Phantom 3 Pro Repairs

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A friend of a friend had found a Phantom 3 Pro north of Houston Texas in a tree a few months back(if anyone here might have lost one and can tell me where)..after some looking for the owner with no luck and knowing I had been messing with some raspberry pi based robotics projects it eventually found itself in my hands. My neighbor had as luck would have it had a friend who lost his a year or so ago in a lake and kept the controller meaning to put it on ebay after upgrading to a phantom4.

Presently out no money so far happily but found it was in a tree for a reason... Needless to say it's been an interesting little project that has me short the funds but not the desire to go buy one. Selling some underwater camera gear if anyone's interested to fund it :)

But to my point...

Tried updating the firmware which failed and After getting the controller it wouldn't bind and I figured the drone was toast. I popped the cover open though and found two cables were disconnected as well as a capacitor had popped off. Put the capacitor back with some hot glue(not sure what sort of rubber cement DJI had used but seems to have worked) and now the remote picked it up. Tried it without the props and everything fired up it seemed. Even was able to flash it to the latest firmware so it stopped beeping at me now. I also came to find none of the body screws were in it so whomever owned it had been messing around. There are also two small wired that should be attached near where two of the motors attach to the main board. They appear to be deliberately cut. I'm not sure what they are for, initially thought the LED's but after last night wondering if they go to an ESC like the bigger copters I've been looking into building use. I could not solder them back to where they appeared to go...need something to clean the pad with first maybe.

Which gets me to where we are now.
Initially I don't know if I did the calibration wrong but the drone would just flip over(on the cement) and wouldn't shut down. Busted the remaining three props pretty good. After going down a wrong road on what I thought was wrong I recalibrated it and it went up but with three broken props I couldn't land it in time before it swung into a tree. Three motors are deactivating when they can't move but one keeps running at full speed and never shuts off till I pull the battery. It in fact got so hot I burned myself on it 5 minutes later while the others were cool. Turning it off with the battery button doesn't seem to work once the motors are going which seems inherently dangerous to do. Is this a normal behavior, or is there something more wrong?

In other news I found where to name the drone in the app last night...any idea if I can locate the owner based on that not that I'm entirely looking to give it up after the effort I've put towards resuscitating it at this point. From here on out though I'm going to have to actually invest some money into it though.
 
Wow. Well first of all trying to fly with damaged props was very unwise. Clearly the bird has issues. Gluing a capacitor onto a pc board without resoldering also isnt wise. Screws missing, wires cut, all these things should have screamed DO NOT FLY!!! It tipped over on take off due to damaged props and that only made things worse. One of more of the ESC'S are likely fried now. It will need some serious repairs before it is ever airworthy now.
 
The units serial number should provide info on the owner. Contact DJI with the serial number and they should have the owner's email on file.
 
The units serial number should provide info on the owner. Contact DJI with the serial number and they should have the owner's email on file.
Are you aware of any instance where DII has helped reunite a lost drone with its owner? Would be nice to see. From what has been posted around the forums earlier attempts at engaging DJI for assistance in this regard went nowhere.
 
Are you aware of any instance where DII has helped reunite a lost drone with its owner? Would be nice to see. From what has been posted around the forums earlier attempts at engaging DJI for assistance in this regard went nowhere.
Yes I recently saw a thread where someone found a Phantom, contacted DJI with a message saying he found a drone with such and such serial number and gave them his email address to forward to the owner. Dji did so and the two met and he got his drone back.
Here is the thread: Found DJI Phantom Drone in Gatlinburg, TN
 
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