BACK STORY:I have had my Mavic Air for a couple months, I dont have DJI Care Refresh or any other warranty.  I went to fly my drone a few days ago and noticed the gimbal would not respond.  When turning on the AIR the gimbal would attempt to calibrate by slamming it self down, then slamming itself up and stopping at that point.  It would not respind for anything.  There were no errors on the DJI GO 4 app and I could see an image but could not control the gimbal.  I searched everywhere but could not find a solution.  I did not have time to send it off for a fix, nor did I want to pay for a fix.  Apparently others have had a similar problem and this video shows the issue perfectly.





SO HERE IS THE FIX !!

WARNING:
I don't have DJI Refresh and Im fairly confident they would not freely fix my 2 month old drone, regardless if this is a defect or not.  So if you have your warranty you probably do not want to attempt this as it will more than likely void your warranty.  With that said DONT DO THIS IF YOU DONT WANT TO VOID YOUR WARRANTY

For me I dont have a warranty and I was sure the problem was with a broken ribbon cable or something, so I went exploring.  So the problem lies within the gimbal and the camera but it has nothing to do with the ribbon cables.  If you look at the back of the camera you will see what looks like a slotted hatch.  Inside that hatch is a chip, the chip appears to be held by some glue, well the glue more than likely melted (due to a large heat sink sitting right next to it, and the chip more than likely came detached from its socket.  No worries you can easily put the chip back, bad news is you have to take apart the drone, remove the gimbal, and disassemble the gimbal to access the screws that hold hat hatch in place.  Here is a pic of what I found when I took off the hatch.  That chip with DJI written on it was not attached and it was freely moving around inside the camera module.  See the pic below....



Its impossible to detail how to take this thing apart in a short thread so here are the resources that can help:

Mavic Air Teardown:

*** TIP:  The first two screws you have to remove by the gimbal before removing the top are coated with some type of glue,  you will need to peel or scrape it off, I just used a flat head screw driver to do it.  All the screws you will be taking out will be done with a small Phillips screwdriver

*** TIP 2: The video is in a foreign language, In youtube you can go to the video settings and choose auto translate under closed captioning which may help you understand it better.



Once you tear it all down and dissasemble the gimbal you can simply reseat the chip in its socket, reassemble your Air and give it a test.

P.S. I thought about putting some hot glue or silicone on the chip to keep if from coming lose again but Im not sure if it will melt and cause other issues.

I hope this helps someone

This is definitely manufacturing issue and flaw, DJI should address this so it will be not happening.

Hi there, we're sorry for the troubles. As you mentioned in OP, it is not recommended to disassemble at your end which may void the warranty. Whether it is a warranty case depends on the damage assessment and we'll offer you a proper solution according to the assessment result. Hope for your understanding. If there is anything else we can help, feel free to contact us.

Thank you very much!  This info helped me repair my drone gimbal by myself and now it's back to normal.

DJI Susan Posted at 2018-5-17 23:35
Hi there, we're sorry for the troubles. As you mentioned in OP, it is not recommended to disassemble at your end which may void the warranty. Whether it is a warranty case depends on the damage assessment and we'll offer you a proper solution according to the assessment result. Hope for your understanding. If there is anything else we can help, feel free to contact us.

This drone is EOL and not even produced anymore, I'm sure we're okay to be doing this

DubSound Posted at 9-6 22:37
This drone is EOL and not even produced anymore, I'm sure we're okay to be doing this

Hi there, just for your information, you can still send the Mavic Air back for service.

DJI Susan Posted at 9-9 00:36
Hi there, just for your information, you can still send the Mavic Air back for service.

Yeah we know this, but if we can find the part online and can repair it ourselves, we can and should be able to without DJI telling us it's not advisable.

DubSound Posted at 9-9 03:46
Yeah we know this, but if we can find the part online and can repair it ourselves, we can and should be able to without DJI telling us it's not advisable.

I am sorry that self-repair may be not suggested for the concerns of performance assurance and flight safety. If needed, sending the drone to our repair center or the authorized repair center is still recommended.