Esc Error/ bad motor fixed!

[Dr_Richtofen_21]

Hello all. I am typing in this forum in order to document (in detail) my experience with a bad motor/ esc error. I will start with my first experience flying drones to give you all an idea that i am by no means an expert with drones. I have however built a few rc vehicles. My very first experience with drones was about two years ago. I bought a Latrax Alias. I got it home and started to test it out. Long story short a few days after i bought it i accidentally flew it too high and it got caught in the wind. At this point i made the choice that if i ever buy a drone again it will be one with GPS. 2 years went by and nothing really caught my eye. I dont particularly like the size of the phantom so i waited until something smaller came out that didnt impact the functionality too much. I then found the mavic and decided to pull the trigger. I was very excited about the purchase and the wait for the shipping was pure agony. It eventually arrived at my door and I couldnt be more excited. I read all of the saftey guidelines as well as registering it with the FAA. I even called a few local airports too figure out how they felt about drones. After charging it up i then took it out and flew it around a few times. At one point after getting somewhat used to the controls, i accidentally clipped a bush and the drone fell about 2ft into grass. It was a miniscule drop but i started to check everything and it seemed ok. I continued to fly it and once i was done i picked it up and almost got burnt by the right rear motor. I let it cool off and the next day i took it out again. I had read some things about the drone fighting wind and maybe overworking one of the motors to stay still. I kept the drone low just in case any unforseen failures might occur. I started getting an error that seemed like a generic warning about motor number 4 (the right rear). I decided to see if the motor was getting hot again so i brought the mavic in. While i had it hovering, the number 4 motor failed and the drone fell out of control about 6 ft into grass. Sure enough, when i felt the motor it was seriously hot. At this point i was so pissed. I had this thing for two days and its already been grounded. I waited for it to cool and when i tried to start it, the number 4 motor just twitched and the app just said"motor obstructed". I started doing research on DJI support and found that it seemed like a nightmare plus it takes forever. I also saw that i needed to send in my flight logs and i thought that if they saw i had a small crash, they would say it was operator error and i would be out of luck. I then figured my next best bet would be to take it to a repair shop. I live about one and a half hours north of a shop DJI has on ther website. (the Miami one) I called them and the gentleman who answered the phone seemed very knowledgeable. The thing that kept me away was the fact that they charge a 60$ diagnosis fee that they would only waive if i opted to pay for the fix. I did not want to get slapped with a quote of 250$ refuse, and then have to pay 60$ just to be back to square one. So i researched my final option. Fix it myself. I promptly ordered a motor and right rear arm off of amazon from a reputable seller. During the wait i decided to dig into the mavic since i had decided i would not be sending it in. I dissasembled it with the help of a few youtube videos and took the bad motor off. I was curious to see if the the app would report any errors if there was no motor attatched. Sure enough i got an ESC no.4 error. I then hooked the motor back up just to see if it would go away. It did not. I thought "oh no i just fried the esc!" I was feeling pretty bummed and two days later the arm and motor showed up. I went ahead and installed the new arm and soldered the wires to the board. i then carefully reassembled the mavic. I started the app, then the controller and last the mavic. To my surprise the drone fired up, all motors twitched and i had no errors. I then took it out to the field and take off. It took off and flew like new! i ran it through 3 batteries and all of the motors wer a little warm but not hot at all. I did not see much on this subject so i wanted to put my experience out there in hopes it may save someone from having to deal with DJI support. I do feel that DJI makes wonderful, solid products and the mavic really is a marvel of modern technology. I love it! It is just a shame that the customer service seems to be poor and the parts are not readily available. Still, my mavic is back in the air and i couldn't be more excited! (I also posted this on the DJI forum but I figured I might as well post it here too.)

 

[Former Member]

Congratulations on your self-repair.

 

[bennyd2009]

Great info. Powered up my Mavic Pro today and got a esc no.4 error. Have not done any firmware update prior. Restarted and the error went away.
Fired up and hover without any issues. Flew a few feet away and back no problem. Restarted a couple of time to see if the error would come back but it didn’t.
Now I’m just curious what could have caused it.