A friend of mine recently had a hard crash with his phantom 3 advanced, it was up quite high and suddenly cut out he tells me.
The damadge is substantial:

• Broken camera gimbal (wire and body snapped off - camera and motors ok!)
• bent frame.... as far as i can tell not going to have a negative effect, just asthetical
• (the scary one) ---> the battery, the casing has cracked and cover is peeling further down (lucky it didn't explode)
• further damadge yet to be found but expected
  

He has given it to me to fix as I know more about multirotors than him. However I have never dealt with a phantom or anything of the sorts because I prefere the custom built kind.

My current problem is that I cannot link the rc to the drone. The rc beeps, but when i press the link button nothing happens? No red light, green, yellow or blue.

I have tried holding it for longer, repeated pressing and multiple reboots.
Could it be down to the broken circuit from the missing camera?
I am reluctant to start purchasing componetnts for the rest of it if it cannot even start!!!


Thanks for any help/guidance Alex.

Photos of damadge..... Sorry for poor quality (broken camera)

Obviously there is lots of internal damage.  Maybe time to buy another AC.

I would return it to your friend and advise him to take the cover off and inspect it thoroughly.  He won't learn about it by handing it over to you.  If he has questions, he's got you.  If it's deemed not worthy of repair, he will have at least learned a little about what's inside and what's involved with the repair.  Nothing to lose but lots of knowledge to gain.  

But yeah, it might be best to get another one.  If he got another Advanced, he could keep this for parts.  

MHO

This looks to be beyond any economical repair part are hard to get, you cant just stick it back together and go-fly - certain individual parts are not available/never were, internal board could also be damaged - the lipo needs disposing of safely - sorry you'll need to find a replacement

I'm sorry to read the crash. I would also recommend to buy a new one.

DJI Susan Posted at 2017-10-14 22:27
I'm sorry to read the crash. I would also recommend to buy a new one.

Can't help but feel even if it was fixable you might have said that ;D

AlexCheckley Posted at 2017-10-14 04:56
Photos of damadge..... Sorry for poor quality (broken camera)

If that Phantom hit hard enough to deform the battery, I would almost bet there are things internally that are messed up. That hit with A LOT of force!!

Good Luck!

quadpilot Posted at 2017-10-14 18:29
the main board i would think is damaged because the gimbal arm has dented the outer cover this will most likely
of cracked the pcb or damaged some components on the board

Are you talking about the gimbal board? I have removed the plate and it appears to be fine?

AlexCheckley Posted at 2017-10-15 02:59
Can't help but feel even if it was fixable you might have said that ;D

If the repair fee is too high and equivalent to a replacement, I would recommend to buy a new one. You can refer the part price list here: https://repair.dji.com/en/SelfRepair/PriceQuery