So here's another update which is very interesting. 4 hours ago I paid for my repair and I just got an email saying it is finished and already shipped. When looking at the shipping details it has the serial number of the mavic mini which is different to the serial number of the one I sent them. Given the timing and the serial number, it looks as though they've just sent me a new one. Or possibly someone else's fixed/refurbished one, which actually makes sense from a logistics/waiting list point of view. Either way - I'm very happy with that I will have it back in a couple of days! Maybe even on Monday!

Putzy Posted at 11-22 03:01
NEWS JUST IN. I have my repair price for the broken arm. €90.75 which when converted into British pounds came to £81. Gotta say I'm pretty happy with the price. As the props had paint on them from the interior wall they hit, they are replacing them as well, which is fine even though the machine came with spare props. I'll probably need those spare ones anyway.

Here's the breakdown:

I guess that's another plus for getting a cheaper drone = cheaper repairs.

Putzy Posted at 11-22 03:01
NEWS JUST IN. I have my repair price for the broken arm. €90.75 which when converted into British pounds came to £81. Gotta say I'm pretty happy with the price. As the props had paint on them from the interior wall they hit, they are replacing them as well, which is fine even though the machine came with spare props. I'll probably need those spare ones anyway.

Here's the breakdown:

Happy to hear! Give me hope , i did not ship the propellers as they said not to include them (not broken so). If this is the case my cost will be around

50 euro shipping and say 100 euro for arms and return. That will be a lot easier to swallow. My drone was sent on Monday and arriving next Thursday as I see on tracking. Then a 5 day wait + a week for return and I should be up again!!! Fingers crossed! Thanks for shining some light in my direction

Then another 40 euro for dji care ;) fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!

Stopid1234 Posted at 11-22 17:09
Happy to hear! Give me hope , i did not ship the propellers as they said not to include them (not broken so). If this is the case my cost will be around

50 euro shipping and say 100 euro for arms and return. That will be a lot easier to swallow. My drone was sent on Monday and arriving next Thursday as I see on tracking. Then a 5 day wait + a week for return and I should be up again!!! Fingers crossed! Thanks for shining some light in my direction

I hope it goes well for and you get your drone back soon .

My mini arm broke before I could even fly it. Hoping refresh helps me out.

"It will take 1-2 working days to conduct damage assessment. Please wait patiently."

I was impatient the first hour it was broken! Jeez, what you guys expect hehe

Robin Dawe Posted at 11-23 21:53
My mini arm broke before I could even fly it. Hoping refresh helps me out.

How did that happen?

Stopid1234 Posted at 11-27 04:39
"It will take 1-2 working days to conduct damage assessment. Please wait patiently."

I was impatient the first hour it was broken! Jeez, what you guys expect  hehe

ya it's always something.

Got mine back today. Already paid for DJI care. Won't fly until the weekend when I can get to a field during the day.

So eager to fly!!!!!

Stopid1234 Posted at 11-27 04:39
"It will take 1-2 working days to conduct damage assessment. Please wait patiently."

I was impatient the first hour it was broken! Jeez, what you guys expect  hehe

Once you get the quote and pay though they send you a replacement mini same day.

But yeah I get the impatience. I must have checked the repair progress every 5 minutes the whole way through the process.

Sorry £81 for an arm repair?! I'm pleased to see you're happy with that but that's a ridiculous price.

Coming from FPV racing quads it costs roughly £12 including shipping to get a replacement frame arm (made out of carbon fiber and designed to withstand impacts such as hitting a tree at 65+mph (craft weight ~450g))

I'd be waiting until the parts are available to purchase separately and replace it myself as that repair price is insane.

Update:

Damage assessment is done, "Sent to your e-mail"..  Still not received it. Just as the first email was never sent to me. Called them, but they f**** tell me to send a e-mail. That is another 24 hours wait due to their incompetence.

Second problem: "Gimbal is stuck" they send a screenshot of their DJI App. I tested the Gimbal and all 4 motors before shipping it. I even uploaded the flight log for that, the gimbal was NOT stuck.. (Guessing they did the testing without removing the gimbal shield.. )

My birthday gift is more of a nightmare. Never buying DJI products again. Gonna get this crap repaired seriously considering to sell it.

Stopid1234 Posted at 11-28 06:06
Update:

Damage assessment is done, "Sent to your e-mail"..  Still not received it. Just as the first email was never sent to me. Called them, but they f**** tell me to send a e-mail. That is another 24 hours wait due to their incompetence.

I feel you, support is something out of this planet... I just cannot understand their manners, lack of help and attitude.

