I got careless during a recent flight, and the wind caused my P4P to drift into a tree branch. There was a fair amount of damage when it hit the ground. Parts of the shell were dented, and the gimbal wasn't working properly. I sent it to the DJI repair facility in California. I haven't gotten it back yet, but the cost for the repair job ($197) is well below what I feared. I will post an update when I get it back.
DJI repair
- Thread starter cinclodes
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It was in P mode. There was some wind, but it wasn't an issue during an earlier flight. There were two other complicating factors. During the previous flight, the latch on the lanyard broke. I wouldn't ordinarily fly it without the lanyard, but I was at a family reunion, and we wanted to use the drone to get a group photo. I was backing the drone into a good position for the photo. It must have lost the GPS when it got near (but not dangerously near, in my estimation) a tree. The wind pushed it into the tree, and that was that. Not holding it in the usual position with the lanyard, I wasn't able to react quickly enough to save it. When the lanyard broke, I stuck my foot out and caught the contoller and prevented it and/or the iPad from being damaged. I agree -- I hope they don't send me someone else's patched up mess.
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Mine went in for warranty work and I got the same AC back only better. They do good work there.
I don't know the answer to your question, but this makes me feel uneasy about sending my drone in for repairs. What if you get back a drone that still works within specs but actually has lots of hard use (wear and tear on the motors), rugged handling (that could take a toll on the electronics), exposure to water, etc.? If it were a car instead, I can image lots of reasons why I would prefer to get my own well-maintained car back rather than someone else's car.
It's too long of a story, but I was sent a replacement P4 that had an intermittent problem. They told me to do something and it seemed to fix it. What do i know? 8 days after the 30 day warranty went out the problem came back. It decided on its own to crash land in a canyon. DJI wouldn't fix it. The reps sounded very sympathetic, but policy is policy.
I sent my P2V to the DJI repair shop in southern California with something rattling inside and for the dreaded black screen problem. It came back with a new top shell and works perfectly, all for $137. I've had good experiences also with Dronefly in southern California.
Dronefly is up in Chatsworth, near L.A. They are not official DJI. The DJI repair facility is in Torrance, I think. You have to ship to them. I don't think it's a walk-in kind of place.
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I was charged twice as much for a repair that I had done 2 weeks earlier and there was less damage?????
Because of my carelessness I crashed my I2 on its first flight. I thought ok, I have DJI cares so I just send it in and get a new replacement. Foolish me. After paying the deductible I received a refurbished I2 back. The first thing I noticed was that there was about 1/8th inch of play in the landing gear struts. Also noticed when I connected my X7 camera and 24MM lens and turned the drone on the camera went through its cycle and when it got to the vertical part of the cycle the lens hit the top of the perfectly flat wooden table it was on. From that point on it did not go through the vertical part of the cycle. After calling DJI and speaking to several people who did not understand my problem they sent me a label to return my I2 again for evaluation. I asked if I paid an additional amount could I please get a new I2. Their answer was we can't do that. We will replace it with a like new drone. I asked them if the replacement was like new why did mine have problems right out of the box. Again their answer was sorry for your problem but that is our policy. Mean while its been 4 weeks that I do not have a drone.
I received the drone. It looks new. Is there a way to determine if it's new or repaired? One possible clue is that I had to relink it with the controller.
New or refurbished they have to be re-linked. If I recall my P3P was a refurbished unit and when I went to check my settings in the app it already had a name! That's OK, I knew it was a refurb but it had full warranty.
I thought I saw somewhere that the refurbished units were marked differently on the box.
There is an R at the end of the serial number. Is it's serial # the same as the one you sent in?
It's a different serial number, and there is no R in it. It looks new, and there were stickers on all of the collision sensors. The whole thing looks shiny and new.
I forgot to remove the SD card from the drone before sending it in for repairs. They returned the card with the replacement drone, and I was finally able to review the footage of the crash. I backed the drone up into a position for obtaining a group photo at a large family reunion. There were trees behind the drone, but I didn't think it was in any danger. There was a little wind that day, but it didn't cause any issues during previous flights. The drone suddenly started to drift with the wind, apparently when the nearby trees caused it to lose the GPS fix. I was in trouble once it got too close to the trees. The lanyard had broken during an earlier flight. Holding the drone in an unfamiliar way, I wasn't able to react quickly enough before it clipped a branch, and that was that. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have attempted a flight without the lanyard, but we really wanted to get the photo at this gathering.
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