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Mini 3 Pro RC dead... Suggestions for revival appreciated.

JimSteadman

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Yesterday I flew my m3p to take some photos of a construction site. Both the drone battery and the RC were fully charged when I started. I doubt that I flew more than about 10 -15 min. Photos were very nice, all done with 5 shots HDR - and yes, there is a bit of vignette, which needs to be fixed in a software update by DJI, but was able to be removed in post processing.

Later a neighbor stopped over and was asking some questions about the drone, so I got it out and took off to show them how it works. I had taken off from the side of the street in front of my house which has a forest on one side and an open lot on the other. After flying around a bit and demonstrating how it works and what you can do, I hit the RTH button to demonstrate that feature. What I got was a message that the drone was landing, which was NOT where I wanted to land. I aborted that and brought it back - wanting to avoid the trees on the other side of the street. I brought it down manually and intended to land where I had taken off. The drone came down over the open lot and I could not then navigate it back to the street. So it landed in the grass.

I shut both the drone and the controller off and took them in the house.

Later I charged the battery in the drone - all went well.

Once the battery in the drone was charged, I hooked up the controller - which was flat out dead. It should not have been dead from the little bit of flying I did. But I cannot turn it on at all. I hooked it up to be charged and nothing happened - no lights came on, no indication that it was being charged. I seems to have turned into a brick.

Has this happened to others? If so, what do I need to wake it up?
 
Sorry to hear.
Most likely a faulty device.

The RC astonishingly needs way less power than my old SC, so 7 - 8 full flights (~ 23 mins) are possible for me.
 
Regarding the controller, if it is neither the cable nor your charger at fault are you connecting the cable to the correct USB port? If so then I fear you are facing a return to the seller. If so be sure to sever/un-do all FLYaway insurance bindings ( if there are any) and remove ALL memory cards that you have inserted.

Regarding the unepected landing attempt, have a look at page 16 of the manual
and read ALL if the "Straight Line RTH" section.
Does that explain the unexpected landing atempt?
 
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Regarding the controller, if it is neither the cable nor your charger at fault are you connecting the cable to the correct USB port? If so then I fear you are facing a return to the seller. If so be sure to sever/un-do all FLYaway insurance bindings ( if there are any) and remove ALL memory cards that you have inserted.

Regarding the unepected landing attempt, have a look at page 16 of the manual
and read ALL if the "Straight Line RTH" section.
Does that explain the unexpected landing atempt?
As far as the cables and ports are concerned - I have had the m3p for a month or more and for most of that time I was flying only on the one battery supplied,i,e flying and charging daily. Flymore combo arrived a week or so ago. All batteries and the RC have used the same outlet with the same cables which have always worked before although I also tried another compatible cable with the same outcome - no green lights...

As to the RTH landing - the drone was more than 50m from the home point. This is the second time in a week that the drone initiated landing instead of returning to home and then initiating landing. The first attempt was when the drone was out over the lake, and in the second it was flying over the neigborhood, but as there were large overhanging trees directly above the RTH site, I wanted to cancel the RTH before it hit the trees in the descent. I did cancel it and brought it down over the vacant lot, but when it was about 2m high, wanted to fly it back to the side of the street and land on the pavement, but was unable to navigate once it was at that altitude and it was determined to land and did so in the grass.

Sounds like I will need to deal with DJI on a warranty matter.
 
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I have had the m3p for a month or more an
And in that month how many times have you charged the controller?
Even if several times it in not unheard of for people to forget which port to use, hence my asking if your failed attempt to charge the controller used the correct port.

I am not saying that your controller is not dead, in fact it may well BE DEAD, I am merely asking if you can assure yourself that you used the correct port to attempt to charge it.


With regards to the landing problem and bearing in mind " as there were large overhanging trees directly above the RTH site, I....".
Are you certain that the home point was set to the take off point, if you can identify the flight/s in the flight log section of the app, replay it/them and see if the home point was set where you think it was.... or post the logs here or upload them to the likes of DJI Flight Log Viewer | Phantom Help and then paste a copy of the resulting URL/s here.

When flying from home my drone, whilst it is on the ground and because of such trees, can not capture enough satellites to set a homepoint as it takes off. I have to get it up into the air and often 10's of metres away from the take off point before it can set a home point and, when it does so, it sets the home point to where it is at that moment in time, it would not surprise me if you were in the same boat.
 
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I wonder if it was somehow left turned on and discharged so much that the charging system can't kick it off from zero.
I do recall having problems with phantom 3 controller not charging and it was possible top open it up, reseat connections to internal battery and miraculously it started to charge again.
In the meantime I sourced a used one on ebay so (still) have two.:rolleyes:
 

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