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Platinum ocean crash.

I like the one where you crash into the trike better... mavicpilots.com ftw
 
NEVER use swollen batteries! It’s very dangerous to use them! If your batteries are puffing or swollen replace them immediately!
That depends on extent of swelling and why. All lipo batteries will tend to swell a bit but most encasings won't show it. The DJI packs are pretty tight though so even moderate swelling will show.

If swelling occurs after deep discharge/recharge, indeed that's a problem. But if just heat and normal usage, probably not an issue as far as safety of the battery itself, though dislodging in flight could be an issue.
 
Now it's over a year later, February 2, 2020. I couple of weeks ago I decided to try the mavic again. I powered it up, but it still wouldn't connect to the controller. Today I thought, why not try connecting via wifi using only my phone. So I set the switch to wifi, powered up the mavic, and looked for a wifi connection on my phone. It was there!!!! So I put in the password and I connected. I started DJI go 4 and I had video and telemetry! Yea!!! The video was going in and out of focus, and the gimble wasn't steady, but that's to be expected given what happened to the drone. I decided to try the motors and so I tried taking off, with the propellers off, of course. Most of the motors spin up but one didn't, and I got a message, "motor obstructed". So anyway, it's a start and I can try to fix it myself. Got nothing to lose.

Feb 5 I spun up the propellers for 30 seconds. Motors didn't get hot. But gimbal is getting very hot. Maybe need to change gimbal ribbon cable.
 
Feb 5 I spun up the propellers for 30 seconds. Motors didn't get hot. But gimbal is getting very hot. Maybe need to change gimbal ribbon cable.
You'll need a hell of a lot more than a gimbal ribbon cable. Open it up and post pictures of the board. Can it take photos? Snap a picture see if it saves to the sd card.
 
Platinum crash ocean.


On Dec 30th, 2018, I was flying my Mavic Pro Platinum in the vicinity of Catbalogan harbor, Samar Philippines. I flew 15 minutes with no problems.6 minutes of that was in tripod mode, because I was flying around people and boats. I noticed the battery was 30%, so I decided to come back
and land. I pressed Return To Home. The Mavic ascended to it's return to home altitude of 260 feet. After that, the remote control disconnected from the drone. I never saw the drone start to come back to me. I moved around hoping to reestablish connection, but it never reconnected. So I gave my wife the remote control, and tablet, and started walking over to the pier where I knew it had been when I lost connection. I asked people if they had seen my drone crash, but no one had. I started walking back to my wife, assuming I would never find it. Then a guy came up to me and pointed to around 15 kids out in the water, and said they were looking for my drone. So I walked to the spot on the pier, as close to them
as I could get. Where they were looking the water was muddy and shallow, around 3 feet deep. After 5 to 10 minutes, one of them found the Mavic and held it up. I signaled to them to bring it to me. When it got close, I could see the battery was missing. I gave the boy who found it 3,000 pesos,
around $60, and the guys who carried it over to me 1,000 pesos. They were very happy! So I carried it back to where my wife and our boat was. On the way I bought 2 liters of drinking water. When I got to my wife, I poured the drinking water on the Mavic hoping to rinse off the salt water.
I noticed one of the motors wouldn't turn, and the gimble wouldn't move left to right(yaw). There was a quarter inch by half inch piece of one propeller broken, but still attached to the rest of the propeller. I saw no other damage. So I took the boat back to my wifes house on Darem Island. There, there is no Internet.
I now go back to September. Originally, I bought a Mavic pro in June 2017. I lost it by pilot error in Dec 2017. I bought a Platinum in Jan 2018. So I had one new Platinum battery and two old Mavic Pro batteries, one of which was the original one that came with my Mavic pro. This was
the battery I was flying with when the Platinum crashed. In September this year, I noticed my Mavic pro batteries wad swollen up on their underside where they attached to the drone. One was so swollen I had to use extra pressure to attach it to the Platinum. But you couldn't pull them off the Platinum without pushing the battery release buttons down. In October I went on a trip to Puerto Galera, Philippines, an
excellent place to fly a drone. I took all three batteries, but I never used the one that was swollen the most. I had about 10 flight with the slightly swollen battery without incident. So when I went to Samar in December I only took the Platinum battery, and the slightly swollen
Original Mavic Pro battery. At my wifes house I made 3 or 4 flights with the swollen battery and had no problems. So I took everything to Catbalogan because they have internet there, and I wanted to get Google Map showing up on my app. I fly with an app I wrote myself
in B4A, not DJI Go 4. After getting the map working at a restaurant with wifi, I decided to fly around the harbor. My swollen battery was already on so I decided to fly with it instead of using my Platinum battery, which was fully charged. The swollen battery was clearly not attached to the drone as tightly as a good battery would of been. So I flew around the harbor. After a while I started to fly in close proximity
to people and boats, so I switched to tripod mode to avoid hitting someone/something. I was in tripod mode around 6 minutes. I recovered the sdcard and all of the video plays. So what I think happened, was the Mavic/battery got hot from reduced air flow, and swelled more and detached from the
Platinum 260 feet in the air.
The day after I got my crashed drone back to my wifes house I filled a plastic container full of drinking water and submerged the Mavic in it for thirty minutes. Then I put it in a Tupperware container with rice for 3 days. On the fourth day I took it out and tried to power up. The platinum turned on, all the motors moved, the gimble moved, although not as much as it usually does, and all the lights came on and
it made the DJI sound. But the remote never connected to the drone, even after several minutes. So I put it away and I will try again later.
Conclusion: So I know everyone is thinking I shouldn't have tried to fly with the swollen battery. Was I stupid? Maybe. I certainly would never try it again. But I took a risk and I lost. In my opinion these original Mavic batteries have a design defect, but all DJI will do is tell you not to use them. They won't replace them, even though they crap out in 18 months.
I'll probably buy another drone, a Mavic 2 or 3, but not right away. I found several good Youtube videos about what to do if you crash in the ocean or get sand in the motors. Here are the links:



