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Catastrophic motor failure leading to Mavic 3 crash. Warranty or Care Refresh?

Paulark

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I had just finished painting my boat and was using my Mavic 3 to dry it. Hey, don't judge...it worked really well...hahaha. So well, in fact I had a few minutes later in the flight to check out the sunset.

Here is the flight log viewer information from Phantom Help: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I just went basically straight up from my position to a height of about 65 feet. During the ascent, I noticed the drone having a slight bit of difficulty ascending but it wasn't much so I didn't think anything of it. As I'm looking at the screen, I heard what sounded like something hitting the aircraft (which I think was the motor hitting the arm when it was ejected) and down she went like a ton of bricks, narrowly missing my freshly painted boat and my head. At only 65 feet up, I didn't have a chance to look away from the screen as it was dropping, but of course it hit camera first and destroyed it and the gimbal assembly.

It looks like the motor got so hot for reasons unknown, that it burned out of its housing and said, "later" to the arm, even ejecting solder onto the prop! However, the wires barely kept it attached to the aircraft. Here is the photo:

A8ACACD3-EA66-43D2-8F56-FCE1E91AA42B.jpeg


So I extended my care refresh at the end of my first year which gave me another year on the warranty and continued my one replacement availability for another year. What should I do in this situation? Approach it as a warranty claim or just cash in my final replacement? Since I didn't observe anything hit the aircraft and I was completley clear of any trees, I can only assume that the motor failed, which seems like it should be a warranty claim. Thanks for the advice and further data analysis!
 
I have seen a lot of motors blocked by sand, salt, tiny rocks but the end result it nothing like this , and so I would file a Warranty claim as somthing went terribly wrong.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain. Land on the Water.
 
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First of, if you haven't already synced your logs switch syncing off and switch off wifi, I want to check something first
 
A warranty claim would be my suggestion too.

Ah what I was hoping for, motor temperatures in the DAT, may not exist, that's going by the DAT of a mini 3 pro.
But the temperatures of the individual ESCs and the individual motor currents probably are recorded, they are in the mini 3 pro DAT. Those might indicate something.

If you have not synced then the DAT probably still exists on the screen device, in the MCDatFlightRecords folder.
I do not know if mavic 3 pro DATs are readable but if you are so inclined you could check using CsvView,
CsvView Downloads
or upload the DAT to a file hosting website, make the page public and post the URL here.
 
I had just finished painting my boat and was using my Mavic 3 to dry it. Hey, don't judge...it worked really well...hahaha. So well, in fact I had a few minutes later in the flight to check out the sunset.

Here is the flight log viewer information from Phantom Help: DJI Flight Log Viewer - PhantomHelp.com

I just went basically straight up from my position to a height of about 65 feet. During the ascent, I noticed the drone having a slight bit of difficulty ascending but it wasn't much so I didn't think anything of it. As I'm looking at the screen, I heard what sounded like something hitting the aircraft (which I think was the motor hitting the arm when it was ejected) and down she went like a ton of bricks, narrowly missing my freshly painted boat and my head. At only 65 feet up, I didn't have a chance to look away from the screen as it was dropping, but of course it hit camera first and destroyed it and the gimbal assembly.

It looks like the motor got so hot for reasons unknown, that it burned out of its housing and said, "later" to the arm, even ejecting solder onto the prop! However, the wires barely kept it attached to the aircraft. Here is the photo:

View attachment 168318


So I extended my care refresh at the end of my first year which gave me another year on the warranty and continued my one replacement availability for another year. What should I do in this situation? Approach it as a warranty claim or just cash in my final replacement? Since I didn't observe anything hit the aircraft and I was completley clear of any trees, I can only assume that the motor failed, which seems like it should be a warranty claim. Thanks for the advice and further data analysis!
I've seen this happen once, with my Buddy's Mavic 3.
He's the type of guy who doesnt use a Landing Pad, and never uses compressed air to blow the debris out of his motors that accumulates there, because of it. (I'm not saying that you do the same. Just giving you the details on why the crash occurred with his.)
The solid matter in his motor caused friction, and heat, to build up, causing its housing to fail.
Maybe you had some unseen debris in there that attributed to its failure, as well.
If so, I doubt DJI will be able to detect this, and, they'll probably count it as a warranty repair, either way.
Best of luck, Brother.
 
I saved all files related to the flight before I synced my logs. I think it's encypted, but have never actually tried it before. I'll give it a whirl....unlike that motor will ever do again....

*crickets*

I'm not gonna sit here and say I blow them out after every flight...It's not very dusty where I live, but I do take a can of air to them maybe once a month. They've been fine so far, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. You're certainly right about that heat though, it had to come from somewhere. Now whether or not it was friction related or electrical related....I'm not knowledgable enough to know how to find that information in the data....or even if it CAN be found. But I think if you trace the source of the heat, you'll probably find the answer to what malfunctioned.

Do you know how long your buddy's flew after takeoff before it took a dive?
 
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Well this is cool...you can see from the kmz file that it's already falling at the time of the first notification.Screenshot 2023-09-18 at 11.16.20 AM.png
 
Something else I noticed that immediately prior to the first notification, the voltage goes up instead of down. Now this may be expected...a sort of "digging deep" if you will to keep it in the air, but I thought it was at least worth noting.
Screenshot 2023-09-18 at 11.29.13 AM.png
 
Here is the DAT file.
Thanks drat, it may well be encrypted, CsvView doesn't like it on this Mac, I will try later on Windows. Its good to see that DJI have switched on the 'hundreds' counter......unless you have added the "8" yourself.
 
Only thing that is different from the original file is the 2 at the end since it's a copy. Yeah, my mac didn't like it either.
 
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So I remembered that about 8 months ago, the drone got wet on a canoeing trip (even though it was in a hardcase...I have since switched to Pelican) so if that little sticker inside the drone is red, I assume that will nullify the warranty, correct? Even tho I dried it in desiccant for a week and it's performed flawlessly (maybe even better) since? My guess is that they will give me the finger and I have an event to shoot in a couple weeks. I better not take a chance and just cash in my final replacement 😒... but I honestly don't think it getting wet 8 months ago was the cause either. I've flown it over 100 times since then and zero issues. Wish I could decrypt that DAT file, but short of that, I guess I'll never really know. Definitely glad I pulled the trigger on that refresh plus additional year. Of course...that's a no brainer for me, I'm hard on equipment....
 
So I remembered that about 8 months ago, the drone got wet on a canoeing trip (even though it was in a hardcase...I have since switched to Pelican) so if that little sticker inside the drone is red, I assume that will nullify the warranty, correct? Even tho I dried it in desiccant for a week and it's performed flawlessly (maybe even better) since? My guess is that they will give me the finger and I have an event to shoot in a couple weeks. I better not take a chance and just cash in my final replacement 😒... but I honestly don't think it getting wet 8 months ago was the cause either. I've flown it over 100 times since then and zero issues. Wish I could decrypt that DAT file, but short of that, I guess I'll never really know. Definitely glad I pulled the trigger on that refresh plus additional year. Of course...that's a no brainer for me, I'm hard on equipment....
Your having posted that has just brought to mind that I have a very very vague recollection that DJI might decrypt the DAT but you'd need to ask them about that. If you ask, as well as presumably asking via email, ask on the DJI forum itself. Their Mods sometimes possibly pull strings or at least direct queries 'upstairs'.
 
Yes, it's either going to be a Warranty or DJI Care Refresh. DJI is the ONLY ones that can determine this after they look at your logs.

So, YES
 
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