I loved my Mini 2, some lessons learned from a beginner

[twebb223]

All,

Hello from frost bitten north central Texas. I got my first drone, a Mavic Mini 2 for Christmas this year and it was awesome! On my fourth flight, on our first snow day this week, I clipped a tree branch, and sent it to the ground. On the ground it landed upside down, so the sensors thought it was still in the air and accelerated to full power. I couldn't get the thing firmly in my hand or turned off, so upon me trying to pick it up, it flew hard and fast directly into a tree nearby. Busted two of the motor arms, cracked top and bottom cases, and busted the camera gimbal (camera is ok, but the holder is broken) Not a good flight....

I wanted to share to give some advice.

1) If you crash and the blades are still turning, hold it down without hurting yourself. If I had just held it with my foot so it wouldn't have flew into the tree, I would have had some scratches and busted propeller blades, but likely nothing more. *Edit, see the post below about the CSC shut off feature. If it could have been done within seconds, then that is a better option than holding it down.
2) I am sure this could be debated, but the 2 year care offer when purchasing for $100 is worth it, unless you are a very experienced pilot. I have babied this thing, and I am not hard on things. (I have Oakleys from when I was in my 20's without a scratch on them). If I had purchased the care option (or another insurance option) I would not be looking at likely a $450 total loss.

I sent my Mini 2 in today to the repair facility via UPS. In hopes this would not be as big of a deal as I thought, I did stop by an "authorized" repair center here in North Dallas today before sending to DJI. They told me that it would be $500 to repair, and not worth it. So at this point I am hopeful that DJI has some way of keeping me in this really fun hobby without me having to start over by purchasing a new one.

I hope this post helps anyone new to flying. Good luck in this fun hobby and many safe flights!

 

[Deleted member 103366]

1) If you crash and the blades are still turning, hold it down without hurting yourself. If I had just held it with my foot so it wouldn't have flew into the tree, I would have had some scratches and busted propeller blades, but likely nothing more.

Welcome and sorry about your drone but I think the above is wrong.
Read the manual and find out how to activate the CSC motor stop under ANY circumstances.
I respectfully suggest you should have known of the existance of the CSC in the first place, whether or not you know how to implement it with a 'Mavic' is a different matter. (Personally I dislike the 'Mavic's' CSC options and think the procedure available with the Phantom 3 is better, others don't and DJI can't please everyone all the time.)
Holding the drone down could lead to all sorts of problems e.g. cuts or burnt out electronics caused by you having to jam the motors.

 

[old man mavic]

welcome to the forum ,sorry for the loss of your drone due to it being badly damaged ,hope you get back in the air soon

 

[twebb223]

Welcome and sorry about your drone but I think the above is wrong.
Read the manual and find out how to activate the CSC motor stop under ANY circumstances.
I respectfully suggest you should have known of the existance of the CSC in the first place, whether or not you know how to implement it with a 'Mavic' is a different matter. (Personally I dislike the 'Mavic's' CSC options and think the procedure available with the Phantom 3 is better, others don't and DJI can't please everyone all the time.)
Holding the drone down could lead to all sorts of problems e.g. cuts or burnt out electronics caused by you having to jam the motors.

Great points, and I will defer to you and your experience. I will look at the CSC option if I get a second shot at this, and hope anyone following the post will make note. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Deleted member 103366]

I was a bit blunt but wanted to get the point across that stopping the motors is important.
There are drones that can inflict serious cuts if their propellors catch you.
MM props haven't broken my skin but they have broken the skin of others and when they have caught me they have made contact areas tingle. Mini 2 props may be better at inflicting injury as they are apparently stiffer than MM props.
It's better to be forewarned and know how to deal with things rather than find out the hard way.
Aside from injury prevention there is the possiblilty of avoiding burn outs etc.. caused by prolonged motor jams.
Also twisting the drone to extreme angles e.g. 90 deg, may cause a shut down and I have used that when I had to do a snatch and twist hand-catch to get/keep an M2P out of the reach of a bothersome dog.

 

[ReggieDroner]

I've crashed mine twice(one was a brick wall) and it fell upside down both times. Both times the motors stopped.

 

[vindibona1]

Sorry for the incident. I'm surprised that the propellers were still going while the drone was upside down. Like you I am very careful with my gear but there will come a moment when the unexpected can happen without warning. I had an incident about 2 weeks ago where upon an attempt to take off an hover only 3ft off the ground my Mini 2 shot up into the ceiling like a rocket and crashed to the floor just as fast. Total flight time- 2 seconds! The takeoff and low hover is something I've done dozens of times. I got very lucky with the repair bill and time in the shop.