Matthew Dobrski Posted at 11-14 11:06
The best way to avoid such accidents as much as humanly possible is to read the manual. Second advice: read the manual. Finally, read the manual again ...

You can even learn the manual from the 1st to the last page. But you can't do s@#t about it when the toy loose signal and go crazy... Which is the case here from what i read.

116.41 EURO

Gimbal Axis Arm Module
Quantity: 1
Net Price : 29.75

Front Right Aircraft Arm
Quantity: 1
Net Price : 0.83

Front Left Aircraft Arm
Quantity: 1
Net Price : 0.83

Repair Service Fee
Quantity: 1
Net Price : 50.00

Freight
35.00

Wierd that the gimbal worked when I shipped it.. was "stuck" now..

Cap0ne Posted at 11-28 07:48
You can even learn the manual from the 1st to the last page. But you can't do s@#t about it when the toy loose signal and go crazy... Which is the case here from what i read.

Not really. OP stated that the accident happen due to WiFi connection lost when the drone was directed to fly behind a house. This situation is a major mistake, described clearly in every DJI manual. Maintaining LOS is the #1 rule in this business.

Ah man that’s rubbish what happened to your drone. Just crashed mine today so need to call DJI and see what they can do. Pretty bummed about it as I was only at a hover before it got bored of waiting for me to make a move and bank right then shot off into a tree across the road! Now I have scuff marks and cracks plus now propellers, I was able to reattach the rubber clips but so annoyed that it’s all scratched. Just wondering if anyone figured out the problem to this? Wonder if I can have it replaced?

Hey folks,

Let me join the Broken Mini Club! Been flying around since launch no problems, decided to take it up the hill to film with the Mountain Bikes this evening. Flew around no issues, got some shots and got a good idea of what the thing can do in the pitch black with only high power bike lights to follow. It did really well, I was impressed. It's an awesome little thing.

Decided to get a shot of a friend hitting some jumps. Now, we're in between trees at this point but enough space to maneuver. I had around 12/13 GPS sats moving in and out, no wind warnings. Only warning I had was an inadequate light warning. It lifted off, was very unstable. I tried to get a little bit of altitude... and with that it banked left and went straight into a tree. I could not regain control of it. Broken front arm and some damaged props. Everything else is fine and in app will allow take off (obviously I didn't try, but it would have let me).

I've signed up for a repair. I want DJI to have a look and see what happened. I fully expect pilot error, which is fine. I was pushing the limits by flying in the dark, it just did some really uncharacteristic things once it got into the air, and it has been nothing but rock solid every other flight. Flown it in the dark a few times, no issues.

@Putzy

Did DJI pay for your shipping out? If it's not warranty I assume you'll be charged for it after repair? Also, how many arms did you smash? I'm hoping my bill looks like yours. I've broken one arm and a few props.

djiuser_stlQNpwb5ZHN Posted at 11-28 15:50
Hey folks,

Let me join the Broken Mini Club! Been flying around since launch no problems, decided to take it up the hill to film with the Mountain Bikes this evening. Flew around no issues, got some shots and got a good idea of what the thing can do in the pitch black with only high power bike lights to follow. It did really well, I was impressed. It's an awesome little thing.

You are correct, on opening a case dji will set up courier to call to your home etc to pick up drone, when it arrives in your case holland they will assess your drone from the log to determine what might have happened, you will then be offered warranty OR given a quote to pay if you agree they will fix and return if you don’t they will return.

By the sounds of your crash and the warning low light I would imagine downward sensors not working because of bad light causing craft to move around, I could be wrong hopefully I am but wait and see .

hallmark007 Posted at 11-28 15:57
You are correct, on opening a case dji will set up courier to call to your home etc to pick up drone, when it arrives in your case holland they will assess your drone from the log to determine what might have happened, you will then be offered warranty OR given a quote to pay if you agree they will fix and return if you don’t they will return.

By the sounds of your crash and the warning low light I would imagine downward sensors not working because of bad light causing craft to move around, I could be wrong hopefully I am but wait and see .

Cool, thanks.

As for the crash... Yeah. I'll be very, very careful about flying it in low light from now on even though it performed so well during the flight I did before the crash. As soon as it took off I knew it was going down hard. It wouldn't sit still and this was in GPS mode. It wasn't even in the air for 40 seconds before it dunked itself.

Anyway, you live and learn and I've learned!

Matthew Dobrski Posted at 11-28 12:03
Not really. OP stated that the accident happen due to WiFi connection lost when the drone was directed to fly behind a house. This situation is a major mistake, described clearly in every DJI manual. Maintaining LOS is the #1 rule in this business.

