The cracks keep coming!

[alokbhargava]

Let members discuss the topic, you need not shout. We are discussing the root cause of the problem and don't expect filthy language. I have over 40 years of design experience in mech, aerodynamics, electrical, controls, electronics and software. I analyze and then say, not just throw my words. Whereas I see you are just throwing your weight, acting on behalf of DJI, and use any insulting language you feel necessary to shoot others. This is not healthy way of discussions. All members need to show due respect to others. You are treating discussions as game of winning or losing, that's very surprising.

Not sure why are you losing your cool.

 

[bukaka19]

I have the og shell and motors and I fly this thing crazy trying to produce cracks. Doesn't work it's solid. Although I never crashed or have hard landings

 

[mikeCtv]

III% Streve are you really comparing a $1,300 quad copter to a $1.00 light buld? Really?

 

[III% Streve]

I have the og shell and motors and I fly this thing crazy trying to produce cracks. Doesn't work it's solid. Although I never crashed or have hard landings

There are hundreds of thousands of us. The few with problems just dont get it

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

[III% Streve]

III% Streve are you really comparing a $1,300 quad copter to a $1.00 light buld? Really?

Its fairly obvious that I am. Everything has a failure rate. No matter what it is! How many Toyotas have been recalled? Or any other auto maker? The cost of the product only changes what the initial and repair costs are. The opportunity for flaws comes from production no matter what.

 

[alokbhargava]

Over 40 years? Yet youre only 45? Youre a joke. The only thing I'm 'getting' out of this is a good laugh as you dig your hole deeper. Your discussion was over before you tried joining it. It is, and has always been, known that there is a flaw in the production of a few P3 cases. It was addressed by DJI and a good percentage of the affected customers. Those customers are nothing but happy. YOU are doing nothing but trying to add salt to an already healed wound. While at the same time entertaining those of us that know the entire situation. The entire community would be better off if people like you, those with imaginary backgrounds and exaggerated experience, simply didnt exist. You bring nothing but childish drama.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

Yes I do have 40+ years of industrial experience. Let's not talk about age etc. You can laugh, laughing is good for health.

First you used dirty language against me, showed disrespect, made fun of me and now suggesting to eliminate me from the forum just because I don't agree that it's only a production problem.

Forum allows people to present their views freely. Let's not snub anyone. Every view may have some useful information that could be helpful to others.

 

[mikeCtv]

It is more than a production problem, if you read allot of post here DJI is just looking like a bad company as far as the way they treat their customers. How much $$$ do you think it actually cost to produce a P3? If you said $11 dollars you would probably be right, nice markup. DJI should have a replacement policy instead of a repair program. I just got a brand new iPhone 6plus because Apple realized there was a batch of bad cameras in a block of their production run. They sent me a new one free of any charges and I just had to ship the bad one back after I received the new one. That is customer service.

 

[Deleted member 39682]

After 7 flights I have cracks under 3 of my motor mounts. P3P is just 2 weeks old. Is this just the way it is going to be? Get cracks send it back and wait? Any good thoughts on self repairs or don't buy another one? DJI if you're reading, pick a finger, I did not spend my hard earned cash to have to play with customer service (word is yours sucks) are we going to put up with this or start recommending not to buy DJI Phatoms?

Dear Mike,
I was ready to sell everything because of DJI policies, but after calming down I went to plan (B).
I was willing to void my warranty, all I asked DJI for was an updated shell. My local hobby store has a very good repair department and the turn around is 1 or 2 days. The store has a flat fee of $60.00 labor to replace Phantom 3 shells. I asked DJI, who would request a shell that did not need one and was willing to void their warranty. I was told to send it back and they would replace it or I could buy the shell for $59.00. They reminded me that my warrenty would be voided. (Thats Cold)
I will buy a shell but not from DJI. I called my local hobby store and for some reason the Phantom 3 shells are on back order.
Still waiting.
Best Regards,
William E. Burrows Jr.

 

[mikeCtv]

William who is your repair guy lets throw him some business. I rather go to a good guy and pay a fair price than to deal with DJI

 

[JoeyJoe]

Because its true! There are over 30000 members on here. Even if you were to ignorantly say that only 10% of those here have P3s, and went and counted the actual number of people that have reported cracks, you would have WAY less than 1%. DJI is selling far beyond 30000 units a month now. So sure, there are a lot of people with cracks, but from our VERY large sampling, less than 1%! Light bulbs have a higher DOA rating than that and no one is crying about it. Get some facts, then get your priorities strait! Any baboon has an imagination. It takes a few brain cells to apply logic though. Coming here a few days ago and doing nothing but blow smoke out your backside DOESNT make the the latter!

