Yesterday I was flying my recently activated Mavic Mini (NOS - Less than 10 flights - Never crashed) when it suddenly lost satellites and violently veered to the west.  Had it not been deflected by a tree it would have been a serious effort to reclaim as the battery was fully charged and it had just reached about 150'.

The drone had no apparent physical damage, but now it gives an "error 30008" and won't connect to ANY satellites!

I'm leaving for a looooong anticipated vacation to Kauai in two weeks and don't have time to send anything off to DJI so I'm gonna give it the old "college try".

I refreshed all the firmware (can't rollback without putting a hacker hat apparently) and recalibrated the compass and still no joy.

I then ordered a new(ish) GPS module off EBay and popped the bird open to see how slim my chances are of actually getting it to fly again.



Now I'm no electrical engineer... But something tells me the GPS module on a nearly new bird SHOULD NOT look like this!

My new part will be here in a few days and I'll see if my dreams of getting my very own "sweet sweet Hawaii beach footage" are dashed or not.

I have considered taking the FPV cinewhoop I just bought and have no idea how to fly yet, but I can almost promise that would be sent straight into the ocean.

I doubt learning to fly FPV with a "no GPS drone" over saltwater is something anyone would recommend, like, ever.

I see no image.

when it suddenly lost satellites and violently veered to the west.
Losing GPS doesn't cause a drone to suddenly veer to the west.
All that would happen would be that the drone loses horizontal position holding.
It would still be quite controllable.

Post your flight data and it might help understand what actually happened.

I have considered taking the FPV cinewhoop I just bought and have no idea how to fly yet, but I can almost promise that would be sent straight into the ocean.

I doubt learning to fly FPV with a "no GPS drone" over saltwater is something anyone would recommend, like, ever.

I would agree - that would be a bad plan.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 3-16 12:19
I see no image.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 3-16 12:19
I see no image.

I will have a look in the morning, I have a couple of open mini's but realistically that does not seem bad to me.
I got hold of a Mavic 2 Pro that had been in the sea for a week and the likes of that cover was literally like a layer of wet table salt.

Necromouser Posted at 3-16 15:16
[view_image][view_image]

Normal gps module would be metalic silver. Definitely corrosion. I had motor rust in the fulcrum before just by flying and residing in a humid city... I suppose check you motors too. Always keep a bag of silicon dehydrator beads in the drone case now. How that would affect gps signal though. I am not sure.

Hello there Necromouser. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused and thank you for reaching out. Since you are having this issue with your DJI Mavic Mini and receiving an error 30008 on the DJI Fly application. I would recommend you to contact our DJI support team at https://www.dji.com/support?site=brandsite&from=nav for further assistance.  We will do there best to help and will give out the best resolution for this issue. Again, I am sorry and thank you.

Attached are photos of the IMU's of 3 opened Mini's (bought as scrap drones but all actually flying etc. ) but I am fairly certain I have seen one IMU that was speckled, like your's, and working. Maybe it was from my M2Z (I crashed it and had to repair the drone) or a Mini 2 that I fixed.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 3-17 04:36
Attached are photos of the IMU's of 3 opened Mini's (bought as scrap drones but all actually flying etc. ) but I am fairly certain I have seen one IMU that was speckled, like your's, and working. Maybe it was from my M2Z (I crashed it and had to repair the drone) or a Mini 2 that I fixed.
[view_image]

Well... Mine WAS working perfectly until about 125' up.

It went from 8-10 sats to 0 instantly.

Sean-bumble-bee Posted at 3-17 04:36
Attached are photos of the IMU's of 3 opened Mini's (bought as scrap drones but all actually flying etc. ) but I am fairly certain I have seen one IMU that was speckled, like your's, and working. Maybe it was from my M2Z (I crashed it and had to repair the drone) or a Mini 2 that I fixed.
[view_image]

Well... Mine WAS working perfectly until about 125' up.

It went from 8-10 sats to 0 instantly and then instantly into a tree.

Necromouser Posted at 3-18 20:58
Well... Mine WAS working perfectly until about 125' up.

It went from 8-10 sats to 0 instantly and then instantly into a tree.

Losing GPS doesn't cause a drone to suddenly veer to the west.
All that would happen would be that the drone loses horizontal position holding.
It would still be quite controllable.

Post your flight data and it might help understand what actually happened.