I lost my first drone, totally my fault for buying after market props.
The story is…I was getting a lot of overspeed error messages with the mini, so I checked the blades and they were worn. I should have noticed this earlier but being a novice I didn’t do the pre/post flight checks as often as I should. So being a tight yorkshireman, I bought some brightly coloured aftermarket prop blades form my chinese suplier !!
Fitted them and all seemed well from my test flight around the garden. The next day I took a motorcycle ride to Boroughbridge and stopped off to fly over the river, which is a nice place to fly. Big mistake. The drone took off well and made it over the river, where it decided to spiral out of the air. Video cache from my phone here
Anyhow, please don’t buy cheap replacement parts for your DJI drone.
Learn by my mistake.
Hi. I’m sorry that you lost your drone, I don’t know if your drone was a mini 2 or the older mini but what I did notice is that you took off too close to an uninvolved member of the public sat on a seat reading a book, if your drone had come down earlier you may have been faced with a bad accident. Don’t think I’m getting on to you but we have always got to be aware of our surroundings.
After market props are for self builders in my opinion and those from DJI are only £15 a set, so not exactly a huge expense, unlike the drone of course. In all my flights, I have yet to find any damage on any of my props, but not exactly much of a risk taker. I have the mini 2 myself and it was a substantial investment for me, despite selling my original Mini, to help pay for it…
Yeah as others have said lesson learned and at least you have another drone… Like a few have said on a few very risky drone flights, better to risk a mini/ Mini2, than one of the more expensive drone. Did you see that one that came into contact with lava, and actually returned home, despite having melted most of the lower body away in the process…Crazy stuff and surprisingly the props appeared to have come out of the whole ordeal, totally ok, but then since they were spinning, I guess the airflow kept them just cool enough to prevent a total loss
Being a fellow drone loser I feel that pain. Mine was a 2nd hand DJI Phantom 3 that got thrown into a high tree by a freak gust of wind. I was never able to locate it, and ultimately believe it had fallen into a water pit at the local quarry where I was flying - or at least that’s my assumption as I’d never got close enough (undergrowth too thick, etc) to be sure. But the tall trees were right by the water’s edge.
In thinking about your issue, I can’t think of any reason why after market props would cause a device to spin out of control except for one coming loose (i.e. had not been secured on fully) or completely breaking up. As you haven’t been able to retrieve it we’ll never know unless as suggested above you get the logs off your phone.
FWIW: On my original Mavic Air, I have successfully used the Master Airscrew props for >2yrs with no problems. They reduce the noise, and extend the flight time so worth the pennies IMO.