I guess one has to accept the inevitable. You ARE going to crash and it's not if but when and how bad. Unfortunately DJI only allows Care/Refresh coverage within 48 hours of activation so that leaves something like State Farm Insurance, but I found that you don't want to use it unless you have a fly-away or catastrophic crash as they cancel you after the first claim. I suppose State Farm is best for more expensive drones and for the low cost isn't a bad thing to carry it as well as Care/Refresh.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

I have seen at least one thread and I think two where a 'mavic' has ended up upside-down with the motors still active. This leads me to wonder if 'too much' of a tilt is seen as 'too little', almost as if the drone is sees a 90deg tilt as say zero and then anything within say +-20deg of that zero being "uh oh, switch off time" and anything outside those angles as 'safe, keep flying'.
If that idea isn't complete rubbish then I suspect there must also be a minimum 'dwell time' within the "uh oh" zone.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Better to learn your expensive lessons on a $450 Mini 2 than a $1700 Mavic 2 Pro! ? You'll still have the original $200 remote, $60 battery, and $25 charger, so your actual loss is only the drone cost itself of well under $200, even though you have to buy another full kit to replace it. Helps put it all into perspective.

 

[CLAYB.7]

All,

Hello from frost bitten north central Texas. I got my first drone, a Mavic Mini 2 for Christmas this year and it was awesome! On my fourth flight, on our first snow day this week, I clipped a tree branch, and sent it to the ground. On the ground it landed upside down, so the sensors thought it was still in the air and accelerated to full power. I couldn't get the thing firmly in my hand or turned off, so upon me trying to pick it up, it flew hard and fast directly into a tree nearby. Busted two of the motor arms, cracked top and bottom cases, and busted the camera gimbal (camera is ok, but the holder is broken) Not a good flight....

I wanted to share to give some advice.

1) If you crash and the blades are still turning, hold it down without hurting yourself. If I had just held it with my foot so it wouldn't have flew into the tree, I would have had some scratches and busted propeller blades, but likely nothing more. *Edit, see the post below about the CSC shut off feature. If it could have been done within seconds, then that is a better option than holding it down.
2) I am sure this could be debated, but the 2 year care offer when purchasing for $100 is worth it, unless you are a very experienced pilot. I have babied this thing, and I am not hard on things. (I have Oakleys from when I was in my 20's without a scratch on them). If I had purchased the care option (or another insurance option) I would not be looking at likely a $450 total loss.

I sent my Mini 2 in today to the repair facility via UPS. In hopes this would not be as big of a deal as I thought, I did stop by an "authorized" repair center here in North Dallas today before sending to DJI. They told me that it would be $500 to repair, and not worth it. So at this point I am hopeful that DJI has some way of keeping me in this really fun hobby without me having to start over by purchasing a new one.

I hope this post helps anyone new to flying. Good luck in this fun hobby and many safe flights!

I'm sorry Brother for what happened with your MM2 and this is the first time of me hearing about this kinda thing happening but I hope that you can get it all fixed up and be back in the air soon and also Brother I've seen on Amazon where they have repair parts for our Awesome MM2 for example they have listed a front right side and left side complete arm with motor already installed on the arm and all you have to do is take the broken one off and replace it with the new one and you just plug it in and tighten up a few screws and they were listing them for around $25.00--$27.00 and I am sure if you really look around on Amazon you can find them a little bit more cheaper than that and also Brother you can find things like the whole gimbal and camera set up for our MM2 I didn't really look around for a bunch of stuff at the time and Brother Amazon also has the complete body/chassis for our MM2 as well and a few other parts and things for it pretty reasonable priced as well and I was just wanting to let you and our other MM2 Brothers and Sisters out there that if you do have a accident and you don't have any kind of the DJI FLY AWAY or DJI REFRESH or any other kind of INSURANCE for your MM2 this could be a option for you to get your MM2 fixed and back up in the air Brother I truly hope that you get everything completely straighten out and you will be back up in the air in no time GOD BLESS YOU ALWAYS AND FOREVER BROTHER, SINCERELY CLAY B. YOUR BROTHER IN CHRIST LORD YESHUA JESUS IMMANUEL!!!

 

[howardK]

Sorry from the frost bitten Houston TX area. My first venture into the world of drones was with a skyviper. I lost or destroyed or drowned 4 of these, maybe more. My first (and second) Mavics are both M1P's that i bought used. One on Ebay and one at a pawn shop. Check both of those and you might be back up and flying for a bit less than you think.

