Drone repair options?

[anomad]

I bought a drone a month or two ago. Totally overestimated my "skills" and crashed into a very tall Tulip Poplar behind the house. Everything still works, but one arm is broken. Not afraid of dinky electrical repairs, but weighing sending this out for repair or trying to fix it myself.

DJI Mavic 3 I think? It is the lightweight little guy. Arm is snapped and wires are severed.

Fix it myself? Join a drone reddit group? (won't be happening) Send it off to a repair joint? I'm leaning towards sending it off to pros to fix. Would love to hear what other tractor people have to say about little flying camera toys.

 

[caver]

What's the status on the DJI drones? I heard they may be banned in the US.

 

[Sprinkler Fitter]

What's the status on the DJI drones? I heard they may be banned in the US.

Why?

 

[anomad]

One of my friends is a real drone geek. Got in early. He hasn't mentioned any kind of ban. I guess I could ask him?

 

[etpm]

I bought a drone a month or two ago. Totally overestimated my "skills" and crashed into a very tall Tulip Poplar behind the house. Everything still works, but one arm is broken. Not afraid of dinky electrical repairs, but weighing sending this out for repair or trying to fix it myself.

DJI Mavic 3 I think? It is the lightweight little guy. Arm is snapped and wires are severed.

Fix it myself? Join a drone reddit group? (won't be happening) Send it off to a repair joint? I'm leaning towards sending it off to pros to fix. Would love to hear what other tractor people have to say about little flying camera toys.

ABS is a common plastic used in all sorts of stuff and I wouldn't be surprised if your drone arm is made from ABS. You can test this by seeing if acetone will dissolve the arm. Or if you have some ABS pipe cement see if it will stick. If it does then use a piece of ABS pipe that you saw from the pipe to make repair pieces. I have done this more than once, using a piece of ABS pipe to repair or reinforce another item made from ABS. If it is not ABS then you can buy epoxies for plastic at any good hardware store and use that for the repair.
Eric

 

[t1kilo]

I had a Yuneec drone that I did the same thing to. Yuneec lets you purchase an extended warranty that covers accidental damage. I was able to purchase this after my “accident”. DJI may offer something similar. It’s definitely worth a call to them.

 

[anomad]

I had a Yuneec drone that I did the same thing to. Yuneec lets you purchase an extended warranty that covers accidental damage. I was able to purchase this after my “accident”. DJI may offer something similar. It’s definitely worth a call to them.

Thanks. I'm not the only one! I'll look into warranty stuffs. But it doesn't look like repair or self repair is very expensive. Maybe 100 bucks or so. Just looking for a trusted source. dronenerds.com is looking ok from searches.

 

[caver]

Why?

The Complete DJI Ban Guide [Updated for 2025]

Is DJI banned in the U.S.? No, but it will be if DJI isn't formally audited by the end of 2025—here's what you need to know.

uavcoach.com

 

[LittleBill21]

I would ship it back to dji, I don't think there are spare parts for these thing.

 

[Gem99ultra]

I bought a drone a month or two ago. Totally overestimated my "skills" and crashed into a very tall Tulip Poplar behind the house. Everything still works, but one arm is broken. Not afraid of dinky electrical repairs, but weighing sending this out for repair or trying to fix it myself.

DJI Mavic 3 I think? It is the lightweight little guy. Arm is snapped and wires are severed.

Fix it myself? Join a drone reddit group? (won't be happening) Send it off to a repair joint? I'm leaning towards sending it off to pros to fix. Would love to hear what other tractor people have to say about little flying camera toys.

DJI does have authorized repair shops around. We had a similar accident with ours, ripping off the camera. DJ had us simply box it up and mail it to tthier repair center. They comletely repaired all damages and returned it with all new blades, camera, etc.. Total cost was less than $100. Money well spent in my opinion.
Give DJ a call and get the info as to which location you need to send it to. They'll put you on the closest one.

 

[anomad]

Following up on my older thread here. I ended up shipping the crashed drone back to DJI. Which was very easy. They charged me 100 bucks (my stupid tax) and sent me a brand new model. Updated from the one I sent them. I didn't have any kind of special coverage or anything, but I might consider it now. Took about a week. Better service than I could have expected.

 

[TMGT]

Thats pretty good, I crashed my Bwine F7 a while back and just got around to fixing it. 2 new motor/arm assemblies, "landing gear", new props and its good to go.

Been using it to log my current shop build, just wish I had fixed it earlier so I could have gotten aerial photos before clearing.

Sent from my SM-S921U using TractorByNet mobile app

 

[Happy in NC]

I had Autel. They were great about a crash for parts. Put on top of a 60ft Pine. Had to replace the body. It was cheap and quick. Also had one just bolt one time. Never figured out why or how far it went. Inquired with Autel and they had me send them the flight logs. Replaced with brand new one. Radio, drone and battery in less then a week. Gave it to my son just recently.

 

[Torvy]

They charged me 100 bucks (my stupid tax) and sent me a brand new model.

This is a great indicator for how big the markup is on these things.

I was looking into getting one just for looking over the acreage and such. Way too pricey right now. I guess I'll have to wait until prices come down. Eventually, more players will enter the market and quality will go up while prices go down.

 

[old and tired]

Fix it myself?

I couldn't, at least the model I had (think it was a 3, the light weight one). Once I replaced the camera, the serial number did not match what was there so it didn't work.

I'm leaning towards sending it off to pros to fix.

You have to send it to DJI; not sure if others have the ability to fix them or not. This was a pretty long time ago so I don't know if this is still the case but it left me with a strong hatred for the company.

Basically, with no right to repair... it means to me that I don't actually own it, just renting it from the company. Luckily, I was within the time limit to return it for a full refund.

 

[lman]

I couldn't, at least the model I had (think it was a 3, the light weight one). Once I replaced the camera, the serial number did not match what was there so it didn't work.

You have to send it to DJI; not sure if others have the ability to fix them or not. This was a pretty long time ago so I don't know if this is still the case but it left me with a strong hatred for the company.

Basically, with no right to repair... it means to me that I don't actually own it, just renting it from the company. Luckily, I was within the time limit to return it for a full refund.

So you returned something that you broke for a full refund? That sounds like a pretty good company.

 

[old and tired]

So you returned something that you broke for a full refund? That sounds like a pretty good company.

Costco... I returned it because I was not allowed to fix it. In my mind, that means I did not own it... I truly hoped that DJI had to eat the cost of the return.

I left the non-broken, $100 replacement camera in the drone since I had no use for it.