Hello,

I am in mourning. I have had my Phantom 3 Adv. for a week and today...I overestimated my piloting skills and crashed the drone. One of the props hit a tree and I guess stalled the motor, Causing it to crash to the ground, but only from about 20-30 feet. It landed on the top (thankfully the camera and gimbal is still perfect). However when I tried to start it up again the DJI Go app read "Warning ESC error, if problem persists contact DJI support". From the little research I have done so far I have read that at this point I will most likely have to replace the mother board. Ihave never tried to repair anything like this but I am willing to give it a try if its not too overly comlicated. The top frame also took some cosmetic damage, bending  in a corner. Seems like a lot of damage from 20-30 feet. But I didn't have visual on the dron when it fell. It was on the other side of my house. So my question is:

Will I need to in fact replace the mother board?
How much will it cost me approx?
Reccomendations of somone I can send it too that is relitavely inexpensive if I don't think I can do it myself?
Any other important info I should know?

Thank you all. I learned a valuable lesson. always fly above the dang tree line!

Pop the top and remove the main board. Look at all the components and see is any have dislodged or our burnt. If not I would replace the motors first. A bad motor will also cause a esc error.

Vincent D Posted at 2017-6-10 12:37
Pop the top and remove the main board. Look at all the components and see is any have dislodged or our burnt. If not I would replace the motors first. A bad motor will also cause a esc error.

If a motor is obstructed it will almost always burn up an ESC.

What exactly is the ESC? Is that the mother board?

cbeard93 Posted at 2017-6-10 15:21
What exactly is the ESC? Is that the mother board?

ESC means Electronic Speed Control, it is part of the main board, there are four of them, one for each motor. They are not able to be repaired separately. Best to send it to a qualified repair shop.

I sympathize with your situation, like Geebax said, ESC is part of the main board and connects with motor. We suggest to send in the drone to official repair center, we will have professional repair team to help with the damage assessment and get your drone fixed. You can give a glimpse of main parts price and make your decision: https://repair.dji.com/en/SelfRepair/PriceQuery

cbeard93 Posted at 2017-6-10 15:21
What exactly is the ESC? Is that the mother board?

If you are at all handy with basic electronic skills, I would not send it in. Its very expensive they take forever to return it and you wont even get the same bird back it will be refurbished most likley with intermitent problems and they are very worst type of problems to trouble shoot. (assuming you don't haveinsurance).

First off, an obstructed motor does not always damage the main board.  I actually had the same error and bought a new main board and had the same proble. Repleaced one motor and all was fine. Motors are cheap $18.00/ea. if you have an idea which motor was obstructed purchase a motor to replace it. If not purchase all 4 and replace them. They are cheap. If you still have a problem purchase a new or used main board and replace it. I have replaced boards, motors, centerboards, compases, antennas etc. on my P-3A and P-4 and its very simple. Tons of videos on-line to walk you through it. The P-3A is very simple to work on compared to the 4 but the 4 isn't that bad either.

Vincent D Posted at 2017-6-13 05:57
If you are at all handy with basic electronic skills, I would not send it in. Its very expensive they take forever to return it and you wont even get the same bird back it will be refurbished most likley with intermitent problems and they are very worst type of problems to trouble shoot. (assuming you don't haveinsurance).

First off, an obstructed motor does not always damage the main board.  I actually had the same error and bought a new main board and had the same proble. Repleaced one motor and all was fine. Motors are cheap $18.00/ea. if you have an idea which motor was obstructed purchase a motor to replace it. If not purchase all 4 and replace them. They are cheap. If you still have a problem purchase a new or used main board and replace it. I have replaced boards, motors, centerboards, compases, antennas etc. on my P-3A and P-4 and its very simple. Tons of videos on-line to walk you through it. The P-3A is very simple to work on compared to the 4 but the 4 isn't that bad either.

Thank you! After doing some research I am definitely going to try to do it myself. After further inspection of the drone I can tell that it landed on the tip of the right front arm, as it had mud marks and the plastic frame (top cover) of the arm is crinkled in, so I can tell it landed there and jammed the arm and motor. Prop was not broken though surprisingly. I will try replacing that motor and see what happens. Everything looks pretty simple once you get inside but I do have a question concerning the motors. According to my research there are two types of motors that work with two different ESC's. New 2312A 800Kv and older 2312 960kV. My question is how do I know for sure which motors mine uses? Similarly if I end up having to buy a new board, how do I know which one (part 96 or 33)? There is not a lot of info out there that I can find on the part numbers and which goes to which. But surely a number on the craft corresponds to something. Any advice there? I bought my P3A used. So no manual or  anything came with it.

This thread continued and answered here.

One 3 adv and one p5

You might have knocked the magnets in that motor loose.

Vincent D Posted at 2017-6-10 12:37
Pop the top and remove the main board. Look at all the components and see is any have dislodged or our burnt. If not I would replace the motors first. A bad motor will also cause a esc error.

Thank you very much for your answer, I’ve contacted DJI over the phone, chat, and Email and have looked all over the internet to see if a bad motor could cause an ESC error and couldn’t get an answer. All the firmware is updated and has been reinstalled so that’s not the problem an I replaced one motor and didn’t have any luck and then replaced the whole board and still no luck so I have three new motors coming in now hopefully that’ll fix everything

You might consider an AC FW upgrade to 1.11.30.  PM DJI_Susan to request a link to the upgrade file.

https://www.google.com/search?rl ... .33i299.PdTtXjamOT8

Good luck

so i received the esc error and couldnt get the drone started bummed and upset because im not familiar with all the drone stuff yet i somehow got the drone started without the error and successfully took off to snap a couple shots of the beautiful sunrise got up about 60' and my drone shut off totally dead to free fall and crash into a bunch of pieces now i have nothing for future was this related to the esc error and firmware update? or something else and yes everything was fully charged

fans1c8c51d6 Posted at 12-12 08:29
so i received the esc error and couldnt get the drone started bummed and upset because im not familiar with all the drone stuff yet i somehow got the drone started without the error and successfully took off to snap a couple shots of the beautiful sunrise got up about 60' and my drone shut off totally dead to free fall and crash into a bunch of pieces now i have nothing for future was this related to the esc error and firmware update? or something else and yes everything was fully charged

Sorry for your loss.  Please post the log url via this site and we can probably tell you what went wrong:  http://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/Upload/