Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would kindly ask you to devote five minutes of your precious time to this email while I will share with you the essence of an interesting episode of DJI „customer service“.

When filming in the dry desert of the north african Sahara my Inspire 1 RAW suddenly dropped out of the sky for no obvious reason. Even after it crashed from an altitude of 175m into the sand the aircraft was still responding and the battery indicated about half of the capacity and no error message (see attached screenshots after the crash).
It was about the 30th flight in a weeks course of filming in different dry Sahara locations using three batteries in a rotating way. When coming back home to Germany I sent the drone to DJI. The result of the „examination“ – battery water damaged, no warranty:

"no warranty - // after repair/replacement, faulty unit or parts will not be returned Date and time of the flight: Jan 10, 2018, fly599. 1. The aircraft was in GPS mode; 2. T=371 s, H=174.5 m, D=1601.8 m, the flight log ended due to battery error; Conclusion: Battery communication error. the battery is water damaged.“

When I tried to explain the circumstances to the agent on the phone, she told me, that the circumstances do not matter since the technician determined that the battery is water damaged. I tried to explain that I was using this battery over and over again for more than 10 flights in the recent days in a very dry environment with virtually no exposure to humidity. She replied that it does not matter according to the DJI service procedure. Of course it would have been easy for her to confirm my claim through the flight records and the black box. But - it didn't matter.

The quote I got was about €4844,62 for the repair of aircraft and camera together – with no return of the faulty unit. A new I1R including two remote controllers is about €5399 at the DJI store. The street price in Germany for this package starts at about €4399.

Obviously I didn’t accept the generous quote and asked to return the Inspire 1 RAW unrepaired. When it arrived today, I removed the package and tried to open the zipper of the case but it didn’t move. Then I realized that the zipper was destroyed by forcefully closing it. I called the DJI customer service. The agent answering the phone remembered my case and told me I have to complain by email and send in pictures to proof the evidence. On my request to speak to her supervisor she told me that it is generally not possible to talk to her supervisor. It has all to be done by email or in writing. Which means there is no evidence for me that the supervisor will ever get notice of my complaint and the case.

And by the way there is no proof of evidence that the battery is water damaged either. There are no pictures, no indicators, no measurement protocols and no valid explanation how a well functioning DJI battery can suddenly become water damaged in the Sahara.
Furthermore since I have no idea how I possibly maltreated the battery (all three batteries are stored together, how do I find out weather the other batteries are maybe „water damaged“ too?) the lack of evidence rises doubts in the quality of DJI batteries in general. And we all heavily depend on reliable batteries in this business, even more so in the more humid areas of this world.

But the biggest flaw of DJI as global technology and market leader in consumer and professional drones is your lack of customer orientation and customer service as exposed by this episode.

Not only am I personally very much disappointed about this experience and the loss of money. But due to the lack of transparency in your service process failing to proof evidence I am considering legal steps to shed more light on how DJI batteries can get "water damaged“ in the desert.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Best regards
Marc


PS Just in case the episode did arouse any curiosity on your side regarding the service history, the service case id is CAS-1398977-X3B2J9 and was processed by the european service center in Germany.

Wow, expensive!  An admin will come along and help.

Sorry for the accident. Looked into your case, the damage assessment shows that the battery was water damage and caused the crash. Please check the attachment below. Since you still have doubt in the assessment, we will forward your case to designated department and investigate again. And we apologized that if we caused any inconvenience. Please wait patiently, we will have someone contact you and help you with your problem.

DJI Elektra Posted at 2018-5-18 20:20
Sorry for the accident. Looked into your case, the damage assessment shows that the battery was water damage and caused the crash. Please check the attachment below. Since you still have doubt in the assessment, we will forward your case to designated department and investigate again. And we apologized that if we caused any inconvenience. Please wait patiently, we will have someone contact you and help you with your problem.

So, the moisture sticker that is on the outside of the battery is red. These stickers go red after about a week in open air. I bet there is nothing wrong with that battery.

