Hey everyone,

A month ago I was flying my Mavic pro(only a month old) When bringing the drone down from a flight, I heard a pop and saw the battery shoot from the drone. Causing the drone to fall around 100m to the ground. When analzying the battery, it has expanded and exploded. The battery was fully secure and at about 75% when this happened. I sent my drone in and they sent me a quote to fix it. Around $200 total with a new battery. This is ridiculous cause it was very much a manufacture defect and their support is always acting like I haven't told them about it. I have sent them photos of the battery over 4 times all to be told they have never been seen before.

I am not paying for a repair of a month old drone that cost $1000 dollars and had a malfunction. If I caused it I would be fine with it but no way I did with this.. Anyone else ever have this happen before?

What should I do? Heres the battery after it ejected from the drone..

Any feedback would be helpful. They have had my drone for almost a month now...

Cheers,
Mason

There's really not much you can do... its your word against theirs.  And with DJI, unfortunately, they will always assume its a pilot error.

The picture of the battery did not come through.

Sorry to read on your issue. Can you provide me a repair number so I can review your record?

Hi, if you look at my flight records, it shows there was no landing.. It just lost power and fell. I think I attached the photo correctly this time. I even saw it pop out of the drone it made a loud sound.

Sorry dude. Follow up with DJI Mark. He can move the process for you. Also download your flight logs to phantomhelp.com and post the link so we can review it here!

Heard that a few people have had bad connections to the battery that caused a crash, but I really have to wonder about it just popping out in flight.  Even if it were not fully seated somehow, I really don't know how it would pop out unless the mavic itself hits something hard enough to pop it out.    I suppose those flight logs will tell something perhaps.

-Rodger

We apologize that you’re experiencing difficulties, thanks for bringing this to our attention, we care much about your issue, may I have the case number so I can look into it as soon as possible. Have you uploaded your flight record?

There is no guarantee that you actually secured the battery correctly. In some cases people have admitted to carrying their Mavic with their fingers on the clips that are depressed to remove the battery and without thinking have actually loosened the battery. Those that admitted to it found the problem before they took off.
The photo of your battery really only shows damage from having fallen to the ground from a height.

Jenee 2 Posted at 2017-6-26 22:02
There is no guarantee that you actually secured the battery correctly. In some cases people have admitted to carrying their Mavic with their fingers on the clips that are depressed to remove the battery and without thinking have actually loosened the battery. Those that admitted to it found the problem before they took off.
The photo of your battery really only shows damage from having fallen to the ground from a height.

Actually, there is. I have flow many times before. And my girlfriend and I watched the battery shoot out of it... I sent case number to admins above

hybrid33 Posted at 2017-6-26 12:35
There's really not much you can do... its your word against theirs.  And with DJI, unfortunately, they will always assume its a pilot error.

There's really not much you can do... its your word against theirs.   

Maybe not.  The DAT file from the Mavic may contain battery-state information which could support your claim.  If you would upload it to a DropBox location, there are those in this forum who help analyze the information.  I'm sure DJI would want to see the file also.

fans62d9c0cb Posted at 2017-6-26 13:54
Hi, if you look at my flight records, it shows there was no landing.. It just lost power and fell. I think I attached the photo correctly this time. I even saw it pop out of the drone it made a loud sound.

Follow Griffith's advice put your dat up, i would have thought that you might have had some battery warning.
Even so some information should show up on your dat file here's a link will help you extract dat.

https://datfile.net/DatCon/fieldsV3MP.html

The photo of your battery seems to show some internal swelling which may have forced the battery to  break free and eject.  Are the battery latches intact (not  broken)?  

It certainly could happen, after flying R/C for years using Lipo's the battery for some reason or other can swell with enough energy to break the casing or pop it out of its fixing. There have been countless examples of Lipo's going into thermal runaway , so don't discount this as a possible fault. I would think it'd show in your data files checking cell voltages etc.

Thanks for the responses guys! How do I get the battery data? From DJI app? I see from the link from Griffith I have to plug the drone in? If thats the case, DJI will have to do so...