I also just posted another thing in the forum about "Repair defective mavic videos" but I can't find the exact link.

Here's the last 45 seconds before the crash. This is the repaired file.


Here's a picture of where it crashed, the red ball.View attachment 58775

Steve

Today I took it out to see if it would fly. I put a SD card in and went to the park. It flew ok but the gimbal and camera are very bad. It would probably require a whole new gimbal/camera assembly, which costs around 300 dollars.

I uploaded the video to you tube. It's http:youtu.be/EezP1psZS2U. I guess Bob Dole has some egg on his face. He said it would never fly again! BTW. I hate this mavic pilots forum. Very hard to edit your posts.
 
i never said it wouldn't fly, girlfriend.
i said you'll need a lot more than a ribbon cable and bad things have happened inside that mavic which is why it won't work with your controller.
look on the bright side... it is probably better this way for you as you'll possibly crash into less children and trikes.
 
man dont bother. the salt water has done horrible things inside that mavic. if i were you i'd sell it as non functioning for parts.
i've been to that area where it took a plunge. right from that spot, i remember getting into a boat headed for a tiny island. the guy driving the boat was so wasted on Tubâ i thought he was going to fall off in the middle of the ocean (where he got even more drunk).

got any video of that area?
Yes I have tons of footage. I'll try to put some up.
 
Hey since you fly near or above water check out drone-retriever. com
May help for next time.
 
Today I took it out to see if it would fly. I put a SD card in and went to the park. It flew ok but the gimbal and camera are very bad. It would probably require a whole new gimbal/camera assembly, which costs around 300 dollars.

I uploaded the video to you tube. It's http:youtu.be/EezP1psZS2U. I guess Bob Dole has some egg on his face. He said it would never fly again! BTW. I hate this mavic pilots forum. Very hard to edit your posts.
No problem here editing posts. Search here is quite good, especially compared to DJI forum that has a horrible search. No way to narrow a search to a specific product or products.
But I digress
 
No problem here editing posts.

Only for a short time now (60 minutes ?) and after that no more editing is available.
Good for typos, and to be sure posters can't / don't change the aspects of a post to suit themselves later (apparently).

 
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We'll i finally changed the gimbal ribbon cable. It was a *****, and I didn't do it perfectly, but the gimbal was moving freely and all the connectors we're connected. So I put the battery in and powered up. The gimbal moved a little in yaw, but I didn't notice it move at all in pitch. Certainly not anywhere near a normal powerup gimbal movement. So I powered it off. Then I powered it up again. It did the same thing, but then a big puff of white smoke came out of the gimbal. So I guess the gimbal is bad. At least I didn't spend too much money on it.
 
I took the gimbal camera off since it's not working. Then I flew it for 5 minutes. All the motors were hot but I assume this is normal. Today I tried binding the controller again, and this time it connected! The rear light is solid red which indicates a critical error. I might try to fly it with my Sony X3000 taped to it just to see what it looks like. At least I'm making some progress.
 
I found out that the critical error was both forward vision sensors aren't working. I know I plugged both connectors in. Does anyone know if not having a camera/gimbal attached would keep the vision sensors from working?
 
Well, I bought a new camera /gimbal from lazada for $110. I installed it. Turned the platinum on, the gimbal moved but not as it should, and didn't end up looking forward. Connected to controller and app. I had video but the gimbal wasn't working correctly and had gimbal motor overload message. I contacted the manufacturer and sent them a video of the gimbal. They said it looked like it was overloaded, and told me to try reseting the ribbon cable. I did that, and it didn't help. I also did a firmware update and that didn't help. So I sent the gimbal back for a refund. I don't know for sure, but there's obviously a good chance the drone is the problem. I might try another gimbal later, but not right now. The Chinese manufacture was helpful but wouldn't give me their name.
 
Platinum crash ocean.