Was the battery dismantled to check for moisture damage in its circuit board?

DJI, you need to make your products more resistant to moisture. You are not making $60 toys that get sold at Kmart, you are making professional products, selling them at high prices and then when a problem occurrs you use every excuse you can to not honour the warranty.
If I had known what your support tactics were when I bought my drone, I never would have wasted my money on care refresh and I probably would not have bought one of your drones.

I hope another company takes your market share. The sooner this happens the better.

Mavdude Posted at 2018-5-19 01:10
So, the moisture sticker that is on the outside of the battery is red. These stickers go red after about a week in open air. I bet there is nothing wrong with that battery.

Was the battery dismantled to check for moisture damage in its circuit board?

If the battery was stored incorrectly, it can also get moist and damage. We would recommend user follow the battery guidelines and store their battery in a recommended environment.

DJI Elektra Posted at 2018-5-19 02:36
If the battery was stored incorrectly, it can also get moist and damage. We would recommend user follow the battery guidelines and store their battery in a recommended environment.

But the battery would not need to be dropped into water for that moisture sticker to turn red.
Just humid air is enough to turn those stickers red.

You really need to imporve your producs to protect against humidity. The normal air in many locations is humid. Your products should work perfectly in these environments.
DJI needs to start using conformal coatings to protect the circuit boards from moisture.
These are not cheap products, this case is yet just another case where DJI uses whatever excuse to not honour warranty.
Was the battery actually disassembled to check internally for moisture damage? I bet there is none.

DJI Elektra Posted at 2018-5-19 02:36
If the battery was stored incorrectly, it can also get moist and damage. We would recommend user follow the battery guidelines and store their battery in a recommended environment.

Thank you for the free coaching.

I am well aware of the Inspire 1 Intelligent Battery Safety Guidelines. It is my 3rd Inspire 1 drone (X3, X5, X5R) and bought 5 drones from DJI since 2014 using them regularly – outdoors.
But if the Intelligent Flight Battery Safety Guidelines document you quoted would be the only source of information probably no one would buy this drone which is targeting the professional market. Most professional pilots fly theirs drone in the field and only occasionally in their living room. Hence it is difficult to stay within the respective specification while on an assignment e.g. in the Alps or in cold glacier-covered Iceland where the Inspire 1 was introduced first to the market with spectacular pictures from inside a hot volcano.

Luckily the Inspire 1 RAW User Manual sheds some more light onto DJIs understanding of the term "storage" in respect to the Inspire 1 Batteries TB47 and TB47 in particular.

Storing your batteries less than 3 months (and my Inspire 1 will rarely sit around for that long) in the range of -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C) is much more realistic.

DJI Elektra Posted at 2018-5-19 02:36
If the battery was stored incorrectly, it can also get moist and damage. We would recommend user follow the battery guidelines and store their battery in a recommended environment.

And yes of course I keep my batteries dry when I store them. I do that with all batteries and electric devices I own as most of the people do. It is common sense that batteries dislike moisture. Nevertheless professional drones are made for harsh environments, as DJI suggested when presenting the Inspire 1 to the world in Iceland. And in the real world there is humidity in the air, sweat at your hands, clouds in the sky and condensation when the temperature is changing e.g. having the drone case over night in your vehicle.

So let's find out more about the moisture specification for operating or storing (long term or short term) the Inspire 1 RAW. Unfortunalty neither the Inspire 1 RAW user manual nor the Intelligent Flight Battery Safety Guidelines are a valuable source of information regarding this topic. No specification about humidity at all, not for operation, not for storage. Except the wise instruction to "Keep the battery dry. Never drop the battery into water". Hm. Ok. Got that.

Fortunately there is a user manual for the Zenmuse XT available on the download section of DJIs website. Let's see what we can find out here.
Indeed, this very expensive piece of equipment has got a specification for humidity in its user manual. And it says:

Humidity:                    5% to 95%

That's interesting. It's a pretty robust specification regarding moisture I believe. This doesn't mean you should drop it into the water, but – it's close to that.

