Refurbished/Repaired Drone?

[jkollo]

Hi can I get your opinion on this?

Just bought a used Mavic on Craigslist.
Was really excited to get it and didn’t know what to look for when inspecting the unit.

It flies great, but on closer inspection I noticed the rear right screw is offset and appears to be glued in place?
Or is this normal?
There are also some minor scuffles in places that wouldn’t normally touch the ground.

The serial number doesn’t end in ‘R’, which I thought would meant it was refurbished.

Any ideas on if this unit was maybe crashed and repaired?
It makes a very quiet clicking sound when turned on w/o the rotors going.
Hmm also it just overheated and shut itself down as I was going through the camera calibration with Assistant.

Anything that I should be worried about?

Thanks!

 

[Dragonfly]

First the clicking noise is normal, that is the sonic sensor on the bottom of the drone transmiting the sonic signal so it can monitor the distance from ground.
On the back left leg screw, that screw is one of 3 that holds the leg in place. Looking at your photo it looks like your Mavic has had a crash at some time and has wrench the leg at that joint location and the previous owner has used superglue of sorts to strengthen that joint. If it feels strong with no movement or slop then it will be fine and you have no worries at all. It looks fine in photo. If leg is firm on spring when extended then ok. Leave as is and enjoy your new bird.

 

[jkollo]

Thanks Dragonfly and Masheen for taking a look.
The leg feels solid, at least as solid as the other leg.
Although the overheating is concerning. If I just leave it without the rotors going I get an overheated core board message about 5 minutes or so and it powers off shortly afterwards.

I don’t hear an audible fan kick in. I’ve heard the fan in the remote controller turn on, but not in the unit.
There aren’t any error messages pertaining to the fan though.
Should I expect to hear the fan turn on even if the rotors aren’t started?
I don’t suppose there’s a test for the fan somewhere in the DJI Go app?

Yikes reading the forms, it sounds like the fan is a major issue. It should kick in after a minute.
Hopefully I can still get in touch with the seller…

Thanks for the input!

 

[jkollo]

Well the seller claims he didn’t know about any crash or the fan not working; it came like that from the “previous owner”.
Other than presenting the unit as in excellent condition, the seller was reasonable and offered a full refund.
In the ended, he knocked a third off the price and I kept it.

I suspect the seller has some connection that lets him buy returned/refurbished/repaired drones.
I’ve seen him sell 3 Mavics on Craigslist now all listed as “like new”.
I guess the moral of the story is to carefully inspect anything that you buy.

On further inspection my Mavic was certainly crashed, some screws were missing, there are pry marks on the plastics and the glue that I initially noticed.
Flight logs say it was flown ~180 time since it’s manufacture in Dec 2016. Although just turning it on and off apparently generates a flight log.

The fan damage was actually fairly easy to repair. After watching teardown videos on how to take off the top plastics, I was able to slowly extract the fan.
The fan itself was undamaged and the connector was plugged in. The problem was the mesh in front of the fan was pushed in during the crash and blocked the fan from rotating.
After that no more overheating!

Odd somehow the bottom cover under the right leg motor went missing.
I’m pretty sure it was there when I originally bought the Mavic, as I would have noticed that.
I assume it’s there to prevent crap from getting into the motor.
Does anyone know where I can find a replacement?
Other than buying an entire leg, I couldn’t find it in any of the shops that sell replacement parts.
Will send Thunderdrone a message and see if he has one laying around.

Thanks for everyone’s help!
Looking forward on learning how to fly this thing!