Hmmm - Mavic Air story - overheating (and dying)

Kobsen · Mar 19, 2019

Friday the 8th of March:
Yes! my Mavic Air combo is here... Unpacking, charging and setup was done BUT living in Fuerteventura (strong winds) first flight postponed....

Sunday the 10'th of March:
Winds calmed down - going for first flight. All pack up with batteries/controller/galaxy s8 fully charged and landing pad ready..
Had an absolutely fab time with my drone (1 hour - 3 batteries), easy to fly and everything described by DJI were as it should be.
Landings perfect (RTH did them

) right in the centre of the landing pad.

Back home - after charging batteries getting ready for my first images/videos - connected the drone to my laptop to transfer - 20 min. transfer estimated - so left it to do it's job.

Checked after 7-8 min and the drone had shutdown????
Drone was boiling!!

I let it cool down - inserted a new (charged) battery and started it up again - connected to it using the controller and got the attached error message.
Shut it down again...
Left it for an hour and tried again. It resumed the upload but I noticed the fan was not running - and after a couple of minutes I turned it off because of it was just getting to hot.
After this - no contact to drone from controller - not even using the direct wifi connection.

Monday the 18'th of March.
Drone returned to DJI (Netherlands) after many emails during the week before, had to use my own courier for the return + cost (apparently the Canaries is not a part of Europe

)

OK long story ....

Did I miss something in the transferring of images/videos that killed my drone?

Should the fan be on when transferring?

And why is the Canaries (Spain) not Europe in DJI eyes.. (Know it's not in customs eyes but because of holiday resort status but UPS still delivers and pick up here!)

Attached (as said above) is the last life sign.......

Cheers
Mike

Air_Joe · Mar 19, 2019

Wow, i am really curious to know what happen too . [emoji848]

MA owner too.

Kobsen · Mar 19, 2019

Air_Joe said:
Wow, i am really curious to know what happen too . [emoji848]

MA owner too.

I'll let you know

CanadaDrone · Mar 19, 2019

Based on your description there is nothing you did wrong, so you probably just got unlucky with a defective drone. Did you unfold the legs and take the gimbal gard off when you turned it on to get the footage off? That's the only other thing I can think of.

In the future, on your replacement drone, always take the micro SD card out and use a dedicated card reader for file transfers - it's less effort and less wear and tear on the drone having to power it up all the time just to pull footage off of the micro SD card. With the Air having the SD card on the back, you don't even have to unfold it.

Kobsen · Mar 19, 2019

CanadaDrone said:
Based on your description there is nothing you did wrong, so you probably just got unlucky with a defective drone. Did you unfold the legs and take the gimbal gard off when you turned it on to get the footage off? That's the only other thing I can think of.

In the future, on your replacement drone, always take the micro SD card out and use a dedicated card reader for file transfers - it's less effort and less wear and tear on the drone having to power it up all the time just to pull footage off of the micro SD card. With the Air having the SD card on the back, you don't even have to unfold it.

Yes all was unfolded/gimbal guard off etc.

The reason I did the transfer from the drone itself was bad experiences with removing and reinserting micro sim cards.
I'll follow your advice - cheers
M.

Air_Joe · Mar 19, 2019

Kobsen said:
Yes all was unfolded/gimbal guard off etc.

The reason I did the transfer from the drone itself was bad experiences with removing and reinserting micro sim cards.
I'll follow your advice - cheers
M.

Yeah pal, i guess white guys will have trouble taking the tiny sd card out,
even for me an asian, it takes a while for me to take it out at times.

Here is a little trick i came across on youtube sometime back.
Hope it helps.

Mossiback · Mar 19, 2019

If you need to turn it on for an extended period again, put it in front of a fan to help cool it. The best thing to do is remove the SD card and read directly from it. It should be quicker and saves battery use.

Kobsen · Mar 19, 2019

Thanks, Mossiback.. removing the card will be followed when drone is back Thumbswayup

Wirre · Mar 20, 2019

Kobsen said:
Friday the 8th of March:
Yes! my Mavic Air combo is here... Unpacking, charging and setup was done BUT living in Fuerteventura (strong winds) first flight postponed....

Sunday the 10'th of March:
Winds calmed down - going for first flight. All pack up with batteries/controller/galaxy s8 fully charged and landing pad ready..
Had an absolutely fab time with my drone (1 hour - 3 batteries), easy to fly and everything described by DJI were as it should be.
Landings perfect (RTH did them ) right in the centre of the landing pad.

Back home - after charging batteries getting ready for my first images/videos - connected the drone to my laptop to transfer - 20 min. transfer estimated - so left it to do it's job.

Checked after 7-8 min and the drone had shutdown????
Drone was boiling!!