Light bulbs is a bad analogy Streve. At 50 years old now, I have purchased hundreds of light bulbs including automobile (head lights, cabin lights, brake lights, etc), regular incandescent, LED, halogen, fluorescent, CFL and I have never had one DOA or even die prematurely unless there was some sort of electrical issue.
I have had a few that were broken, as in shattered glass due to packaging/shipping issues though.

Bottom line is that DJI is aware of shell cracks and will replace them free of charge.
Of course shell cracks should not happen but it is happening. So if it does happen to you, send your bird in and get it fixed and then go fly.

The idea of a class action against DJI is a no win for individuals like us, only the lawyers will win.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

The forum is for discussion, not arguing and berating other members. I am asking the participants here to respect the others here and to stop the bickering. Keep it friendly or warnings will follow.

 

[alokbhargava]

It is more than a production problem, if you read allot of post here DJI is just looking like a bad company as far as the way they treat their customers. How much $$$ do you think it actually cost to produce a P3? If you said $11 dollars you would probably be right, nice markup. DJI should have a replacement policy instead of a repair program. I just got a brand new iPhone 6plus because Apple realized there was a batch of bad cameras in a block of their production run. They sent me a new one free of any charges and I just had to ship the bad one back after I received the new one. That is customer service.

1. Production problem means one is unable to produce the targeted quantities. But what we have seen is a bad quality so its not a production problem, its a QUALITY ASSURANCE issue. DJI needs to strengthen their QA norms/ teams.

2. Secondly, how DJI came to know about the issue? ..through customer feedback. If production capacity is 30,000 per day and it took 15 days to correct the situation, 450,000 units must have been produced with the same design/ material. So 450,000 pieces are "few" pieces for DJI. Is that correct?

 

[LuvMyTJ]

I can say this about that. If you have not worked in a mold shop, or run molding presses, or don't have direct knowledge of molding equipment, I could see where you may not be able to understand the process. These shells are made in a factory, maybe more than one factory, maybe by outside contractors not directly owned by DJI (this scenario is very likely since the demand is high). They are also made on more than one press, most likely several in each shop. Each machine has its own settings (and they can be finicky) and white parts are a real pain to run. The shop or shops may have a good supply of resins, or maybe they order from several suppliers leading to variations. Many different conditions can affect the final part. Parts are sampled at the start of a run for approval on each machine at each startup. Then again periodically throughout the run. The machines making these shells may be run by a human operator, or more likely a robot. If a problem is not detected right away, they might make quite a few before the run stops for corrections. The shops making these for DJI may send some of those parts out either knowingly or unknowingly. Now there are bad parts in the wild. DJI stepped up and took responsibility and let buyers know if they have an issue to let them know and they will replace it. Now we know DJI recognized the problem and changed the design. So was it a bad run of shells, bad design, or both?
Someone mentioned Apple. Apple has had many issues in the past that they took forever to recognize as a real problem (antennagate anyone?). When it becomes inevitable they step up and do the right thing. Companies will try to cover their bottom line. You can bet this is costing DJI a fortune to correct, just in mold redesign alone.
Hopefully you never have it happen to yours, but if it does, send it back and get it fixed.
There is lots of companies coming up so if DJI wants to keep its edge they will have to keep improving or get passed by the competition.

 

[alokbhargava]

I can say this about that. If you have not worked in a mold shop, or run molding presses, or don't have direct knowledge of molding equipment, I could see where you may not be able to understand the process. These shells are made in a factory, maybe more than one factory, maybe by outside contractors not directly owned by DJI (this scenario is very likely since the demand is high). They are also made on more than one press, most likely several in each shop. Each machine has its own settings (and they can be finicky) and white parts are a real pain to run. The shop or shops may have a good supply of resins, or maybe they order from several suppliers leading to variations. Many different conditions can affect the final part. Parts are sampled at the start of a run for approval on each machine at each startup. Then again periodically throughout the run. The machines making these shells may be run by a human operator, or more likely a robot. If a problem is not detected right away, they might make quite a few before the run stops for corrections. The shops making these for DJI may send some of those parts out either knowingly or unknowingly. Now there are bad parts in the wild. DJI stepped up and took responsibility and let buyers know if they have an issue to let them know and they will replace it. Now we know DJI recognized the problem and changed the design. So was it a bad run of shells, bad design, or both?
Someone mentioned Apple. Apple has had many issues in the past that they took forever to recognize as a real problem (antennagate anyone?). When it becomes inevitable they step up and do the right thing. Companies will try to cover their bottom line. You can bet this is costing DJI a fortune to correct, just in mold redesign alone.
Hopefully you never have it happen to yours, but if it does, send it back and get it fixed.
There is lots of companies coming up so if DJI wants to keep its edge they will have to keep improving or get passed by the competition.

