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Crashed drone, possible recovery?

alsa

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Hello, I am pretty new in this forum, and I am sorry if somebody already asked this question.
Some days ago, my Mavic 2 Pro has some issue with a tree in the park, and by mistake decided to kamikaze into the ground after a 5 m fall.
During this unfortunate event it only seems that the front part, particularly the gimbal took the damage and there is no other major damages (except a lost propeller and the internal storage gone).
I wanted to ask if by any chance you would have some tools to verify if the camera and the motherboard would be still working before repairing the gimbal, to avoid the waste of the gimbal.
Thank you for your help
Alex
 
If the aircraft powers up normally, with the exception of the gimbal, then that shows at least the main board is alive. If the props turn on startup then the ESC board is likely ok.

If you see video from the camera and it can at least focus on something then good. However the gimbal/camera has two sets of cables one a thin wire and the other a delicate flat ribbon cable. In a crash involving the gimbal the ribbon cable often breaks. Sometimes there is an obvious break but a fine crack can lead to failure or intermittent failure. This ribbon provides power and motor control of the gimbal.

The very small connectors between circuit boards can come loose after a heavy fall and could be a cause of a loss of a range of functions

A 5M drop could easily cause cracks in the circuit boards, which may cause failure during flight so test at a low height and in a clear area once you believe any issues have been resolved before heading higher or further.
 
Thank you for your reply.
When I turn it on, everything startup normally (except the camera and gimbal of course) but it gives me the error code 200 when I try to take off. Strangely, when I try to take off immediately after boot there is no error code 200, and it seems to fly.
Also for the gimbal I think that the coaxial cable sapped and the vibration damper and role bracket broke, so I would need to buy new ones.
 
Doing a search for error 200 shows a couple of potential fixes, most also result from loss of video/control of the camera and gimbal. During startup of the aircraft a check is made for internal memory and an SD Card. Several people have reported reseating the SD Card (if there is one) and reformatting the SD card resolved their issue. There is some logic behind this one as the aircraft needs to write log files once started-up and if internal storage is not detected or an SD card is present and cannot be read then it could be the cause of the 200 error.

If the aircraft was writing to the SD card when it crashed it could easily have left an incomplete file write due to the shock and movement of the SD card on impact.

Keep us posted.
 
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If I had the same issue with my M 2 Pro (and I love that drone), I would unquestionably send it to DJI and ask for a quote to fix it. They will respond very quickly after receiving it. I have found their repairs/replacement to be very reasonable. If you feel it is too expensive, they will ship it back to you for the shipping cost, but you will then have a professional diagnosis.
 
Ok, I received the part for the replacement of the cable, I replaced the broken parts and putted everything back in place, until the gimball connector, I couldn't plug it back, so I asked my friend to do it. After pushing a bit too hard, it seemed to be plugged back in. But when we turned the drone back to one, we saw some sparks and a burn smell. Immediately we removed the battery, and we removed the gimbal connector to check it.
You can see on the image below that by forcing it, the connector bent.
When we tried to turn on the drone back up without the gimball, the RC parring led, fan and approximately everything else didn't turn on (except for the battery led).
Do you think it's the PSU board that burn down, and I could just replace it, or I need to replace the whole board? I have some experience in soldering, so if it is only the PSU is it a question of one transistor or the complete board is fried?
Thank you for your help
And have a nice day
IMG-0088.jpg
 
Ok, I received the part for the replacement of the cable, I replaced the broken parts and putted everything back in place, until the gimball connector, I couldn't plug it back, so I asked my friend to do it. After pushing a bit too hard, it seemed to be plugged back in. But when we turned the drone back to one, we saw some sparks and a burn smell. Immediately we removed the battery, and we removed the gimbal connector to check it.
You can see on the image below that by forcing it, the connector bent.
When we tried to turn on the drone back up without the gimball, the RC parring led, fan and approximately everything else didn't turn on (except for the battery led).
Do you think it's the PSU board that burn down, and I could just replace it, or I need to replace the whole board? I have some experience in soldering, so if it is only the PSU is it a question of one transistor or the complete board is fried?
Thank you for your help
And have a nice day
IMG-0088.jpg
OK, at this point I would be sending it off for a professional repair. The board with the damaged connector will need replacing for a start. There’s no telling what else is damaged and without a complete set of replacement boards it won’t be easy to identify other damage.
 
OK, at this point I would be sending it off for a professional repair. The board with the damaged connector will need replacing for a start. There’s no telling what else is damaged and without a complete set of replacement boards it won’t be easy to identify other damage.
How much do you think the repair would cost?
 
DJI is the only one that can answer that competently at this stage.
Don't get me wrong, I know, how this feels and you most probably tried to save some money on the repair, but now you have the worst of both worlds: after a crash you meddled with the internals and further damaged the drone, so no money nor time cut down, instead you will have to fix both.

Get the proper repair from DJI and enjoy your drone afterwards.
I suspect, you don't have an active DJI Refresh Care?
 
DJI is the only one that can answer that competently at this stage.
Don't get me wrong, I know, how this feels and you most probably tried to save some money on the repair, but now you have the worst of both worlds: after a crash you meddled with the internals and further damaged the drone, so no money nor time cut down, instead you will have to fix both.

Get the proper repair from DJI and enjoy your drone afterwards.
I suspect, you don't have an active DJI Refresh Care?
Sadly, no refresh care. I looked up the price of the motherboard, and it's sadly too expensive for my budget. Sadly, I think I will sell the non damaged parts individually, hoping that one time I will be able to afford a new one.

Thank you so much for your advices and have a great time.
 
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