 

[Tolly]

Welcome and sorry about your drone but I think the above is wrong.
Read the manual and find out how to activate the CSC motor stop under ANY circumstances.
I respectfully suggest you should have known of the existance of the CSC in the first place, whether or not you know how to implement it with a 'Mavic' is a different matter. (Personally I dislike the 'Mavic's' CSC options and think the procedure available with the Phantom 3 is better, others don't and DJI can't please everyone all the time.)
Holding the drone down could lead to all sorts of problems e.g. cuts or burnt out electronics caused by you having to jam the motors.

If you're going to use acronyms, please tell people what they mean, I have no idea what CSC stands for

 

[Dave Maine]

A good idea is to read the manual before flying. The CSC technique is well documented in it. These machines are too complex to safely fly without basic knowledge. Expecting a response from a poster that explains part of something that is already well documented is not a reasonable request.

 

[African wildlife]

Hi Twebb233. I would say that the best advice is to be a lot more cautious, humble, thoughtful. We've never crashed or damaged a drone - and we're not alone.

Accidents - whether with a drone in the air or with a vehicle on the road - are actually rare. Incidents, caused by human sloppiness, are all too common. Police - at least here in the UK - correctly refer to "traffic incidents", not "traffic accidents". You're American, so y'all thankfully know at least something about denial and other forms of psychological avoidance, displacement, minimisation, etc.

On one particular trip to Sudan, I had a can of Coca Cola (unopened), left over from the flight from Heathrow, London, to Khartoum. I eventually drank it at the remote village where we worked. I had several requests for the empty can, and it was soon given to the person with the best intended use. I'm British and you're American. Our cultures encourage a casual, throw-away approach to things. It isn't good. I appreciate you've said that "I loved my Mini 2", so you'll hopefully see that there's considerable room for being even more loving.

I'm a fan of SpaceX and what they're doing down at Boca Chica, Texas, with the prototype testing of Starship. And, yes, before anyone jumps in, their crashes are more than justified as a quicker learning method of pioneering rocket engineering.

 

[twebb223]

I have seen at least one thread and I think two where a 'mavic' has ended up upside-down with the motors still active. This leads me to wonder if 'too much' of a tilt is seen as 'too little', almost as if the drone is sees a 90deg tilt as say zero and then anything within say +-20deg of that zero being "uh oh, switch off time" and anything outside those angles as 'safe, keep flying'.
If that idea isn't complete rubbish then I suspect there must also be a minimum 'dwell time' within the "uh oh" zone.

I was a bit surprised that the drone didn't have a shut off when upside down, but I suppose there can only be so many safeguards in place.

 

[twebb223]

A good idea is to read the manual before flying. The CSC technique is well documented in it. These machines are too complex to safely fly without basic knowledge. Expecting a response from a poster that explains part of something that is already well documented is not a reasonable request.

Thank you for the guidance and your point is valid. For the record I did read the entire manual, I do recall the CSC technique upon reflection, but didn't recall when SHTF. My post was intended to be a reminder to others, so that a novice/beginner does not make the same mistake, and perhaps save someone further damage in the future.

 

[twebb223]

Better to learn your expensive lessons on a $450 Mini 2 than a $1700 Mavic 2 Pro! ? You'll still have the original $200 remote, $60 battery, and $25 charger, so your actual loss is only the drone cost itself of well under $200, even though you have to buy another full kit to replace it. Helps put it all into perspective.

Very good points!

 

[eaglesurfing]

Welcome to the forum and enjoy.

Sorry for your loss. My first crash was minor and only had to replace props.
From then on I payed more attention and started to buy items that would save my drone from loss.
After I ordered mine MA2, I read the manual several times and watch all of the vids I could on the drone.
But still had the one crash so I started out slow and steady.
So far so good.

 

[Deleted member 103366]

If you're going to use acronyms, please tell people what they mean, I have no idea what CSC stands for

Thank you, to quote the Mini 2 manual "combination stick command (CSC)". By the way that phrase is found twice in the manual and "CSC" is found 4 times in the manual.
In fact I am fairly sure "CSC" appears in every DJI drone manual I have read. For some reason it stuck in my mind with the first P3 (Phantom 3) manual I read, as it is fairly important I assumed it would do with every one else, presumably I was wrong.

 

[Swine]

I guess one has to accept the inevitable. You ARE going to crash and it's not if but when and how bad. Unfortunately DJI only allows Care/Refresh coverage within 48 hours of activation so that leaves something like State Farm Insurance, but I found that you don't want to use it unless you have a fly-away or catastrophic crash as they cancel you after the first claim. I suppose State Farm is best for more expensive drones and for the low cost isn't a bad thing to carry it as well as Care/Refresh.

That's not true. I was able to get coverage by submitting video verification to DJI. They have a procedure for this on their website.