True

I've flown FPV for about 5 years give or take. I'm not a "noob". I'm used to fly in manual mode and have a lot more control than what I have with the DJI Mavic Mini.

I'm also used to have a lot better connection with signal, but in this case if it was any other drone of mine I would have saved it. My bad was not to get used to how it flies, a LOT more. I had around 1-2 full batteries of flight. It is too early to do "stunts" like this.

Flying with FPV googles also is a bit easier than having the little phone screen, also having the bigger joysticks on my controller. So this is 100% my fault, I did pay for it and am probably gonna either bench this and sell it and continue with my home built drones instead or only have this for.. straight up and down shots. Not fly around, it is too fragile. Atleast until parts are for sale. I would easily pay 2 euro for the arms and fix them myself. Rather than the 160 euro I had to go out with now. (Where 75 euro is shipping!!!).

Stopid1234 Posted at 11-28 22:37
True

I've flown FPV for about 5 years give or take. I'm not a "noob". I'm used to fly in manual mode and have a lot more control than what I have with the DJI Mavic Mini.

Yes, certainly FPV world is way different than what DJI drones for aerial photography are offering. I'm sure that you're "nerd-ish" enough to fix any toy of this type. Unfortunately this is not what DJI would like to see ...

BradB111 Posted at 11-27 08:08
Sorry £81 for an arm repair?! I'm pleased to see you're happy with that but that's a ridiculous price.

Coming from FPV racing quads it costs roughly £12 including shipping to get a replacement frame arm (made out of carbon fiber and designed to withstand impacts such as hitting a tree at 65+mph (craft weight ~450g))

"get replacement arm" and "get arm replaced" are two very different things.
And I suspect you cannot change it yourself without losing the warranty.

However, as it seams a lot of people will be selling remotes soon,  I'm going to try range upgrade mod on remoute.

Looks like  mavic mini has  a faillure point ...all the broken arms  snap at the same exact place wether it crash from a  meter or 10 .....bad design ???

Gray Volk Posted at 11-29 00:39
"get replacement arm" and "get arm replaced" are two very different things.
And I suspect you cannot change it yourself without losing the warranty.

It will of course void warranty (if the warranty stickers are damaged/ if any) however is it 1 year?

For the sake of a £70 (approx) saving on repair cost its not worth it keeping the guarantee 'intact'.

You are correct that we are comparing an user action vs a paid service just that I don't think the repair cost (as a service) for 1 broken arm is reasonable at all. Considering £10 would be a reasonable cost for the part + delivery (if not an over estimation) for a user to carry out the repair themselves.

I'm sure if DJI charged £20 for a service to replace props for you (and they didn't let customers purchase them separately) people would soon raise concern. Luckily for my experience in messing with / repairing electronics, replacing an arm, gimbal, soldering on a new set of motors is barely more difficult than replacing a set of props to me personally. Why aren't the parts available to those comfortable in carrying out their own repairs?

Compare this to the frame manufacturer "Armattan" If you contact their warranty department and say.
"Hello I flew my fpv quad built in your frame into a metal pole at full speed (85-110 mph) trying to do a high speed turn around it and 2 of the arms have broke"
after proving you own a genuine Armattan frame you'd have the parts sent to you in the post free of charge (may have to pay postage, I don't know as I've not broken any armattan frames yet.... touch wood). Again these are high quality carbon fibre parts.

What we're talking about here is a piece of plastic DJI are charging <£1 (going from the earlier breakdown) and putting a huge markup on it. (understandable this is a service, however it is the ONLY option to restore your Mavic Mini to full health and not a fair one in my opinion)

Knowing the 2 following things:
1. The price of the part to DJI (<£1)
2. My ability to be able to repair it myself
I would be incredibly reluctant to spend 1/4 the price of a new Mavic Mini on repairing 1 broken arm.

Going off that its just as cost effective (if not more so) to order another Mavic Mini but along with the 4 replacement arms I'll have:
-replacement main shell
-replacement motors
-replacement camera
-replacement gimbal parts
-replacement main board
-replacement gps module
-replacement remote
-spare battery

I'm beginning to understand why right to repair is becoming a thing in the states as this seems like a very similar scenario to how the repairs of Apple products are handled. Search "Louis Rossmann" on YouTube.

We have now had to to do 2 repairs on a Mavic Mini just in 2 weeks. Both times the front arm snapped. The first time a child picked it up and barely touched it and it broke. The second time it touched a small branch on a tree but was not a hard impact. We too didn't know about Refresh and are now having to spend our second £100 on repair as we need it for a shoot on Thursday. I don't think they're very robust and apparently are the only drones to not have sensors on that stop them hitting things - this probably is one of the ways they've managed to make them so lightweight.