I let it cool down - inserted a new (charged) battery and started it up again - connected to it using the controller and got the attached error message.
Shut it down again...
Left it for an hour and tried again. It resumed the upload but I noticed the fan was not running - and after a couple of minutes I turned it off because of it was just getting to hot.
After this - no contact to drone from controller - not even using the direct wifi connection.

Monday the 18'th of March.
Drone returned to DJI (Netherlands) after many emails during the week before, had to use my own courier for the return + cost (apparently the Canaries is not a part of Europe )

OK long story ....

Did I miss something in the transferring of images/videos that killed my drone?

Should the fan be on when transferring?

And why is the Canaries (Spain) not Europe in DJI eyes.. (Know it's not in customs eyes but because of holiday resort status but UPS still delivers and pick up here!)

Attached (as said above) is the last life sign.......

Cheers
Mike

I think it get overheated because fan not started

Kobsen · Mar 21, 2019

Wirre said:
I think it get overheated because fan not started

Very right there, but any normal computer shuts down before burning itself out.....
We'll see what DJI says

elich11 · Mar 23, 2019

Kobsen said:
Friday the 8th of March:
Yes! my Mavic Air combo is here... Unpacking, charging and setup was done BUT living in Fuerteventura (strong winds) first flight postponed....

Sunday the 10'th of March:
Winds calmed down - going for first flight. All pack up with batteries/controller/galaxy s8 fully charged and landing pad ready..
Had an absolutely fab time with my drone (1 hour - 3 batteries), easy to fly and everything described by DJI were as it should be.
Landings perfect (RTH did them ) right in the centre of the landing pad.

Back home - after charging batteries getting ready for my first images/videos - connected the drone to my laptop to transfer - 20 min. transfer estimated - so left it to do it's job.

Checked after 7-8 min and the drone had shutdown????
Drone was boiling!!

I let it cool down - inserted a new (charged) battery and started it up again - connected to it using the controller and got the attached error message.
Shut it down again...
Left it for an hour and tried again. It resumed the upload but I noticed the fan was not running - and after a couple of minutes I turned it off because of it was just getting to hot.
After this - no contact to drone from controller - not even using the direct wifi connection.

Monday the 18'th of March.
Drone returned to DJI (Netherlands) after many emails during the week before, had to use my own courier for the return + cost (apparently the Canaries is not a part of Europe )

OK long story ....

Did I miss something in the transferring of images/videos that killed my drone?

Should the fan be on when transferring?

And why is the Canaries (Spain) not Europe in DJI eyes.. (Know it's not in customs eyes but because of holiday resort status but UPS still delivers and pick up here!)

Attached (as said above) is the last life sign.......

Cheers
Mike

My guess is that you overloaded it, and burned the fan, since you used it for one hour without a rest.
Next time let it cool down before taking it up to the air again.

Kobsen · May 21, 2019

OK Update from Fuerteventura:

New drone is back (3 days to the Netherlands and 3 weeks back to the Canaries - UPS! just google my address - instead of me making 5+ calls to get you to realize that the Canaries is more than one island !! Sorry rant is over

)

It was the fan (10 euros) unfortunately it burned out most sensors, making the mavic air inert so a new (refurbished) one was delivered.

Have had no problems since. Drone did 3 batteries in a row and was not even warm after the flights

BTW - question: If you loose connection in sports mode - will the drone return to Home Point?

Detritalgeo · May 21, 2019

Yup, if you don't hear the fan after 10-20 seconds of start-up, it's going to overheat. Use warranty if you can, otherwise replacing the fan is very easy.

Good to hear it worked out.

Kobsen · May 21, 2019

Cheers mate.. just didn't imagine a 10 euro component could kill off a drone (all computers power off if hitting max degrees?)

The drone is a very responsive "beast" - love flying it (of course only problem I have as an old pilot is "pull back on the stick" -> ascent, "push forward" -> descent

) I'll get there lol

Kobsen · May 21, 2019

Anybody knows about this?
"BTW - question: If you loose connection in sports mode - will the drone return to Home Point? "....

Air_Joe · May 22, 2019

Kobsen said:
Anybody knows about this?
"BTW - question: If you loose connection in sports mode - will the drone return to Home Point? "....

Here u go pal,
Basically if u lose your signal, u can set it as the 3 options as per the attached picture.
1) RTH
2) Hover
3) Land

I use diff option when flying differently.
For example, u wouldnt want to set it as RTH, if u are flying under a bridge.

Likely of losing signal under a bridge is high,
If it happens, bird will ‘rth’ , thats not before it ascend to the rth altitude set.
So, u risk ur bird ascending and hit the underside of the bridge and there goes your bird if it any motor got damage, and it will free fall below whatever there is..

Hope u understand. Have fun [emoji1360]