Car147 Posted at 2017-6-27 10:29
It certainly could happen, after flying R/C for years using Lipo's the battery for some reason or other can swell with enough energy to break the casing or pop it out of its fixing. There have been countless examples of Lipo's going into thermal runaway , so don't discount this as a possible fault. I would think it'd show in your data files checking cell voltages etc.

The DAT file also records battery temperature, which should be telling.

mbwdesign Posted at 2017-6-27 10:38
Thanks for the responses guys! How do I get the battery data? From DJI app? I see from the link from Griffith I have to plug the drone in? If thats the case, DJI will have to do so...

Yes, the DAT file is on the Mavic itself, so unless you can persuade DJI to send it to you we won't be able to look at it. You can upload the TXT file flight log from your mobile device to PhantomHelp using these instructions and provide a link to it here. Most likely it'll just show an abruptly terminated log during flight, though: as Griffith and Hallmark pointed out, the more detailed (and useful) information was in the DAT file, and that would have needed to be retrieved before sending it to DJI.

To clarify some of the other comments made earlier, there was a cluster of incidents reported a while back about Mavics falling from the sky due to spontaneous power loss. In at least some of those cases, though, the battery was still firmly attached after the crash, so it's not likely that they were all caused by improperly installed batteries. And yours is the first report I've ever heard of a Mavic's battery exploding / being ejected in flight, so I would have been very curious to see what, if anything, the DAT file revealed.

Your best bet is to work with (DJI) Mindy to make sure that you get an accurate assessment of what happened and a fair outcome. From what I've seen DJI's initial assessments aren't always accurate, but they're willing to re-evaluate when pressed on it and they do consistently seem to try to do the right thing based on the determination. If they're claiming that the crash was your fault then at a minimum they should be willing to explain how / why they believe you're to blame.

Ah man, wish I would have known to get the DAT file before sending in.. BTW this is the creator of the thread, just changed my username but it didn't update my first post.. When trying to upload the CSV to phantom help it comes back with Error timeout.. Maybe file is too big.

Hoping to hear from admins soon! I appreciate all the help

Sorry, I missed the comment that you had already sent your drone back.  Yes, you have to plug it into Assistant to get the DAT file.  DroneFlying's advice is good.  Work with DJI-Mindy to insure DJI Customer Service does a thorough job in accessing the cause.  They have some very astute forensic analysts there - if your case can be steered in the right direction.

mbwdesign Posted at 2017-6-27 11:26
Ah man, wish I would have known to get the DAT file before sending in.. BTW this is the creator of the thread, just changed my username but it didn't update my first post.. When trying to upload the CSV to phantom help it comes back with Error timeout.. Maybe file is too big.

Hoping to hear from admins soon! I appreciate all the help

When trying to upload the CSV to phantom help it comes back with Error timeout.. Maybe file is too big.

The correct file will have a TXT extension and can be accessed using those instructions on PhantomHelp. And don't worry too much at this point about not having retrieved the DAT file; DJI will most likely wind up doing the right thing eventually.

We have re-analyzed the case and it has been covered by warranty, flight test has been gone through, the drone will be shipped out very soon.

Well a happy ending

  

Same happened to me today

  

  

I had 3 full batteries with me. At around 800m of distance over the lake it suddenly showed an update your firmware error (which I already did). The error then disappeared again. I immediately decided to fly back and at around 400m of distance the error showed again and battery dropped to 15%. The drone said that it will return to home in 10 seconds. The drone never returned to home and flew away. When I used the "find my drone" it was shown 300m farer than the RTH point. If battery really would have had no power how can the drone even fly 300m too much (400m back to RTH point + 300m farer than RTH point)?

  

  

I'm very dissappointed by these malfunctions as I had the drone only for a short time and drove to the mountains which took a lot of time. All this just happened after the firmware update. I don't know how to open a case for such a case (as the DJI support page doesn't let me upload the invoice of my "Mavic Fly More Combo" ).

  

Posted answer to wrong thread (but can't edit or change anything).