Hi,

I lift the drone from my balcony at night and as soon as it went in a darker area it started to drift and hit the wall and came down crashing in a sandy area. I only learned afterwards that in the dark mavic air with no GPS signal will drift (something to note for beginners and DJI to show more clearly in the Quick Refernce Sheet).

Anyway drone overall is OK and flying however i noticed left rear arm does not open fully (slight opening remains at the hinge) and due to this propeller clearance on left side is gone and they hit each other while flying so i need to repair the hinge, there is no rotation vertically at the hinge (it seems ok in vertical direction but just does not come out fully see photos). I live in Vietnam and DJI support is not available here, is there anything someone can suggest which could be helpful to resolve this issue.

thanks,

Ali

I am sorry to hear what happened to your DJI Mavic Air. I understand that you are located in Vietnam. The best thing that you can do is to get in touch with DJI by sending an email to support@dji.com so that we will be able to help you with your Drone.

I guess a good reason to read the manual and not just the quick guide.  The GPS signal is not affected by darkness but can be hard to get enough satellites for stable flight when taking off from a balcony.   With poor GPS signal and sensors restricted by darkness your drone was destine to drift and crash if not flown manual to avoid obstacles.

You could search for teardown videos, maybe it is easy to fix yourself:



You can also buy new arms on eBay.

Going through DJI is best, but if you are far from a service center, fixing it yourself might be worth a try.

It's not that hard to do I have replaced a rear hinge and forward arm, you also have to have good soldering skills.
You have to follow the video to the tee that is posted in #4, if this is your only option.
Otherwise you will have to send it off to DJI. I ordered everything from ebay and in 3 days it was back in the air.

Good Luck..

Sorry for the accident, it is not recommended to repair by yourself since it may affect the warranty, please refer to Stephen's suggestion in 2# to contact our support team for further assistance, thank you.

sorry to read that

DJI Mindy Posted at 2018-7-8 19:00
Sorry for the accident, it is not recommended to repair by yourself since it may affect the warranty, please refer to Stephen's suggestion in 2# to contact our support team for further assistance, thank you.

After contacting DJI support team and providing them all the information there response is as below and not very helpful given than from the begining they knew i am based in Vietnam. I asked them if i can take drone to Singapore but got no answer. Not helpful at all as you can imagine;

"Since the shipping address that you provided is in Vietnam we recommend you to contact your dealer so they can create a case for you using dealer's platform. As of now Vietnam has its custom issues so to shipped it back to us you need to do it via dealer because they have their own custom clearance.

We do apologize for the inconvenience. "

DJI Mindy Posted at 2018-7-8 19:00
Sorry for the accident, it is not recommended to repair by yourself since it may affect the warranty, please refer to Stephen's suggestion in 2# to contact our support team for further assistance, thank you.

After contacting DJI support team and providing them all the information there response is as below and not very helpful given that from the begining they knew i am based in Vietnam. I asked them if i can take drone to Singapore but got no answer. Not helpful at all as you can imagine;

"Since the shipping address that you provided is in Vietnam we recommend you to contact your dealer so they can create a case for you using dealer's platform. As of now Vietnam has its custom issues so to shipped it back to us you need to do it via dealer because they have their own custom clearance.

We do apologize for the inconvenience. "

OneDoesNotSimply Posted at 2018-7-8 07:59
You could search for teardown videos, maybe it is easy to fix yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydabCZ4bUd4

Yes one does simply walk in to Mordor. With Golom's help.

Update from Vietnam... DJI help desk at the end was just helpful enough to locate a local DJI approved dealer in Vietnam. I went there today and found them very helpful. They are located in Ho Chi Minh City http://flycampro.vn/. They changed the whole rear left side arm including motor for 45 USD and drone seems to be fine. I am happy and reday to fly again.... Note for DJI may be to have better service and 12 month warranty should extend to repair in any location not just few as they told me for example in my case in Hong Kong.