Thoughts on hacking Mavic 2 NFZ/HEIGHT/SPEED...

zappy54 · Feb 28, 2019

its everyones choice to do or not....

MMM · Feb 28, 2019

14 h left

It is only one good idea to remove nfz and height limits. I am operator and I know what I can do and what is forbiden. It is stiupid to ask DJI for permition.
And what if DJI will not exist anymore ?

iCologne · Mar 1, 2019

A few days ago, I already said that you can not rely on Nolimitdronez. They announce things that they can not fulfill or postpone. So on the subject of Mavic 2. "Coming February 2018" stood on the side. And? now is "Comming March 2019". I knew for weeks that nothing will come in February. And nothing special will come out in March, or they'll put their brakes on April.

MMM · Mar 2, 2019

iCologne said:
A few days ago, I already said that you can not rely on Nolimitdronez. They announce things that they can not fulfill or postpone. So on the subject of Mavic 2. "Coming February 2018" stood on the side. And? now is "Comming March 2019". I knew for weeks that nothing will come in February. And nothing special will come out in March, or they'll put their brakes on April.

Unfortunately it's the truth :-( . I was waiting to the end of fabruary....

iCologne · Mar 5, 2019

... and unfortunately Nolimitdronez censored entries in the blog. Critical questions and comments will not be published.

dewster · Mar 6, 2019

I’m sure DJI has an unlock feature built in. Maybe third party software will eliminate NFZ and altitude restrictions. The only restriction my Mavic Pro (1st gen) has is common sense.

iCologne · Mar 6, 2019

dewster said:
I’m sure DJI has an unlock feature built in. Maybe third party software will eliminate NFZ and altitude restrictions. The only restriction my Mavic Pro (1st gen) has is common sense.

The height limit has not even been removed in the old Mavic! It was only a trick, by taking out of an old firmware, the part where it still went. For all newer drones, it was not possible from the beginning.

sar104 · Mar 6, 2019

iCologne said:
The height limit has not even been removed in the old Mavic! It was only a trick, by taking out of an old firmware, the part where it still went. For all newer drones, it was not possible from the beginning.

You can set the Mavic Pro maximum altitude as high as you like in the configuration parameters.

guillaume.db · Mar 6, 2019

iCologne said:
A few days ago, I already said that you can not rely on Nolimitdronez. They announce things that they can not fulfill or postpone. So on the subject of Mavic 2. "Coming February 2018" stood on the side. And? now is "Comming March 2019". I knew for weeks that nothing will come in February. And nothing special will come out in March, or they'll put their brakes on April.

This is big ****...
I'm aircraft pilot, and I live near a little airport in France in a DJI NFZ who require authorization
I made many flight in my garden (under 20m...) because airport was closed for a month and 2 weeks ago I took off from my balcony, maybe with poor GPS signal, drone went to 15m in my garden (about 8m height) and suddenly I heard "LANDING LANDING"
3 secondes after, drone land in a tree, 2 arm broken...
After sending it to DJI support they reply "pilot error, flying in NFZ, no warranty"

I asked them about this problem, reply was "if drone detect NFZ, it land, even in the water"
This is crazy...
150€ for repair (2 arms, top cover and one propeller)

(sorry for my bad english)

iCologne · Mar 6, 2019

sar104 said:
You can set the Mavic Pro maximum altitude as high as you like in the configuration parameters.

... only works with the old firmware (V01.03.0800). In the newer firmware DJI has prevented that. The trick was to remove this component from the old firmware and replace it accordingly in the newer firmware. In the firmware of the Mavic 2, the change in height> 500m has been prevented from the beginning.

sar104 · Mar 6, 2019

iCologne said:
... only works with the old firmware (V01.03.0800). In the newer firmware DJI has prevented that. The trick was to remove this component from the old firmware and replace it accordingly in the newer firmware. In the firmware of the Mavic 2, the change in height> 500m has been prevented from the beginning.

I left my Mavic Pro on 0600, but I wasn't aware that the newer firmware had disabled that parameter. Agreed on the Mavic 2 - that one was locked to 500 m from the start.

floyd · Mar 6, 2019

guillaume.db said:
(sorry for my bad english)

It's better than some of the "English" speaking folks on this forum!

MaxHam · Mar 7, 2019

guillaume.db said:
This is big ****...
I'm aircraft pilot, and I live near a little airport in France in a DJI NFZ who require authorization
I made many flight in my garden (under 20m...) because airport was closed for a month and 2 weeks ago I took off from my balcony, maybe with poor GPS signal, drone went to 15m in my garden (about 8m height) and suddenly I heard "LANDING LANDING"
3 secondes after, drone land in a tree, 2 arm broken...
After sending it to DJI support they reply "pilot error, flying in NFZ, no warranty"

I asked them about this problem, reply was "if drone detect NFZ, it land, even in the water"
This is crazy...
150€ for repair (2 arms, top cover and one propeller)

(sorry for my bad english)

This all doesn't make sense. If you are in a NFZ you can't fly. You can't even start the motors.
If the drone approaches a NFZ it doesn't land - it just stops in mid-air.
In an authorization zone the drone doesn't act differently than outside such a zone.
My guess is your drone went wild = Atti due to poor GPS signal.
Or you hit RTH without knowing that the drone lands if it is less than 20m away from you.

guillaume.db · Mar 7, 2019

MaxHam said:
This all doesn't make sense. If you are in a NFZ you can't fly. You can't even start the motors.
If the drone approaches a NFZ it doesn't land - it just stops in mid-air.
In an authorization zone the drone doesn't act differently than outside such a zone.
My guess is your drone went wild = Atti due to poor GPS signal.
Or you hit RTH without knowing that the drone lands if it is less than 20m away from you.

