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I Found A Mavic Mini looks almost brand New nothing on the SD card

Keizzer

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Found a Mavic Mini in North London near Trent Park, I knocked and asked all the neighbours 90% of which didn't even know what it was.

I know how expensive these things are and I'm desperately trying to find the owner.

Please contact me via the forums and I'd gladly meetup and return the Mavic upon you confirming the serial number and making sure it matches the one I have here.
 
Welcome to the forum. Very nice of you to reach out. Maybe sending an email with to DJI with the serial number to see if they have the registration? If they don't then congrats on your new drone. :)
 
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if you are so desperate you may charge the battery with any phone charger with micro usb cable and you can go in the area where you found it, power it on and wait
if the owner will activate find my drone service he will see your location...
asap
if you see read this and you are within a hour from when you found it and it can be powered on just go there without charging it
or if you have someone that lives in the area you can leave it there powered on but keep it outside to have gps signal
if you go there dont stay in the car, the gps signal is weak
 
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Found a Mavic Mini in North London near Trent Park, [...] I'm desperately trying to find the owner.
When you say "nothing on the SD card", is it truly blank? Or is there just nothing in the DCIM folder?

If there is a DCIM folder (even empty), then there should also be a hidden MISC folder. These folders are created automatically on any brand new card, or a recently formatted card, whenever the Mini is powered up. Recorded photos and videos go into the DCIM folder, and log files go under the MISC folder.

In the Windows File Explorer menu, click View, then check the boxes to show "File name extensions" and "Hidden items". Then restart File Explorer.

On the SD card you now should see the DCIM folder and a pale (no longer hidden) MISC folder. Open that folder down to MISC/LOG/flylog and you'll find a 512MB file named "fc_log.log"

If the Mini has ever been powered up and flown, there will a ton of information logged in that file. You need a program called DatCon (datfile.net/DatCon/downloads.html) in order to decrypt and view the log file.

[Edit] I forgot to mention one important detail. You need to change the file extension on fc_log.log to fc_log.DAT in order to open it with DatCon.

On my slow computer, DatCon takes a looong time to chew through the file. Be patient. Eventually DatCon creates a CSV spreadsheet file which can be opened in Excel, again taking a very long time. It's a HUGE file, in my case going across to column-LL and down 174,944 rows!

The third and fourth column contain GPS coordinates, IMU_ATTI(0):Longitude & IMU_ATTI(0):Latitude, tracking the Mini's flight path. Scroll all the way across to (again in my case) columns BV & BW, which are again GPS:Long and GPS:Lat, and two more columns to the right to column BZ which is GPS:dateTimeStamp.

If you are clever at using Excel, you can strip out just the Lat/Long and dateTime columns, then sort by unique dates and start times. Maybe you will only find multiple flights starting every time from the same flying park location. But hopefully there will also be unique log entries from the Mini being started up long enough to record the GPS location of the owner's home.

It's worth a try unless of course, as you say, the SD card truly is empty. ?
 
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I wondered about posting that but thought it a bit complicated for someone who found a drone.
Since you have suggested it.
Keizzer even if the card appears empty and you are willing to try Zbip57's suggestion, it might be worth running recovery software such as Zar X on the card just to see if there is anything left behind.
 
 
if you are so desperate you may charge the battery with any phone charger with micro usb cable and you can go in the area where you found it, power it on and wait
if the owner will activate find my drone service he will see your location...
asap
if you see read this and you are within a hour from when you found it and it can be powered on just go there without charging it
or if you have someone that lives in the area you can leave it there powered on but keep it outside to have gps signal
if you go there dont stay in the car, the gps signal is weak
I really doubt the owner would activate the find function at this point in the game. He would have to literally think someone found it and charged it and went to the trouble to perform the steps you describe. The best bet is to contact DJI and give them the serial number and have them contact the owner via email.
 
Could have blown there from hundreds of miles away, like a dandelion seed with the wind.
Seriously though, well done for taking time to try and return the drone.
Yes, let DJI know the serial #, they MIGHT assist.
Also let the CAA drone section people know, it might be registered.
Lastly the local police station might be worth notifying.
 
Maybe not a bad idea to put a small sticker with a return to phone number or whatever before flying. Might be quicker than waiting on DJI or whatever.
 
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I know it's too late for this drone owner, but here is a posting I made last October 2021. It's just a reminder that putting some personal identification information on your drone is not such a bad idea. There are numerous postings of folks who have lost a drone in a tree, in a park, that they cannot stay all day/night monitoring the scene to see if their drone falls out of the tree.

Put Your Contact Information on Your Drone...

I do not want to start the discussion again of the "smartness" of registering a non-required drone (less than 250 grams) with the FAA. I've impressed some "authority personnel" with having my this paperwork with me, especially when they say it's the "policy" that drones are not allowed. An FAA authorization trumps "policy" every time…

Also consider putting a text file with contact information on your MicroSD card.

Photo of some of the paperwork I carry when I'm droning… Paperwork issued by the FAA sure takes the "wind out of the sails" of these "authority personnel" who are just Bags of Wind…

So, Put your Name on It… As my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Spragings would say, "If you did not put your name on your homework, then 'You didn't do it'."…

Paperwork.jpg
 
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