Bricked Inspire 1, Has enybody ever seen this ...

Craig Patterson · Sep 29, 2015

I was on a job 2 days ago with 2 Inspires. I flew both on Saturday with no problems. Cleaned, checked and charged them Saturday night for shooting on Sunday. Got up Sunday morning and went to start one, it came out of transport mode ok, but wouldn't initialize and had no flashing RGB light. It just beeps. See video.

I thought, that's ok, I'll just grab the backup Inspire and use that ... um ... no, the back up is doing exactly the same thing !

The only common denominator I can think of that may have effected both Inspires is environmental. We were filming an offroad race and it was very dusty. Another factor could be vibration. We were traveling between locations in a chase vehicle at high speed on very rough roads, but the Inspires were in their cases and we had 5 other cameras on board that were all ok.

I have run out of ideas and confidence in DJI, I guess they are off to China ... AGAIN !!!

Aviator · Sep 29, 2015

Are the batteries fully charged because there are no lights on the battery when you start up?
Try removing the battery and performing the two click start, if you don't get any lights on the battery, it would look like a battery error..

Scotflieger · Sep 29, 2015

As @Aviator suggests try testing and powering up the battery away from the aircraft to see that the LEDs are correct. I would also check with another battery.

inspire909 · Sep 29, 2015

it almost looks like the battery is too low to start up the craft. i would definitely
try another battery

Aviator · Sep 29, 2015

Yeah, I suspect you pulled that battery from the first inspire and put it into the second one, hence the same fault...

Craig Patterson · Sep 29, 2015

Aviator said:
Are the batteries fully charged because there are no lights on the battery when you start up?
Try removing the battery and performing the two click start, if you don't get any lights on the battery, it would look like a battery error..

Hi, yeah the battery is fully charged. You cant see the lights because of the angle of the camera and it was shot in bright sunlight.

Craig Patterson · Sep 30, 2015

The batteries are not the issue. They are all fully charged and I have tried multiple different batteries in both air frames and the same fault still exists.

The Editor · Oct 1, 2015

Craig Patterson said:
The batteries are not the issue. They are all fully charged and I have tried multiple different batteries in both air frames and the same fault still exists.

My guess would be in this instance that the IMU's have become damaged/stuck.
Unfortunately, without a start up initialization you will be unable to get into the app to calibrate them.
If you are VERY familiar with multirotor builds and you know what you are doing you could try removing the flight controller and resetting/shocking the sensors back into place - It is relatively easy on the Naza family of FC, not so much on the Inspire. I would not recommend this unless you absolutely confident in your strip down and rebuild skills.

Craig Patterson · Oct 1, 2015

The Editor said:
My guess would be in this instance that the IMU's have become damaged/stuck.
Unfortunately, without a start up initialization you will be unable to get into the app to calibrate them.
If you are VERY familiar with multirotor builds and you know what you are doing you could try removing the flight controller and resetting/shocking the sensors back into place - It is relatively easy on the Naza family of FC, not so much on the Inspire. I would not recommend this unless you absolutely confident in your strip down and rebuild skills.

Hi, Thanks for the reply.
I have a electronic/mechanical engineering background and have been building multirotors for years, so the strip down rebuild is no problem. Can you tell me more about the IMU reset procedure. My first ever FC was a Naza, but after some dubious performance I switched to APM and Pixhawk, and have never looked back. I am not familiar with the procedure. How is the reset performed ?

The Editor · Oct 1, 2015

Craig Patterson said:
Hi, Thanks for the reply.
I have a electronic/mechanical engineering background and have been building multirotors for years, so the strip down rebuild is no problem. Can you tell me more about the IMU reset procedure. My first ever FC was a Naza, but after some dubious performance I switched to APM and Pixhawk, and have never looked back. I am not familiar with the procedure. How is the reset performed ?

You have a PM.

Mike Mas · Oct 4, 2015

This problem is caused by corrupt firmware in the inspire it's the same warning you get with a bad install stick the 1.4 firmware in the camera and leave it alone it will beep for up to 15-20 minutes then stop and reload the firmware.

Craig Patterson · Oct 5, 2015

FIXED !!!

Thanks for all your help guys
A firmware reinstall, and a TX rebind = Good to go.

Mike Mas · Oct 5, 2015

Your Welcome glad to help!

Mike Mas · Oct 5, 2015

By the way what did you do that night to screw up both machines firmware anything?

Craig Patterson · Oct 6, 2015

Mike Mas said:
By the way what did you do that night to screw up both machines firmware anything?

No, they were just cleaned and put to bed. We were operating in a very dusty environment so the inspires were air dusted and batteries charged.
I have concluded the faults were caused by excessive vibration in transit. The vibrations were greater than the IMU parameters would allow, and that put the IMU into a fault state that shut down the Inspire. Performing the firmware reinstall and rebind, checks all the systems and resets the IMU.
It's possibly a fail safe to force operators to a system check after a heavy impact or crash.

Mike Mas · Oct 6, 2015

I would look else where - there is no way vibration or any incorrect calibration could corrupt the firmware - also the possibility of happening to two machines at the same time would be in the billion to 1 odds.

Do you owe anyone a lot of money or dating your best fiends girlfriend - It has to be a fiend who hates you! lol

Craig Patterson · Oct 8, 2015

I'm not saying the firmware was corrupt. The odds of something happening to two machines at the same time is extremely likely if the cause is environmental, ie both machines exposed to dust and extreme vibration at the same time and they end up in the same fault state. Re loading the firmware clears the fault and resets the system.