Hi all, bought a DJI mini 3 about 6 weeks ago. Done a few test flights and a couple of filming runs. Maybe a little over an hour of flying. Today I was doing some aerial shots in the garden. Didn't fly far, or for long. After 3 mins I was flying it back and there was a noticeable change of prop noise and big wobble. It then steadied and a second or so later just fell to ground. No trees or obstacles anywhere near. It was about 25ft up then crash landed in the grass and seemed OK, props free spinning. Tried a test launch and it slewed sideways into the grass. On closer inspection there is a small crack around the front right motor so it can flex.

Battery was charged yesterday and I did maybe 5-10 mins of successful flying. Was at 65% today which I thought would be fine for flying around the garden.

Have managed to look at the flight log and it shows "Motor error. Check propellers and fly with caution." while in flight. A second or so later "Motor unable to rotate. Check for objects blocking motor or contact DJI Support for assistance..; Motor stuck. Check for objects blocking motor or contact DJI Support for assistance (Code: 30165)" which I guess is when it fell or maybe when it hit the ground.

I put the log here:https://www.phantomhelp.com/logviewer/13DK2HP210B717ATMWYL/
Is that visible?

What's the best next step? Is this likely to be covered by any warranty, it is pretty much brand new? DJI just seem to have an automated service request system, and I'd like to know what they might do. Or am I better off sending it back to the retailer as that is the usual system here in the UK (Very)?

I think the motor stuck is when it hit the ground, noticeable prop noise could be a few things, 2 obvious ones are a blown prop (had a crack already and broke mid air) or a bird collision, i aint good enough to read the charts but i can see you using the sticks to bing it all the way down, albeit in stops and starts, I can also see when the incident happend as the drones flight becomes erratice with the pitching etc. There is a voltage warning, so i will point out that you shouldnt start a flight with less than a fully charged battery, even the next day as the percentage is only an estimate, this wasnt the issue though but its a note for next time, Labroides or JJB* will be along in good time to give you a deatailed analysis of the charts. I do not think it would be a warranty issue but i could be wrong, I think a pesky pidgeon or the like knocked it, but if the props are ok then that may not be the reason unless the stike was hard enough to break the arm and that didnt happen in the landing.... Best wait for someone with my experience in the charts but just thought i would point a few things out...

PS, i notice some decent drone angles without any stick input @ 3m 6.3s, again, this is normally associated with a prop issue or a bird collision (strike) or perhaps it hit a telephone wire, they are around the same height that the drone started its funny business... anyhoo, good luck.

Hi there. Thank you for reaching out and we're sorry for the incident that happened to your drone. You may consider sending the unit in for a proper diagnosis. You can contact our support team to start up a ticket at https://www.dji.com/support . Also, the warranty can be applied depending on the outcome of the damage assessment including the warranty period of your unit. Thank you for your understanding and support.

Thanks for the replies. I have had a closer look and all the props are fine. No sign of any damage or cracks. Definitely no power wires, it didn't leave the garden and there are no lines, trees, or anything.  I was also flying it visually and it was pretty close, didn't see any birds near it at any time.

If you have not already synced you logs with DJI, DO NOT do so for the moment. Instead, where you found the .txt flight log,  look in the folder whose name starts "MCDATF" , in there look for a file whose name contains FLY013.DAT copy or move that file to your computer ( I copy all the .txt and .DAT flight logs to my computer) then upload the .DAT to a file hosting file, make the page public and post a link here. The .DAT contains motor speeds.
If you have already synced then the .DAT flight logs are liikely to have been deleted.

If you look at the OSD.pitch and OSD.columns of the csv thing seem to start going awry around 186seconds, both pitch and roll go screwy, very shortly thereafter the battery voltage BATTERY.currentPV [V] starts to drop quickly and battery current BATTERY.current [A] begins to rise. Yaw, OSD.yaw also goes screwy.
To me that suggests that the drone was either trying to drive a sticky motor or, given that the pilot found a crack near the FR motor, that the crack had reached a critical point and the motor was wobbling and losing effectiveness.
Obviously JJB* is better at this stuff than me but I am 'wondering'......
Hopefully the DAT is available as it probably has the answers in the motor speeds.

Oh, one point, are you aware that you launched with what the drone regarded as poor GPS and, when it finally got satisfactory GPS and set a home point, the home point was around 90ft from the launch point. That is not necessarily a bad thing but need to be aware of it and its possible consequences OR you need to know how to reset the home point to somewhere appropriate.

Thanks for the feedback. I have uploaded the DAT file to here : https://transfer.pcloud.com/download.html?code=5ZWtxUVZ9LzVWAkOyJSZUmKNZpOTFqRnAIr5qph3OGif9bkXo7uYV
Hopefully that is readable.

Also, yes, I have been letting the home point update but didn't bother this time as I was only doing a little flight and not leaving the garden (luckily, as it didn't end well!)

nickjb Posted at 6-27 00:51
Thanks for the feedback. I have uploaded the DAT file to here : https://transfer.pcloud.com/download.html?code=5ZWtxUVZ9LzVWAkOyJSZUmKNZpOTFqRnAIr5qph3OGif9bkXo7uYV
Hopefully that is readable.

Hi,

Had a look too at your log.

see my chart of your data. (shown last part of your flight)

Dotted white line is where your drone goes "funny".
As you can see the drone roll attitude show high numbers, drone is going down ; heading changes a lot and see the red actual move line.

As all the props are oke (no bird hit and not flying against a wire etc) it must have been one motor who did nor deliver its revs.
At the same moment drop in volatge and rise in amps ; so max power to that motor to try to rev up.

DAT file could not be read completely (well i cannot do it...), so no revs in there.

cheers
JJB  [ Charts by FRAP ; the 'best' software for flightlog analysis ]