DJI is repairing my Mini 3 Pro for free?

[eysikal]

I had a crash indoors that busted my gimbal. I sent it in for repair and DJI got back to me and said they would be fixing it for free. Granted, it's only an $8 part, but it's a nice show of goodwill that they aren't going to charge me for the repair.

Maybe they felt bad that I had only had the drone for just over 48 hours?

 

[GFields]

Greetings from Birmingham Alabama USA, welcome to the forum! We look forward to hearing from you!
Drop by the pilot’s check-in to introduce yourself.

One lesson to take away from this is to not fly indoors until you obtain a LOT of experience. I'm glad they're covering the cost.

 

[eysikal]

One lesson to take away from this is to not fly indoors until you obtain a LOT of experience. I'm glad they're covering the cost.

True. Although I really don't know what happened in this case. While I had only had this specific Mini 3 Pro for 48 hours, I have been flying quite a bit over the last 2 months on a different M3P unit.

I was flying around slowly in the house when the drone seemingly and suddenly just accelerated into the wall. I wonder if it was the same experience another poster described. Something about a bug where the M3P gets confused in low-light conditions indoors:

"I actually had to replace props on my M3P also recently, I didnt crash it per se, the drone has a bug where if it hovers in low light indoors, something seems to be triggering it to fly forward (i.e. it thinks the ground isnt level). Turning the light on and testing again it will hover on the spot like any other DJI drone.
As such it was only a low speed collision but the event was reproducible and ended up chipping one of the props."

Post is here: Prop screws are way too tight? (mini 3)

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

and suddenly just accelerated into the wall................Something about a bug where the M3P gets confused in low-light conditions indoors:

That sounds more like the pilots not understanding how the drone maintains position indoors or in the absence of sufficient GPS.

Assuming there is insufficient GPS and the drone is LOW over a suitable, WELL LIT surface, then, indoors or outside, the drone uses the VPS sensors to 'watch' the floor/ground and maintain its position and or to behave in accordance with the pilots commands.
If the lighting is poor or the surface inappropriate, the VPS has no 'landmarks' for reference and switches to ATTI mode where ALL horizontal control is the responsibility of the pilot.

There is one addendum to the above, if the drone gets close to a wall at any time I think there is a low pressure region formed between the wall and the drone and its downdraught, this low pressure region tends to 'suck' a drone into the wall. So stay away from walls or be ready to issue the appropriate commands to move the drone away from the wall.
I would stay probably 1ft from a wall with a Mavic Mini or Mini 2 but have flown them to within 1 or 2 inches of a wall but I was ready to 'reverse' as soon as I saw it being sucked in.

Indoors ALL commands should entail SMALL movements of the joysticks, full 'anything' stick is to be avoided.
I think N mode is most suitable flight mode indoors, Sports mode is too quick and for some reason I think position holding is less reliable in tripod or cine .

The above said it may have been that DJI looks at the DAT on the drone and found some problem with it ........... or maybe you just got lucky.

 

[Drone Master]

There is one addendum to the above, if the drone gets close to a wall at any time I think there is a low pressure region formed between the wall and the drone and its downdraught, this low pressure region tends to 'suck' a drone into the wall. So stay away from walls or be ready to issue the appropriate commands to move the drone away from the wall.
I would stay probably 1ft from a wall with a Mavic Mini or Mini 2 but have flown them to within 1 or 2 inches of a wall but I was ready to 'reverse' as soon as I saw it being sucked in.

Oh yeah, and don't forget the ceiling as well, I did that once with a Tello and could not get it to release without turning off the motors. Lol,,

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Why do you think I have "mini" sized black circles on the ceiling???? lol
I forgot upwards suck-up when too close to the ceiling, fortunately no harm done other than paint smears.
I buffed the paint of the top of the prop hubs of a Phantom 3 too, it takes a lot of closed throttle to unstick a drone from the ceiling, lol.

 

[Starz]

Indoor flying is always a fun read !!!

 

[High Flight]

I recently had issues with my Mavic 2 Zoom and Smart Controller after the recent firmware updates. I was impressed with DJI's service even though both were out of
Warranty. To repair both was only $160 and follow up has been excellent

 

[YVRGUY]

Greetings from Birmingham Alabama USA, welcome to the forum! We look forward to hearing from you!
Drop by the pilot’s check-in to introduce yourself.

One lesson to take away from this is to not fly indoors until you obtain a LOT of experience. I'm glad they're covering the cost.

And, maybe … remember to disable obstacle avoidance. There’s no wiggle room indoors.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

You should try an M2P/Z indoors with OA on lol. I once launched from the top of a stack of boxes. Max height? All of a couple of inches above the boxes because the upwards looking sensors saw the ceiling, it took me a while to figure out what the heck was going on lol.

 

[eysikal]

And, maybe … remember to disable obstacle avoidance. There’s no wiggle room indoors.

Wouldn’t you want to ensure obstacle avoidance was on? Why would you want it off indoors where if anything you are more likely to encounter obstacles.

I’m realizing now that perhaps what happened is that obstacle avoidance was on and as I was coming around a corner I had the sticks jammed but was being slowed/impeded by OA. And once the drone felt it had no obstacles to avoid it launched forward on me.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Wouldn’t you want to ensure obstacle avoidance was on? Why would you want it off indoors where if anything you are more likely to encounter obstacles.

I’m realizing now that perhaps what happened is that obstacle avoidance was on and as I was coming around a corner I had the sticks jammed but was being slowed/impeded by OA. And once the drone felt it had no obstacles to avoid it launched forward on me.

It depends on the size of the room.
If you are in a cavern that it may be useful but if you are in a room that measures say 14ft by 20ft it is probably going to lock your drone in place. My cave is about 10ft x 12ft x 8ft and with OA on my Mavic 2 gets stuck horizontally every where, it wont climb above around 4ft - 5ft.

In addition you have, in that post demonstrated the problems it can create.