Now surprisingly the Zenmuse XT is a device solely made to be carried by the Matrice series and – the Inspire 1. Let's see if there is any limitation, restriction or warning when using the Zenmuse XT in combination with the Inspire 1 aircraft.

In the

• Zenmuse  XT User Manual – there is none!
• Zenmuse XT Disclaimers and Safety Guidelines – surprisingly none either!
  

Conclusion: The Inspire 1 RAW is an aircraft which can be operated and stored in an environment of 5% - 95% humidity and –10 - 40°C temperature.

The specifications are in the recent versions of the officially published documents on the DJI webside. Thus it is legally binding – at least so from my perspective.

DJI Elektra Posted at 2018-5-19 02:36
If the battery was stored incorrectly, it can also get moist and damage. We would recommend user follow the battery guidelines and store their battery in a recommended environment.

Since we now all know that the Inspire 1 is quite a rugged bird for harsh environmental conditions, let's have a look how DJI is measuring battery moisture exposition with the sole goal to knock down warranty claims.
Why this resolute statement? Because it is true.

If it wouldn't be true there would be an indication, a warning, just a little piece of official information about the tiny little LCI – Liquid Contact Indicator – at the outside of each TB47 or TB48 battery. Why should DJI let us know about it? Well, because as pilots we are responsible for taking-off solely with a flawless aircraft. But if I dont know about this existing checkmark how can I ever add this important task to my pre-flight checklist? If DJI would inform the customers about that it would increase the flight safty in general and in particular over crowds where you of course have to get flight permission for upfront. But what if you have a flight permission, you take off with a LCI-red battery not knowingnabout it, the craft falls out of the sky and injures somebody? And who is accountable for it? It will probably become an interesting journey to find out the position of the FAA and the European authorities regarding this existing but hidden moisture indicator.

But hang on – maybe we're heading in the wrong direction. Maybe the technical experts of the aviation bodies would start laughing at me when I'd show them how DJI is measuring the "water damage" of a battery.
Why? Well, we all know how technically sophisticated the drone products of DJI, the world leader in drones, are designed, developped and manufactured. Strange to say that the sanity check of an intelligent flight battery is – for warranty cases – solely based on the colour change of an outside LCI sticker. You could even touch it accidently with your sweaty fingers depending on your body and environmental temperature and where the factory worker by chance positions the LCI tag on the battery during the assembly process – see pictures showing subtle variation of position.
With all that high tech inside the intelligent flight battery it seems like a blatant low tech aproach to knock down warranty cases. And it is most likely not a sufficient condition to prove a battery to be "water damaged". It may be a warning for the pilot – if only he would know about it. But it's definitly not a proof of a battery not beeing flight safe. Otherwise the authorities would care – for sure!

Now why did my Inspire 1 suddenly fell out of the sky? Luckily it happended in a deserted area of the Sahara and not over the crowds in the world heritage sites I filmed a couple of days later with permisson and on my DJI Mavic Pro.

The DJI technician concludes:

"the flight log ended due to battery error; Conclusion: Battery communication error. the battery is water damaged."

How does he know? The battery still showed 46 percent, status "normal" and a cell balance of +-0.03V after the 174.5m fall.

DJIs says

• Evidence – No information in the log file.
• Conclusion – Must be due to a battery communication error.
• Evidence – LCI tag outside of the flight battery is red.
• Conclusion – Battery must be water damaged inside.
• End of investigation.
• No warranty.
  

My conclusion

• The battery is not water damaged.
• Maybe a battery problem caused the crash.
• Maybe a software problem caused the crash – bearing in mind that logging stops also when computer software crashes.
• DJI as manufactorer is resposible.
• This crash is covered by warranty.
  

Let us ask independent drone or battery experts to investigate and find out the root cause.

