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Hands on drone repair ?

rhettduke

Well-Known Member
Join
Oct 16, 2018
Messages
112
Age
57
Just curious if anyone here has torn down a Dji Drone and replaced parts ?

I have a Phantom P4P v2 that has been in the shop twice...Original issue was pilot being brain dead and flying at night in a not as well aquainted with understanding of the the reality of 70 something foot big oak tre

Physical bends in the gimbal.....

Months later the gimbal had issues that were diagnosed as a faulty ribbon cable.

Happy with the great guys who worked on the bird. I know 2 people who are honest in the independent drone repair field. Happy to refer if you are in need.

Mavic 2 Pro pretty much same issue....night...not as high as I should have been and hit tree dropping 45 ft.

Only real issue was one of the IMU's had an error...still flew fine on one.

A guest stepped on the Mavic a few weeks later and trashed a front arm.

I ordered a arm and an IMU integrated circuit .

After a few Youtube videos I tore it down..I have a life time experience starting at 14 years old working for the Engineer of a radio station with a soldering iron...but I digress...
At 53 eye issues are real.

Anyway the Mavic is back together and Im waiting on a fresh soldering iron tip to solder the motor and led wires to the board....IMU in and all boards surrounding it are back in.

Its either gonna fly or not...Time will tell.20200709_142129.jpg
 
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Wow!!! Way over my pay grade ?. Best of luck with a successful repair. I see how a fine tip soldering iron would be a necessity. Scooter
 
respect and you save a lot of money, just paid 330 euro for a simple gimbal repair on my mavic pro.
And I'm an electronics engineer too but don't have your guts to do the reparation myself.
Keep us informed, so next time I do it myself .
 
BTW, the repair man told me that in a mavic pro you have several modules which can be changed separately, a mavic air 2 has one mainboard . in case of damage repair costs will be astronomous
 
Just curious if anyone here has torn down a Dji Drone and replaced parts ?

I have a Phantom P4P v2 that has been in the shop twice...Original issue was pilot being brain dead and flying at night in a not as well aquainted with understanding of the the reality of 70 something foot big oak tre

Physical bends in the gimbal.....

Months later the gimbal had issues that were diagnosed as a faulty ribbon cable.

Happy with the great guys who worked on the bird. I know 2 people who are honest in the independent drone repair field. Happy to refer if you are in need.

Mavic 2 Pro pretty much same issue....night...not as high as I should have been and hit tree dropping 45 ft.

Only real issue was one of the IMU's had an error...still flew fine on one.

A guest stepped on the Mavic a few weeks later and trashed a front arm.

I ordered a arm and an IMU integrated circuit .

After a few Youtube videos I tore it down..I have a life time experience starting at 14 years old working for the Engineer of a radio station with a soldering iron...but I digress...
At 53 eye issues are real.

Anyway the Mavic is back together and Im waiting on a fresh soldering iron tip to solder the motor and led wires to the board....IMU in and all boards surrounding it are back in.

Its either gonna fly or not...Time will tell.View attachment 13110
Very nice and good luck!

Yes I have done it myself. Luckily I've never crashed one but I purchased two that needed repairs and I did them myself.

The one that was super easy was replacing the main controller board on a P4. When I bought it, one of the IMUs was not functioning, and replacing the board made it perfect. It just takes a little patience prying open the case.

The tough one was a Spark. I bought it after a crash where one of the arms was snapped off and dangling from the motor cables. That meant replacing the shell, one motor, one ESC, and propellers. The hard part was soldering the wires to the very small ESC board right underneath the motor. Plus the way the Spark shell is designed, the only way to replace it, is to de-solder and the solder all 4 motors! What a pain. Again patience does the trick. Some pictures of the surgery below...

The Spark before repair
Spark before Repair.jpg
The motor and tiny ESC board with solder points
Spark ESC Board.jpg
Inside of the Spark
Spark Open.jpg
 
Very nice and good luck!

Yes I have done it myself. Luckily I've never crashed one but I purchased two that needed repairs and I did them myself.

The one that was super easy was replacing the main controller board on a P4. When I bought it, one of the IMUs was not functioning, and replacing the board made it perfect. It just takes a little patience prying open the case.

The tough one was a Spark. I bought it after a crash where one of the arms was snapped off and dangling from the motor cables. That meant replacing the shell, one motor, one ESC, and propellers. The hard part was soldering the wires to the very small ESC board right underneath the motor. Plus the way the Spark shell is designed, the only way to replace it, is to de-solder and the solder all 4 motors! What a pain. Again patience does the trick. Some pictures of the surgery below...

The Spark before repair
View attachment 13128
The motor and tiny ESC board with solder points
View attachment 13129
Inside of the Spark
View attachment 13130
It would take some powerful magnification to solder inside a Spark.
 
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It would take some powerful magnification to solder inside a Spark.
Yes indeed it did ! Plus it really requires more than 2 hands to do it properly since the components need to be held securely while also dealing with the magnifier, solder, and the iron. Doing it by myself required a soldering station with little arms to hold everything and still it was a pain!
 
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I changed a motor in my Spark, but I don't think I would want to disassemble the innards. Look it up on youtube. Looks to me like something I'd leave for an "expert."

And I work with tiny "SMD" electronic parts.
 

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