Here support reply :

Remark: no warranty, pilot error. motor arms 2 and 4 are damaged. the top cover has dents in it. one propeller has been damaged. no warranty Flight record: 2019.02.14 (GMT +8) 1. The GPS signal was weak, and the aircraft worked under OPTI mode after took off; 2. The aircraft switched to GPS mode until t=00:19, and the home point was recorded: 43.4494128 -1.5173745; Then it detected that it was in no-fly zone, would land in 20 s; 3. T=00:39, h=4 m, d=23.4 m, the aircraft started to land; 4. T=00:47, H=-0.8 M, D=30.6 m, the aircraft crashed with obstacles when descending. Conclusion: Accident occurred in a No Fly Zone, charged

I have received today a new drone from support (not my old drone repaired, but new serial number, firmware not updated...)

With "replay" function on DJI Go 4, I can see a warning on my screen, few seconds after takeoff, maybe 2 seconds, "You are in a geo zone, Auto landing activated"
But as I have explained to support, during takeoff, I watch the drone, not the phone screen...

MaxHam · Mar 7, 2019

guillaume.db said:
Here support reply :

Remark: no warranty, pilot error. motor arms 2 and 4 are damaged. the top cover has dents in it. one propeller has been damaged. no warranty Flight record: 2019.02.14 (GMT +8) 1. The GPS signal was weak, and the aircraft worked under OPTI mode after took off; 2. The aircraft switched to GPS mode until t=00:19, and the home point was recorded: 43.4494128 -1.5173745; Then it detected that it was in no-fly zone, would land in 20 s; 3. T=00:39, h=4 m, d=23.4 m, the aircraft started to land; 4. T=00:47, H=-0.8 M, D=30.6 m, the aircraft crashed with obstacles when descending. Conclusion: Accident occurred in a No Fly Zone, charged

I have received today a new drone from support (not my old drone repaired, but new serial number, firmware not updated...)

With "replay" function on DJI Go 4, I can see a warning on my screen, few seconds after takeoff, maybe 2 seconds, "You are in a geo zone, Auto landing activated"
But as I have explained to support, during takeoff, I watch the drone, not the phone screen...

It makes sense now. You are in an authorization zone of Biarritz airport. The drone didn't know before take-off due to poor GPS signal.
Once being airborne and having sufficient GPS coverage it learned about the restriction and forced the landing.
An unfortunate event that could have been avoided.

guillaume.db · Mar 7, 2019

MaxHam said:
It makes sense now. You are in an authorization zone of Biarritz airport. The drone didn't know before take-off due to poor GPS signal.
Once being airborne and having sufficient GPS coverage it learned about the restriction and forced the landing.
An unfortunate event that could have been avoided.

Yes, but I made all my previous flight in my garden without problem.
I think landing without checking what we have below is a bit crazy and dangerous
Also, DJI geo zone do not respect real "no flying zone" above airports, in France there is no circular area but rectangular one with increasing altitude depending on the distance

beyes · Mar 25, 2019

iCologne said:
... only works with the old firmware (V01.03.0800). In the newer firmware DJI has prevented that. The trick was to remove this component from the old firmware and replace it accordingly in the newer firmware. In the firmware of the Mavic 2, the change in height> 500m has been prevented from the beginning.

Hi!
You are wrong! 1.4.300 firmware is fully moddable. You can adjust all of the paramters. I'm using my platinum without any limits. Don't need to copy components from older firmware.

amstar · Mar 25, 2019

That is true for Mavic 1. Mavic 2 is not moddable except 3-4 parameters because the terminology of parameters is totally different, coding is different, gps and internal layouts are different etc.

amstar · Mar 25, 2019

M2 infant has 2 gps modules inside.

spectrejaeger · May 16, 2022

jcase said:
While others are "Working on it" aka blowing smoke making false claims, let me drop some goods on your heads.

Mavic 2 RC firmware via adb pull https://cdn.nolimitdronez.com/dumps/m2rc_dump.zip
Mavic 2 AC firmware, via adb pull http://cdn.nolimitdronez.com/dumps/mavic2_dump.zip

NLD is providing hosting for me, because I would rather not blow up my dropbox.

AC has two android systems running, 0801 which is the Allwinner SOC, and 0901 which is the leadcore SOC. The LC soc is mostly worthless, it acts as the modem control interface. 0801 is when you can do things like disable NFZ etc.

How to emulate and analyze RC firmware?