DJI Mavic Air RC plastic piece broken

[Camalhao]

Hello,

I bought a DJI Mavic Air 6 months ago. I have used it a lot and I have never had any problems until now.

I have never had any crash with my drone and I have never let the RC fall on the ground.

Today after having used it I was closing the RC and a piece came out. In the last times I used it I had already noticed that one of the "little arms of the RC" wasn't staying in the right position as it used to stay and would "jump out of the closing position". Now I know that it was the plastic that was breaking inside.

I'm a little disappointed that after only 6 months of use it breaks like this... Only because of the normal use of opening and closing the RC's "arms". I will upload the pictures.

The problem is that it looks like DJI doesn't sell only the remote controller. Do you know where can I buy a new remote controller?
I don't think it would be possible to repair this one.

Thank you in advance for the support.

 

[monty.roman]

this is just a plastic cover protecting the arms mechanism. if I see it correctly, you should be able to remove the broken piece from screw thread and glue it back in place using some quick glue and tweezers. then simply screwing it back in place.

it's possible to find and buy a new remote but it's pretty expensive Brand new DJI Mavic Air Radio Controller Remote control Genuine | eBay

 

[Former Member]

If its only 6 months old, send it in for warranty repair.

 

[monty.roman]

If its only 6 months old, send it in for warranty repair.

that's the best solution.

 

[Point Zero]

that's the best solution.

You will be without your remote for a few weeks, does the warranty cover accidental damage? I thought it was for failure on their (dji's) part?

 

[Former Member]

You will be without your remote for a few weeks, does the warranty cover accidental damage? I thought it was for failure on their (dji's) part?

Well, the OP said he never dropped it, so to me, thats a manufacturers defect. DJI will probably cover it.

 

[monty.roman]

You will be without your remote for a few weeks, does the warranty cover accidental damage? I thought it was for failure on their (dji's) part?

IMHO yes, DJI should cover such issue. Looks like bad factory assembly causing the RC phone clamp metallic part grappling by the cover and in one bad moment, the screw mount broke off completely. It's easily repairable at home but if you would need to send it in for some more serious issue later (worn out buttons, loose antenna base, malfunctional joystick, you name it), they would see that it was opened before (nobody can know if it was just a broken screw thread or complete dismantle).

I missed that OP mentioned running warranty at the first place so I recommended home fix.

 

[Camalhao]

Hello again!

Thank you for all your answers.
I have looked a little bit more into it and this is what I think that happened (I uploaded some more pictures). The cylinder that you see in the picture should rotate when we open/close the drone's arms. I don't know for what reason but it stoped rotating, causing too much stress over the plastic until it broke it.
I bought the drone in Europe but at the moment I'm in the southeast Asia and I'll be here for a while. Do you know if I can send it to repair in here?

Monty.romain I'm thinking of doing what you said and glue only the cover to protect a little bit the interior of the drone, leaving it without the left arm. What do you think?

 

[Former Member]

Just got buy some clear flexible adhesive. And be sure not to glue the controller together. lol

 

[monty.roman]

Monty.romain I'm thinking of doing what you said and glue only the cover to protect a little bit the interior of the drone, leaving it without the left arm. What do you think?

oh, I didn't know that the entire left smartphone clamp has broken off, definitely didn't look like it in first batch of pictures. Even that is repairable (we can discuss it if you decide to do so) but if you still plan to sending it for warranty claim later, I wouldn't glue anything, including the black cover.

PS: if you leave it without the clamp, how do you keep the smartphone attached to the rest of the remote?

 

[Camalhao]

PS: if you leave it without the clamp, how do you keep the smartphone attached to the rest of the remote?

I'm just keeping the smartphone attached to the right clamp and I hold the left side of the phone (instead of holding the left clap) while i control the drone. Well, It's not the same easy felling as having a normal RC but at least I could fly it... until I started having a new and bigger problem with the RC... lol

 

[monty.roman]

I'm just keeping the smartphone attached to the right clamp and I hold the left side of the phone (instead of holding the left clap) while i control the drone. Well, It's not the same easy felling as having a normal RC but at least I could fly it... until I started having a new and bigger problem with the RC... lol

not very good solution indeed. if you're planning to leave it this way then you can get some holder that doesn't use clamps like this.

Anyway, what else problems do you have?

 

[Camalhao]

Some weeks ago the RC started to beep continuously as soon as I turned it on. Sometimes it would stop beeping as soon as it was connected to the aircraft, other times it wouldn't stop at all, it was really annoying!
I tried to calibrate the RC several times and suddenly it stopped doing this.

However another problem came some days ago. Now when i use the wheel to tilt the camera up and down the camera actually goes up or down but at the same time the aircraft goes to the right or to the left. I tried to calibrate the RC again but it didn't help.

I have tried to downgrade the firmware. I tested and it would do the same. I upgraded it again to the last version and the problem is still there.

I have just taken two pictures calibrating the RC and you can see there that when I use the wheel it was like if I was moving the right controller stick too. I will try to upload it here. Oh and better, after this RC calibration (and after two/three weeks) the beeping has just returned...

My solution was when i wanted to use the wheel I would put the right controller a little bit to the right or to the left to compensate the unwanted lateral movement that the wheel is doing to the aircraft. But as you can imagine it got much more complicated to make a decent movie or just to fly safe...

I think the RC has different deffects and the solution would be to send it to DJI. However I'm constantly moving every 2 to 5 days so it would be impossible to get it back.

Have you seen problems like this one?