Stress crack on my MA2 : should I worry about it ?

[mattitech07]

Hi, today I noticed my Mavic air 2 has a stress crack below one arm. It goes from the plastic panel under the arm to the hinge. I never crashed this drone and it never had hard landings, it is one year old with around 40hrs of flight(400 flights). The only thing that may have caused this is that in the past I used to insert the battery while the drone was on a table.Can the wind or other things cause this? Should I worry about this? What happens if i continue to fly with this crack? What should I do?

P.S : my drone does not have dji care refresh , can I still activate it with this stress crack ? It is one year old so it should still be under warranty.

 

[MA2 317]

Here are some links with the same problem.

Search results for query: Mavic Air 2 crack

You're suspicions about the battery insertion on a flat service has been brought up before.

.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

If the arm is loose or moves up and down than No .
If the arms is tight and has no vertical movement you should be ok, , but keep checking it and look to the other side also.

My thinking is the arm might have caused that. so check it.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Air 2/S in the Rain. Land on the Water .

 

[mattitech07]

If the arm is loose or moves up and down than No .
If the arms is tight and has no vertical movement you should be ok, , but keep checking it and look to the other side also.

My thinking is the arm might have caused that. so check it.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Air 2/S in the Rain. Land on the Water .

Thank you for your reply. I tried to move up and down the two front arms and both feel solid in place. Then i tried folding them and they feel identical. The only thing I have noticed is that the arm where the crack is does a slight click when i close it. They both click when they open but the uneffected arm does not click when closed. Does that mean the crack affected the hinge ?

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Thank you for your reply. I tried to move up and down the two front arms and both feel solid in place. Then i tried folding them and they feel identical. The only thing I have noticed is that the arm where the crack is does a slight click when i close it. They both click when they open but the uneffected arm does not click when closed. Does that mean the crack affected the hinge ?

As long as you can close comfortably without distortion you should be ok , did you keep it in a case ?

 

[mattitech07]

As long as you can close comfortably without distortion you should be ok , did you keep it in a case ?

I keep it on the shelf when it is at home and when I take it with me I keep it in the dji combo bag.
Most of the time it is unfolded on the shelf.

 

[Trippp]

Obviously the crack is not meant to be there. If you are willing, you could take off the bottom plate and try and see the full length of the crack and determine if there's nothing from preventing you from gluing it shut, There's no point in keeping the crack open and possibly becoming worse if you did happen to hit something or land hard on a future flight. From what I see, I would use gorilla glue on it. Make sure the seam closes with pressure applied, if so, then glue it. Gorilla glue cures very quickly, so you won't have to hold it together very long, only a matter of 15-20 second or so. Don't get it on your fingers or you're going to be glued to the drone! T

 

[1TenaciousG]

These cracks can, also, be caused by starting your drone with the propellers still folded. There's a video, somewhere, showing the Air 2, starting with props folded, in slow motion, but, I don't have the time to find it right now. Trust me, it's violent. Here's a Pro doing the same. As you can see, it puts a ton of stress on the drone, and it's arms.

 

[spamgnome]

If you can find where the crack starts, and if you have access, consider taking a tiny drill bit and drilling a holy at the start of the crack. That will stop it from cracking any more. Again, make sure it's a teeny tiny drill, and that there's nothing behind the crack that might get damaged by your drill bit. THEN glue it.

 

[Forensics_Pilot]

If you can find where the crack starts, and if you have access, consider taking a tiny drill bit and drilling a holy at the start of the crack. That will stop it from cracking any more. Again, make sure it's a teeny tiny drill, and that there's nothing behind the crack that might get damaged by your drill bit. THEN glue it.

The method outlined by spamgnome is the corrective action for metallic structural components and should work in your situation. BTW, the reason for drilling the small hole at the crack front is to reduce the stress concentration factor which in turn will give the structure a longer fatigue (cyclic) life than leaving it as-is with a relatively sharp crack front. In place of a drill, you may want to consider a tapered screw starter for better control on the positioning of the initial hole location. Practice on some other plastic scrap before you attempt the actual repair. Good luck!

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

This was a fairly common complaint when the Air 2 first came out. It seems a lot of the earlier models used an inferior plastic or had QC issues. I have a wrap on mine, it had very faint surface cracks starting so hopefully that mitigates them from spreading. The arms are all still firmly set where they're supposed to be so that's a good thing.

 

[hiflyer201]

These cracks can, also, be caused by starting your drone with the propellers still folded.

I think that's just wrong and I've seen the video's . You can prove to yourself how non violent the start is by holding your drone in your hand with the props folded and starting it. You just need the controller and your drone and you can do it in your living room. (Set the controller on a table) Believe me it is not violent..It's not even noisy.
I think the cracks are caused by battery insertion, by not holding the drone in your hand when pushing on or pushing off the battery, or by unfolding/folding the legs. They have a pretty long arm. It would only take once and it would be easy to exert too much force in the wrong direction.
Don't be a dummy like me. Remove the gimbal cover before doing this.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

I think that's just wrong and I've seen the video's . You can prove to yourself how non violent the start is by holding your drone in your hand with the props folded and starting it. You just need the controller and your drone and you can do it in your living room. (Set the controller on a table) Believe me it is not violent..It's not even noisy.
I think the cracks are caused by battery insertion, by not holding the drone in your hand when pushing on or pushing off the battery, or by unfolding/folding the legs. They have a pretty long arm. It would only take once and it would be easy to exert too much force in the wrong direction.
Don't be a dummy like me. Remove the gimbal cover before doing this.

I routinely put the battery in while holding the aircraft. Still got the stress cracks. I think it's just a bad batch of brittle plastic. Later ones seemed to not have the issue as much although it seems a luck of the draw. It would be interesting to compare serial numbers/build date on ones that have the cracks versus the ones that don't.

 

[hiflyer201]

It would be interesting to compare serial numbers/build date on ones that have the cracks versus the ones that don't.

yeah...good idea. Mine is listed on two lines under the battery. On Airdata it's one long set of numbers.

3N3BH5600201RS

 

[hiflyer201]

Sorry for two posts.

3N3BH5600201RS manufacture May 6 2020.

 

[mattitech07]

This was a fairly common complaint when the Air 2 first came out. It seems a lot of the earlier models used an inferior plastic or had QC issues. I have a wrap on mine, it had very faint surface cracks starting so hopefully that mitigates them from spreading. The arms are all still firmly set where they're supposed to be so that's a good thing.

How can I find out when my drone was manufactured ?

 

[Phantomrain.org]

The folded props dont have anything to do with those stress cracks , the landing gear on the other hand may cause a bit of vibration , but these cracks have been happening to drones since the Phantom 2 , 3 , 4 and since I can find no pattern to this , its random and may be something with the mold , It would be interesting to see how many drones are tossed on the Ramp at DJI do to stress cracks in the Frame cooling from the mold.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Air 2 /S in the Rain. Land on the Water .

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

How can I find out when my drone was manufactured ?

GOOGLE DJI serial decoder and put in the number from underneath the battery (both lines as 1 number)

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Mine was built April 10, 2020