A massive fear that would now seem apparent is that I own the worlds most expensive paperweight. Any advice would be helpful....

The enterprise shield for my Zenmuse L1 expired only a couple of months back, over the last 12 months or so I have treated it with kit gloves and it has been a wonderful piece of kit and has performed well above as expected. a couple of weeks ago, I was engaged to obtained LiDAR data for a mining company, its a 600km round trip. Did a brief equipment check before leaving for the job but did not power on the m300 with the L1 attached. Arrived at the site location, had some discussions with my "point of contact" and a geologist and set about setting up my work area, RTK and map misson via Pilot 2. Once I was ready to launch the mission, I undertook a pre-flight, all systems ok, launched the m300 to an altitude of 30m and commenced the uploading of the map mission data from the receiver to the m300. It was at this point I received a warning that a firmware update was available, given that I was in a reasonable isolated area with very minimal cell coverage (The data dongle in the base of the RC struggled, so I ended up hot spotting my mobile phone that I had elevated in a position only a couple of meters away to use for data TX and RX) I thought it would be best to not attempt a firmware update in this environment and instead perform the update once I had returned to base and had the necessary Internet connection required for large file downloads.

I ignored the warning and executed the mission. The m300 went to the pre-determined start point and began its mission. I would normally observe the SBS view of the L1 on the controller, so once I was happy the terrain follow was functioning correctly as well as my altitude and speed being correct, I changed from fpv to L1 SBS view to allow my point of contact and the geologist the chance to view the L1 in action. It was at this point I noticed the camera of the L1 appeared to be working correctly but the LiDAR side of the screen was blank, I wasn’t overly worried as in the past sometimes the transmission of the LiDAR will take a moment before it is displayed in real time. At about (I can’t remember exactly) maybe 1.30 - 2.00-minute mark I felt there could be an issue, rather than see out the mission and waste the time and batteries, I opted to abort the mission, land and take a closer look on the ground the m300 and L1 appeared to be fine, checked the details of the map mission, all seemed in order and launched and restarted the mission. The same thing happened, the camera sensor on the L1 started taking shots but the LiDAR did not. Landed again and scratched my head for a while. The only thing I could think of was it needed the firmware update. So I began the slow process of setting up the controller at an elevated position where it could receive cell tower reception (2bars) and started the firmware update of the controller, followed by the aircraft, then the batteries via the battery charger plugged into the controller via usb sometimes the firmware download would fail due to the data reception so I would restart it and it would download and update no problem. When it came time to do the L1, the firmware stalled on the download twice and then failed on install. The last attempt saw the download complete, but the firmware again failed to install. Having lost most of the day to this process, it was decided to attempt the data collection another day and I returned to base and got the m300 and L1 up on the bench and started the firmware update process again only this time, I was unable to see the payload from the controller, so I downloaded the firmware file itself, zipped it and transferred it to a micro SD on the controller. The first attempt returned a file corrupt error, so again, I downloaded the bin file, zipped it and transferred it to the controller. Again, attempted to update the firmware through the offline mode of the controller and the firmware process began, as the process completed another error of firmware update failed. Started the process again, same result, firmware update failed. At this point I was deffinatly starting to worry. One last attempt, the process started and this time it returned a "firmware update successful". A massive sense of relief came over me. I powered down the m300 and fired it up again after 1 min, everything including the L1 appeared to start up correctly.

It was very late at night by this time, so with the intention of performing a test flight in the coming days, I went home to get some sleep. The last couple of weeks has been very busy and I never did get a chance to test the m300 or L1. Yesterday I again attended the job location (Another 600kms), started with a fresh map of the area, programmed the flight, launched the m300 and pressed execute. I have never felt as miserable as what I did when the L1 did the same thing as before, camera sensor worked, no LiDAR on the SBS. It is also noteworthy to mention that upon uploading the map mission from the controller to the m300, a warning now flashes up saying unable to save gimbal settings. similarly, manually making adjustments to the L1 inside the pilot 2 app just results in nothing happening, the only manual action I can get it to do is perform the calibration, but I am assuming it is more of an action taken care of by the m300, not the L1. Finally, I have just taken a look at the Micro SD which I did a fresh ExFat format before inserting it into the L1 yesterday, its blank, nothing on it at all, no logs, no nothing.

