few questions seem overly basic:

1) Are you able to charge the battery with it installed on the drone or on a charger while not on the drone?

2) Is the battery indicating a full charge (four LEDs illuminated) when tested while not installed on the drone?

3) Have you inspected the battery contacts both on the drone and on the battery itself?

4) Has the Spark exhibited the described behavior ever since getting it back from DJI?

5) Were any DJI updates attempted since getting it back from DJI?

6) Have you tried more than one battery?

Hi, thanks for replying. The batteries charge fine (I have 2 so I've tried both of them) the battery lights seem to work fine and there is no sign of damage of corrosion but the propeller lights never come on.
In terms of sending it to dji, I sent it to them immediately after the crash so I don't know how if it was like this before but this is how it is out of the box after spending time with dji. Could it be in a strange mode after they plugged it in to their computer?
I have only recently downloaded the app again so all firmware is up to date. It displays this same behaviour whether the RC is connected or not.

 

[I B Spectre]

I Googled for symptoms like your own and found a few with some variation. One suggestion was to connect via DJI Assistant 2 and try to do a factory reset, but I don't know if it requires the drone to be turned-on. Some posts talked about unsuccessful or interrupted/corrupted update downloads, but I would think you would have gotten a notification. When you downloaded the app to your phone, were you able to install it to the drone? Here's a YT video on how to do updates: Updating Spark Firmware

This thread sounds like your issue except for the frequency of the beeps: Spark won't power on and there's even a video in post #17 for comparison. Look over the entire thread.

Is post #18 any help?

 

[Raydonwrecker]

I Googled for symptoms like your own and found a few with some variation. One suggestion was to connect via DJI Assistant 2 and try to do a factory reset, but I don't know if it requires the drone to be turned-on. Some posts talked about unsuccessful or interrupted/corrupted update downloads, but I would think you would have gotten a notification. When you downloaded the app to your phone, were you able to install it to the drone? Here's a YT video on how to do updates: Updating Spark Firmware

This thread sounds like your issue except for the frequency of the beeps: Spark won't power on and there's even a video in post #17 for comparison. Look over the entire thread.

Is post #18 any help?

Hey, thank you for looking around for me! I appreciate it. This thread is interesting because it's the only one I've actually seen of my exact problem. Unfortunately the replies are a little less interesting. Hehe. I am pressing the power button twice and holding, and so was the person in this thread, otherwise the battery indicators would flash up briefly and then disappear. Our lights stay on and then it beeps. Hmmm... Perhaps it will just be back to dji with it then. The thing is they only quoted to fix the propeller arm, they never mentioned that any other hardware was damaged.
I will try re-downloading the dji app and any other software they mentioned on the thread.
Thank you.

 

[I B Spectre]

You're welcome. I hope you can get it working via Assistant 2 without having to send it to DJI. Keep us posted. Finding a solution to your problem can help expand the knowledge base for others if they have the same issue.