Can you leave the protective cages on the whole time?

THE ARMS ARE VERY FRAGILE. Fly with extra caution.  We are absolutely gutted.

BradB111 Posted at 11-27 08:08
Sorry £81 for an arm repair?! I'm pleased to see you're happy with that but that's a ridiculous price.

Coming from FPV racing quads it costs roughly £12 including shipping to get a replacement frame arm (made out of carbon fiber and designed to withstand impacts such as hitting a tree at 65+mph (craft weight ~450g))

They have to replace the whole central motor too as it's connected to the arm. That's why

charliebrown Posted at 12-2 04:52
We have now had to to do 2 repairs on a Mavic Mini just in 2 weeks. Both times the front arm snapped. The first time a child picked it up and barely touched it and it broke. The second time it touched a small branch on a tree but was not a hard impact. We too didn't know about Refresh and are now having to spend our second £100 on repair as we need it for a shoot on Thursday. I don't think they're very robust and apparently are the only drones to not have sensors on that stop them hitting things - this probably is one of the ways they've managed to make them so lightweight.

Can you leave the protective cages on the whole time?

Yeah, the arm on my Mini snapped in exactly the same place as the OP's.

charliebrown Posted at 12-2 04:56
They have to replace the whole central motor too as it's connected to the arm. That's why

Not if you know how to unscrew the motor from the plastic base on the end of the arm, de-solder the motor from the ESC board, screw the motor onto the new replacement arm and re-solder the motor to the ESC.
20 minute job easily.

I build and fly high performance racing / freestyle quads "drones" as a hobby I must have done the above steps close to 100 times by now.

In fact you could buy the equipment needed to carry out your own arm repair (including the arm) for not even 1/3rd the price DJI are charging.

Soldering is also extremely easy to pick up and learn. About as difficult as using a hot glue gun.

Sad to read these stories. I got my Mini off Apple store, and bought the DJI care from DJI. Registered it 24 hours after I activated the drone. Any way I can check that it is actually activated, and linked to my drone serial number?

Are people really not choosing to buy the refresh? Seems like a no brainer, £35 to ensure im covered for breaking it in the next year

Crummett Posted at 12-4 07:25
Are people really not choosing to buy the refresh? Seems like a no brainer, £35 to ensure im covered for breaking it in the next year

More  a part of "did not know about that", went in. Picked up the kit, paid and ran to fly.

That is an absolute 100% worth it the extra 35.. (50 in Norway though, because the Norwegian country loves to rip ya off).

Gonna buy it from DJI them self for 35 now when I get it back!

Stopid1234 Posted at 12-4 12:39
More  a part of "did not know about that", went in. Picked up the kit, paid and ran to fly.

That is an absolute 100% worth it the extra 35.. (50 in Norway though, because the Norwegian country loves to rip ya off).

I understand this may happened and will happen to a lot of other pilots. I commented in another new post, the difference between having to wait weeks, reading manual, tutorials, Youtube, and this forum, makes you learn and be aware of so much stuff.
Keep us posted when you get your unit back!

Anyone know how I can get DJI Care after a repair? I have not gotten ANY emails. Waiting the 14 days since I sent it and now It is returning. Still no e-mails. Can I fly it and get care when I receive it? Tried to use my serial number to get it but no luck

Update: New drone received, had new serial number (so not the same, which is wierd because I waited 2 days for QA and Flight testing of the fixed drone..) but good for me I could register DJI care right away and fly. But I'll let this stay a while in the bag until the DJI care confirmation is in box. Hopefully the service with DJI Care is much better than without. Firmware upgraded to V01.00.0300 also no problems!

Glad to hear you've got your drone back, Stopid

I just got word back from DJI today. It's being fixed under the warranty. I believe that confirms I did lose control of it, long enough for it to throw itself into a tree anyway.  I'm a little concerned it'll happen again now. But hopefully DJI get things ironed out with updates etc.

Bro do you have any pic? Maybe i can help

BradB111 Posted at 12-4 06:35
Not if you know how to unscrew the motor from the plastic base on the end of the arm, de-solder the motor from the ESC board, screw the motor onto the new replacement arm and re-solder the motor to the ESC.
20 minute job easily.

Hi Brad, can you send a link? Also where do you get the parts?

Thanks,

Crummett Posted at 12-4 07:25
Are people really not choosing to buy the refresh? Seems like a no brainer, £35 to ensure im covered for breaking it in the next year

I think people don't know about it

can someone post their flying check list prior ?to flying?