I am at a loss as to what to do with the enterprise shield expiring and being unsure if I should try to roll back the firmware as it may cause more issues, it’s not showing up on DJI assistant 2 so I can’t refresh it, my most expensive sensor now appears to be a paper weight. Any ideas, suggestions? Anyone?

Correction the SD card did have 4 IDX files on it, that was all, no mission folders, no mission name files, nothing

1/ Check that everything is up to date in accordance with the last release note:


2/ Update what is needed via DJI Assistant 2

3/ Deactivate the RTK, if the connection is not stable the mission will stop.

Are you using DRTK-2 ?

Note that the preview of the pointcloud and the live view have nothing to do with the functioning of the LiDAR. Sometimes the reception is weak or disturbed by something (especially WiFi) that these features become inoperative.

LV_Forestry Posted at 7-13 21:56
1/ Check that everything is up to date in accordance with the last release note:
[view_image]

Thanks for your reply but I did cover most of the points you raised in my post. All firmware is up to date.

DJI Assistant 2 (enterprise) was unable to see the L1 attached to the M300, hence the offline firmware update.

The problem was never with the RTK, the connection was strong. Yes I am using D-RTK 2

Agreed, the preview of the pointcloud preview can lag or not be displayed due to a weak connection as can the SBS view which is what I was using at the time, however in the past the lag time is only a minimal amount of time (under 5-20 seconds) the blank screen did not display any other indication of a weak signal or otherwise to suggest an issue with transmission. I was in an isolated area and the nearest WIFI signal would have been at least 20kms away. I can further back up this comment with the signal strength display showing full strength.

I don't believe there is a public fix as I have been quite thorough. As a result, I have submitted a repair request and leaving the topic open to anyone else who may have experienced issues around the same time and who are unable to explain why it occurred (no collisions, no previous issue, all care taken with the attachment). It was my last hope in seeking anybody whom had the same experience and may have had a better result before having to spend alot of money on an already very expensive sensor via DJI repair.

Coffsuav Posted at 7-14 19:53
[view_image]

Thanks for your reply but I did cover most of the points you raised in my post. All firmware is up to date.

"The problem was never with the RTK, the connection was strong. Yes I am using D-RTK 2"
I have already written it in several places on the forum but I put it back here, it is not because the connection is strong that the correction is of good quality. Especially with DRTK-2 which is notorious for causing multiple problems. Its use in PPK alone is highly recommended.

The next step I was going to tell you is to clean the connection (Skyport) between the LiDAR and the M300. I do this with dry air spray or an air compressor. DJI recommends cleaning them with iso alcohol. Be careful not to use a fluffy cloth.

Then you can try to change the PSDK socket to find out if the problem will not come from there. You unscrew the plug and plug it into port 2. Theoretically Pilot 2 should tell you that the LiDAR has to be mounted on point 1.

If you made the decision to send it to the repair it is not so bad, the prices are generally very reasonable. It's a cheap and low-end LiDAR, a new one costs about 7500euros here in europe.

Coffsuav Posted at 7-14 19:53
[view_image]

Thanks for your reply but I did cover most of the points you raised in my post. All firmware is up to date.

Hello, there. Sorry for the inconvenience. We found your case via the Forum account. May we know if you have sent it back?

Coffsuav Posted at 7-13 21:37
Correction the SD card did have 4 IDX files on it, that was all, no mission folders, no mission name files, nothing

Hi-
I’m having the exact same issue with the new L2. Did you ever get to the bottom of this issue?

Thanks,
Luke

I was unable to do anymore, the problem was persistent so I was left with no other option but to bite the bullet and send the unit off to be repaired by DJI. To my surprise it was replaced with a new unit with only minimal cost to myself. I guess someone felt sorry for me as the warranty had only just lasped (by 2-3 weeks, not the months that I had first thought). So it was a very good outcome for me. To answer your question, i was never informed what the problem was, my guess was an internal error, it felt like to me it was software but it very well could have been hardware. Just thankful it ended well.