Last week while flying my Inspire 2 it wouldn't respond to anything I tried with the RC and crashed into a wooded area. There was some decent carnage to the aircraft. It's in for repair right now and it appears to be fixable. I'm shocked but happy. It's out of warranty but I'm paying for data analysis to see if they can determine what happened. I have a tremendous amount of flight time on the I2 so I'm very curious as to the possible cause of the crash. I purchased the I2 the week it was originally announced by DJI. I've had (and have) a lot of their drones yet don't really trust them given some issues I've had over the years. It has the original firmware that came with it when first released. It's been pretty stable other than the original prop issue. Since I never updated the firmware I have a brand new crystal sky monitor that won't work sitting in a box collecting dust. Still using an old version of the app with an iPad mini. So... now it's being repaired. I'm actually having some additional parts replaced while its there. Any reason I should consider updating the firmware?
My Inspire 2 crashed. Thoughts on firmware...
- Thread starter SMD
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Who's repairing your bird? If that's DJI's facility, you'll pretty much get back different, refurbished Inspire with who knows what FW version. The only reason to consider FW update is compatibility with recent app versions and devices. Otherwise, once the cause of malfunctioning is determined and eliminated, it's up to you. Generally - if the bird is fully functional after fix - many users will advice not to update. It's always the luck of a draw how particular Inspire will behave after FW update, although recent .0300 version seem to work fine for most of us.
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DJI is fixing it. I had a small war with them already because initially I wanted to buy a brand new aircraft and have the licenses transferred. They said they wouldn't do it (transfer the licenses). If it was truly unrepairable I would have likely sued them because at this point I'm tired of their nonsense. They said that some of the parts could be "newish" to which I disagreed. I made the case that since it is not under warranty I want brand new parts. They wouldn't guarantee it but said it would be fully checked and be under warranty for 15 days. Such a bunch of BS. I told them DO NOT touch the firmware. I will be sending them another email to demands that again and if it's different when it returns I'm heading to small claims court. It's such nonsense (as you mentioned) that it's the luck of the draw how a particular Inspire will behave after FW update. I can't believe another company still can't compete within them. The days that is the case I'm out. Thanks for your reply
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Thing is that some of these "new-ish" parts may not cooperate well with old, outdated firmware. Most likely they'll be forced to update the FW in order to make your bird fully functional. To be honest it'll be unfair to blame them for this. That said, I had only good experience with Californian DJI repair facility by far, fixing damaged Zenmuse X5 and X5R cameras. Naturally Inspire is much more complex machine, more prone to behave a bit differently under somehow whimsical FW. That's what I meant by the luck of a draw. Still, the lion's share of Inspires out there is performing just fine.
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I'm afraid Dobmatt is right. Unfortunately, you're fighting an uphill battle. What seems reasonable to anyone with an I.Q. over 80 will be fought by the DJI repair machine. Lots of buck passing, citing of policy, ineptitude, laziness and piss-poor communication (on their part) will all be enemies of your seemingly simple, reasonable objective of NOT updating the firmware. To make things worse (as Dobmatt eluded to), new parts might not even be compatible with legacy firmware. My buddy got a gimbal controller back on his Inspire 1 that simply would NOT function on anything but the latest FW version. Maddening.
I wish I owned an I2 so I could tell you how to hack the thing. But alas, I don't. Any hacking I've done to my Mavic Pro, P4P and Inspire 1 will probably not help you with your I2.
I'm right there with you on a lawsuit. DJI has been getting away with the ridiculous for way far long IMHO. It's really too bad, because they make good hardware. It shouldn't be this hard to keep it in the air, get it repaired, get information, get support and/or fly it the way you want to. As far as I'm concerned, DJI's firmware/software division is a huge boat anchor on what could otherwise be a very sleek, reliable, high-performance platform. Every DJI product I own is hacked in one form or another.
D
I wish I owned an I2 so I could tell you how to hack the thing. But alas, I don't. Any hacking I've done to my Mavic Pro, P4P and Inspire 1 will probably not help you with your I2.
I'm right there with you on a lawsuit. DJI has been getting away with the ridiculous for way far long IMHO. It's really too bad, because they make good hardware. It shouldn't be this hard to keep it in the air, get it repaired, get information, get support and/or fly it the way you want to. As far as I'm concerned, DJI's firmware/software division is a huge boat anchor on what could otherwise be a very sleek, reliable, high-performance platform. Every DJI product I own is hacked in one form or another.
D
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Update: So I received my I2 back from DJI and all the firmware has been updated. I'm pretty pissed because it was a solid aircraft and never had a problem. One good thing is I can now use my Crystal Sky monitor.
Immediately after flying my updated aircraft I knew several things were not right. You know how you fly a particular Drone so much that any deviation is VERY obvious. The aircraft now wobbles. Imagine flying in zero wind in a straight line and watching it wobble from side to side. I can also hear some type of loose metal sound. I can't tell if something is misaligned or actually loose but it never made that sound in the past. So it's back to DJI on Tuesday. I've had many problems with DJI over the years and was on edge about this one from the beginning. I've also read multiple stories about owners sending it back 2, 3, 4 times and it's still not fixed. I truly hate how this company operates. At some point some other company will come along to challenge it. Can't wait for that day. Thanks everyone for your input.
Immediately after flying my updated aircraft I knew several things were not right. You know how you fly a particular Drone so much that any deviation is VERY obvious. The aircraft now wobbles. Imagine flying in zero wind in a straight line and watching it wobble from side to side. I can also hear some type of loose metal sound. I can't tell if something is misaligned or actually loose but it never made that sound in the past. So it's back to DJI on Tuesday. I've had many problems with DJI over the years and was on edge about this one from the beginning. I've also read multiple stories about owners sending it back 2, 3, 4 times and it's still not fixed. I truly hate how this company operates. At some point some other company will come along to challenge it. Can't wait for that day. Thanks everyone for your input.
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