Buying a Mavic Flown in Rain? GPS Issues

[xocomil]

I live in Central America and have found a guy selling his DJI Mavic for less than half the price of new (they are expensive down here ... about 30-40% more than in the US).

Problem is he says he flew in light rain for a short time (just enough to get it back to him, so a few minutes supposedly).

The seller says the Mavic won't connect to GPS mode, only atti mode. And that by virtue of not being able to connect to GPS mode, the control sometimes won't work to fly it - though the motor starts up ok and connects to the DJI app.

He says he took it to local DJI repair shop who said the IMU needs calibration, which will cost a few hundred dollars. He says he doesn't have the cash, hence his reason to sell it.

Am I crazy to consider buying this? Never had a drone, though am part time camera guy and know a little about electronics.

Thanks!

 

[HydroneMantis]

I believe the IMU can be re-calibrated in the DJI go Menu, no need to spend $ on it. I would not touch this Mavic at all.

 

[xocomil]

Ok thanks for your input.

 

[Qoncussion]

Sounds like something to avoid. IMU calibration is free and takes just a few minutes. Something is not right about his story. It seems like the craft sustained some type of damage or impact ~not just a little light rain, which the Mavic can handle.

 

[xocomil]

Ok. I'll leave this one. Many thanks for making the decision easy!

 

[UAVNV]

spend half price spend the other half on repairs? its inevitable

avoid like the plague!

 

[kris]

Mavics are much more expensive in Europe as well (1100-1200€). That was the reason I purchased one from Tomtop.I guess you can do the same,or?

 

[Aerial Gopher]

Well. I would test fly it myself and if it functions as intended, ie motors and flight, and obstacle avoidance. I would then check to see if the app and controller are receiving signal from enough sattelites. If it is, I would do a factory reset on everything. Might work. If it's receiving gps position and staying in atti mode then this is a software issue. I don't know what in total is used to go into or come out of atti mode. I do know that I have flown a mavic in light rain for 10 minutes and never had any problems. If he is saying it needs an imu calibration, someone might be telling him that and trying to sucker him. Maybe he has just been trying to fly it inside and will stay in atti mode anyways. I would ask where he tried to fly it to see if he was even outside. If the guy believed the shop that he had to pay them for an imu calibration, then he must be the sucker. I wouldn't just brush this one off so fast.

 

[HydroneMantis]

i'm now thinking i need to open a drone repair shop and charge people who don't research $200-300 for "IMU calibration"...just run the calibration and call them in a couple hours.

"oh yes, the calibration was very hard, very hard. the problem was up in the bundles...its a ***** when its bundle related...that'll be $300." lol

 

[Capt JJ]

The flux capacitor isn't fluxing properly