At the same time we should collect more pictures of the position of the LCI stickers for all types of DJI intelligent flight batteries – so that we know our odds in case of a possible – warranty failure. Or shoud I say – battery failure?

Also, who is to say that the sticker was actually red at the time of the crash?
What if during shipping, the parcel travelled though a humid climate, or worse still, who is to say that someone did not tamper with it to make it "not a warranty claim"

DJI forgets that it produces flying machines for use outdoors, in the environment.

Agreed that if the processor has a fault/malfunction/software error, it will stop the flight data record and in the mean time fall rapidly to the ground.

I remember seeing a case where a spark had some fault. When they disassembled the unit, the moisture sticker was red. There were no visable signs of moisture damage to the circuit board, yet they would not even attempt to repair. The user was left out in the cold.

DJI, start using conformal coatings on your circuit boards. I produce battery systems for other consumer hobby electronics that get used out doors. My products cost a fraction of what the DJI products cost, yet I can afford to buy and apply a conformal coating to protect the circuit from moisture ingress. It saves me a lot of headaches!

Mavdude Posted at 2018-5-19 15:19
Also, who is to say that the sticker was actually red at the time of the crash?
What if during shipping, the parcel travelled though a humid climate, or worse still, who is to say that someone did not tamper with it to make it "not a warranty claim"

Elektra has escalated your concern to the appropriate department to look into, the reply may get delayed because of the weekend, please wait patiently for the next resolution, thank you.

Also, it is possible that when the battery has been cleaned with a moist cloth to remove dust that the sticker turned red.
That has to be the most silly place to put a moisture sticker.

Landy, may I know when did you purchase this battery? Could you please provide us the proof of purchase? Thank you.

Mindy, I purchased the TB48 battery October 17, 2016 at Amazon.de. I sent you a PM with a hyperlink to the invoice on dropbox.

landy2go Posted at 2018-5-21 00:56
Mindy, I purchased the TB48 battery October 17, 2016 at Amazon.de. I sent you a PM with a hyperlink to the invoice on dropbox.

Thanks for the proof of purchase, I also checked the serial number of your aircraft, the aircraft and the battery all have been expired, actually, according to After-Sales policy, the data analysis will not be provided after warranty expiration. In your case, no matter what caused the accident, the warranty service will not be provided since all have been out of the warranty period. Thanks for your understanding.

May I remind you that I purchased the products in Germany where we have a warranty period of 2 years by law?

landy2go Posted at 2018-5-21 01:21
May I remind you that I purchased the products in Germany where we have a warranty period of 2 years by law?

I know, the drone was activated on 2016-04-15 and it has been out of warranty period. In EU, all spare parts enjoy 2 years' warranty, while the battery only enjoys a warranty period of 1 year.

DJI Mindy Posted at 2018-5-21 03:16
I know, the drone was activated on 2016-04-15 and it has been out of warranty period. In EU, all spare parts enjoy 2 years' warranty, while the battery only enjoys a warranty period of 1 year.

Hi Mindy,

In a case like this, if the drone were to be repaired, would data analysys be done to find the actual cause of the drone falling out of the sky?

Even though the drone looks to be out of warranty, if there was/is a reason why the drone fell, as part of the repair you need to know exactly why the crash happened to ensure the repaired drone does not do the same. Also, it would be wise to do data analysis even if the drone was not repaired but used as parts to repair other drones to ensure you were not using potentially faulty parts.

I just find it odd that data analysis is not done after the drone is out of warranty.

Mavdude Posted at 2018-5-22 02:14
Hi Mindy,

In a case like this, if the drone were to be repaired, would data analysys be done to find the actual cause of the drone falling out of the sky?

Mavdude, thanks for your input, currently, according to DJI After-Sales Policy, data analysis will not be provided when the warranty period is expired since no matter what may cause the accident, the customer will still need to pay for the repair.
Even no data analysis, our repair team will still make damage assessment and flight test to make sure each part of the drone works perfectly.