CAA advise DJI Matrice 210 owners to not fly over people or property

I saw an interesting alert from CAA on Friday last week:

Which then instantly reminded me of this issue from six months ago:

:thinking:

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If it’s a motor:

I just wounder how many M210 operators or for that matter anyone flying a multi-rotor knows how to tell a worn out bearing?
I had a out runner motor failure some years ago and luckily from just a foot off the ground and just after takeoff, the motor flew off it’s mount and landed a few feet away, on further investigation I discovered that the bearing was worn out on that motor.

In order to determine the issue was the bearing, I reassembled the motor back together and felt for grittiness of the bearing which I could feel. I then checked for the run-out of the bell “Rotor” looseness and it became apparent that the “Rotor” was rubbing against the “Stator”.

The gap “air gap” between the “Rotor” and “Stator” is quite critical to the motors efficiency and has to be as small as possible but this “air gap” is changing in time due to the “Mechanical wear” of the bearings and eventually the “Rotor” comes into contact with the “Stator” leading to a catastrophic motor failure at spooling up while on the ground if you’re lucky or at some point during your flight.

I would recommend that everyone into “drones” to buy a cheap motor to take apart in order to familiarize themselves on how they are built and how easy it is to repair or replace worn out bearings.

I’ve rebuilt a few motors and I’m more than happy to share my experience, I do not want to appear as a know it all and I’m sure there’re others on here that know more, also a YouTube visit will reveal a wealth of information.

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Batteries are giving a false reading and there dropping out the sky like bricks

Interesting, I thought that was addressed some months ago with a firmware update?

It was indeed: Caution DJI TB50 & TB55 Battery Failure, CAA Aware - #18 by PingSpike

Does the Matrice take the same batteries? :thinking:

Yeah I’ve took lots of different motors apart. Drone motors, at least the ones I’ve had, are quite fragile, the shaft being secured only by an eclip and the magnetic attraction. The two bearings don’t do much of a job keeping it together if that clip wasn’t there.