Great message!!!

With your reply its clear that

1. Previous design was critical and issue got further complexed with suppliers quality issues
2. DJI quickly acted to redesign it and came out with a better solution

Appreciate efforts of DJI!!!!

Yes Apple had antenna issues on iPhone 4 and issued free phone cases to all to resolve the issue and subsequently modified the design in 4S. It was not a very critical issue but as Apple is expected to make a great design, media raised the issue everywhere and Apple had to issue free cases to all who bought new iPhones.

In case of DJI, we expect that all replacements of shell cracking should be made with new designs (free or at a very nominal charge) else customer might face the issue again. This will be called a GOOD Customer Service and DJI will win the hearts of customers overnight.

What is more irritating today is that some of the reps keep on insisting that there were no design issues on shells and DJI is doing a favor by offering free repairs. All of us are with DJI as we love their products but few so called reps are damaging the image of DJI for no good reason.

 

[LuvMyTJ]

I think DJI is attempting to solve their customer support issues. It seems they grew so big, so fast they were not able to keep up. Chalk it up to growing pains. I have seen reports of much better CS coming in so they must be doing something better.

 

[hola hey]

I bought my P3P after DJI became aware of the problems. However, it was the older model that appears to be subject to cracking. I was not aware of the problems until just recently. So, I was sold a product that was known to be defective at full price. By the time I learned of the problem, it was too late to return the drone to Best Buy.

I don't expect that I can sell this drone or would have to take a substantial loss if I do because it is easily identified as a drone that could be defective.

DJI's offer to replace the shell if it cracks does not compensate me for that loss.

Does anyone know if DJI is offering to replace drones that were sold under these circumstances?

 

[mikeCtv]

Someone posted you can buy a new shell and he has a repair shop that does the swap out for $60. I already reached out to him for the name of his shop. I am going to buy a new shell.

 

[hola hey]

They did make a statement. And it was attached to the announcement that they would take care of any P3 that showed signs of cracking. There is a problem, and there is a solution. Yet people still cry and moan for more. Its nothing but over entitlement and a pathetic gimmy gimmy attitude! If you sh!t is broke let them fix it. If it isnt broke then go fly it. If it was broke, but is now fixed, then go fly it. Its all REALLY simple!! The only epidemic involved is the exaggeration and crying.

Could you please post a copy of the statement? I have not been able to locate it.

 

[mikeCtv]

Here is the copied text: Dear Mike,
I was ready to sell everything because of DJI policies, but after calming down I went to plan (B).
I was willing to void my warranty, all I asked DJI for was an updated shell. My local hobby store has a very good repair department and the turn around is 1 or 2 days. The store has a flat fee of $60.00 labor to replace Phantom 3 shells. I asked DJI, who would request a shell that did not need one and was willing to void their warranty. I was told to send it back and they would replace it or I could buy the shell for $59.00. They reminded me that my warrenty would be voided. (Thats Cold)
I will buy a shell but not from DJI. I called my local hobby store and for some reason the Phantom 3 shells are on back order.
Still waiting.
Best Regards,
William E. Burrows Jr.

 

[bobmyers]

It isn't necessary to defend DJI by trolling folks who are trying to figure out how to solve this problem. DJI is a multinational corporation with lots of money and lawyers who can do that if somebody on these lists is saying something that's not true.

The cost of these drones takes them out of the category of crap that you expect to break. The marketing also creates an expectation of high quality.

The number of similar complaints about new drones cracking within a handful of flights is troubling. DJI also seems to recognize that there is a problem since they are making the replacements under warranty.

DJI should issue some sort of statement on this to let folks know the severity and extent of this problem. Until then, sarcasm and trolling is not going to fix anything.

To my recollection, this shell issue has be argued for months on end-- and probably will continue to be-- with no clear cut answer for some- and from that the sarcasm and trolling will probably continue unless the Forum shuts it down-- or maybe the shell issue should have it's own special discussion space.

New comer's to the forum with cracking issues, come in with the "same ol same ol" arguments and rants against the DJI and how they should react to their complaints.

I guess all the complaints have improved DJI's customer service, because a telephone call usually results in and RMA and the offer to replace the defective shell. From what I have seen on the forum lately, the service time has only been a couple of weeks-- a vast improvement.

For some that is not good enough, demands now extend to new arm stickers, newer shells, newer motors, and whatever. We will still be reading about cracking shells after the P4 comes out.

On to something more productive. (sigh)