On Dec 30th, 2018, I was flying my Mavic Pro Platinum in the vicinity of Catbalogan harbor, Samar Philippines. I flew 15 minutes with no problems.6 minutes of that was in tripod mode, because I was flying around people and boats. I noticed the battery was 30%, so I decided to come back
and land. I pressed Return To Home. The Mavic ascended to it's return to home altitude of 260 feet. After that, the remote control disconnected from the drone. I never saw the drone start to come back to me. I moved around hoping to reestablish connection, but it never reconnected. So I gave my wife the remote control, and tablet, and started walking over to the pier where I knew it had been when I lost connection. I asked people if they had seen my drone crash, but no one had. I started walking back to my wife, assuming I would never find it. Then a guy came up to me and pointed to around 15 kids out in the water, and said they were looking for my drone. So I walked to the spot on the pier, as close to them
as I could get. Where they were looking the water was muddy and shallow, around 3 feet deep. After 5 to 10 minutes, one of them found the Mavic and held it up. I signaled to them to bring it to me. When it got close, I could see the battery was missing. I gave the boy who found it 3,000 pesos,
around $60, and the guys who carried it over to me 1,000 pesos. They were very happy! So I carried it back to where my wife and our boat was. On the way I bought 2 liters of drinking water. When I got to my wife, I poured the drinking water on the Mavic hoping to rinse off the salt water.
I noticed one of the motors wouldn't turn, and the gimble wouldn't move left to right(yaw). There was a quarter inch by half inch piece of one propeller broken, but still attached to the rest of the propeller. I saw no other damage. So I took the boat back to my wifes house on Darem Island. There, there is no Internet.
I now go back to September. Originally, I bought a Mavic pro in June 2017. I lost it by pilot error in Dec 2017. I bought a Platinum in Jan 2018. So I had one new Platinum battery and two old Mavic Pro batteries, one of which was the original one that came with my Mavic pro. This was
the battery I was flying with when the Platinum crashed. In September this year, I noticed my Mavic pro batteries wad swollen up on their underside where they attached to the drone. One was so swollen I had to use extra pressure to attach it to the Platinum. But you couldn't pull them off the Platinum without pushing the battery release buttons down. In October I went on a trip to Puerto Galera, Philippines, an
excellent place to fly a drone. I took all three batteries, but I never used the one that was swollen the most. I had about 10 flight with the slightly swollen battery without incident. So when I went to Samar in December I only took the Platinum battery, and the slightly swollen
Original Mavic Pro battery. At my wifes house I made 3 or 4 flights with the swollen battery and had no problems. So I took everything to Catbalogan because they have internet there, and I wanted to get Google Map showing up on my app. I fly with an app I wrote myself
in B4A, not DJI Go 4. After getting the map working at a restaurant with wifi, I decided to fly around the harbor. My swollen battery was already on so I decided to fly with it instead of using my Platinum battery, which was fully charged. The swollen battery was clearly not attached to the drone as tightly as a good battery would of been. So I flew around the harbor. After a while I started to fly in close proximity
to people and boats, so I switched to tripod mode to avoid hitting someone/something. I was in tripod mode around 6 minutes. I recovered the sdcard and all of the video plays. So what I think happened, was the Mavic/battery got hot from reduced air flow, and swelled more and detached from the
Platinum 260 feet in the air.
The day after I got my crashed drone back to my wifes house I filled a plastic container full of drinking water and submerged the Mavic in it for thirty minutes. Then I put it in a Tupperware container with rice for 3 days. On the fourth day I took it out and tried to power up. The platinum turned on, all the motors moved, the gimble moved, although not as much as it usually does, and all the lights came on and
it made the DJI sound. But the remote never connected to the drone, even after several minutes. So I put it away and I will try again later.
Conclusion: So I know everyone is thinking I shouldn't have tried to fly with the swollen battery. Was I stupid? Maybe. I certainly would never try it again. But I took a risk and I lost. In my opinion these original Mavic batteries have a design defect, but all DJI will do is tell you not to use them. They won't replace them, even though they crap out in 18 months.
I'll probably buy another drone, a Mavic 2 or 3, but not right away. I found several good Youtube videos about what to do if you crash in the ocean or get sand in the motors. Here are the links:



I also just posted another thing in the forum about "Repair defective mavic videos" but I can't find the exact link.

Here's the last 45 seconds before the crash. This is the repaired file.


Here's a picture of where it crashed, the red ball.View attachment 58775

Steve
My two DJI Platinum Pro batteries were too swollen to use. They sat for a year or so. Last week I checked them out and they were no longer swollen. I charged them up and used both for at least a 25 minute flight for each one. There was no problem. It seems odd. They were alarmingly swollen. Fitting overly tight in the drone. Thank you for sharing.
Also there was a guy on youtube claiming that DJI replaced his swollen batteries. I suppose it could have happened. I had a good experience from customer service when I completely lost a Mini 2. I totally visualize what went down your platinum. Sometimes it feels right to take a chance.
 
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