Fascinating and fantastic teardown. Impressive how well modularized and technical friendly. (won't say consumer friendly, as going this deep requires some basic knowledge to stay out of trouble) Thanks for doing this.
Many thanks for this helpful tear down video. I plan on doing a rebuild video of the Avata for my channel. Videos like this help in my research. Thankfully parts are starting to become available. Now it's off to find a broken Avata.
At 11:48 you mention the glue they place inside the screw head. The glue is fluorescent. It will glow if you hit it with UV or violet light. I'm pretty sure it's a way to detect if someone has taken the drone apart. I love to tear stuff down. I occasionally even put the stuff back together. I really need to start recording my teardowns. In the past I've posted photos of some teardowns on my Hackaday IO page. If anyone is interested, I have photos of inside of the DJI grey controller used with FPV Drone and Avata. I also have some teardown photos of DJI's RoboMaster S1 on my Hackaday page. The RoboMaster S1 had lots of screws with the fluorescent glue. Thanks for the teardown Ian.
I'm just thinking, how come dji electronics are so reliable, in terms of consumer cine drone electronics not vistas and air units, whenever someone buys a mavic etc they are more than confident to fly it over water etc. I haven't heard often of mavic falling out of the air due to electronic faliure. I wonder if DJI could make 4 in 1 eses for us to buy and be promised 99% reliablilty. You think thats possible
GPS, and altitude vision enable position hold capability, which allows a pilot to pause and think through next flight actions. (ie: not 100% focused on flying) As far as ESCs, good cooling via heatsinks, and likely good margin in current specs ensure not overheating. Software is also a factor in reliability.
You also gotta remember these ESCs aren't being it hard at all, my phantom 4, a 9" drone, draws 15 amps on avarage cruising. A mini quad draws upwards of hundreds of amps, it's just incredibly hard to design and build electronics that can handle those loads and especially loads where one second you're drawing 5 amps total, and another second you're pulling 160 amps out the battery driving motors that are spinning 500 times a second
Thank you very much. Good and detailed report, now we can only wait for DJI to release the spare parts on the market so that we can sink our drones, which I already did.
Hi Mads, yesterday I had my yaw tumble experience which made my avata drop from 25m height, while I was editing the video I observed that when the issue happened my height changed virtually from 25m to 34m. Could a barometer issue be causing the tumble? Do you see any hole on the gps module that could be from where the barometer is linked to the outside world? Im wondering if the issue is actually caused by a depression inside the gps house, which makes the barometer gets a wrong altitude reading making the IMU freak out while doing a sharp turn. Im going to try to make a whole on my GPS module to see if it sorted the tumble isso by equalizing the inside and outside pressure.
Hi. I have this issue, "height is changing randomly from REAL HEGHT to -10 to -15m in goggles telemetry" (but not changing the real dron's height), did you solve your problem ? I see 4 holes at the corners on GPS MODULE
Hello and thanks for the informative videos. I ordered my first Avata as soon as it was made available. It arrived but I never managed to even start it. There was a esc error as soon as I connected it. Returned it and ordered another one. Came about 20 days ago. All good, been flown only 4-5 times due to strong winds where I live. Finally yesterday after a very small crash that broke one blade from my prop, it flew again and got another two flights before it happened again! Esc error and since I'm unable to start it. I'm really disappointed with dji. I've had almost every consumer drone they ever made including the fpv of last year. Never experienced this before. Since you know every connection on the esc and board, do you have any idea or suggestions as to what can be wrong before I send it back again and wait for more than a month to get another one? Greetings from Greece and thanks for the reply.
We need a decent teardown of the Mavic 3 pro.the rc pro has got dead pixels and didn’t wanna send in to DJI. They told me to send it to them for free but I use the rc pro and the feature packed said that I’m used to is not on the regular RC so there was no way I was gonna send it back to him can’t really tell unless you’re flying at night about the dead pixels because they’re white and often blue but I want to see how this Mavic 3 apart. Most of them that I’ve seen on here don’t look legit at all.
@@Photonees I'm a mechanical designer so I guess my comment was just based on that part. Designing the molds and structure and connections etc. Sure at the pcb level there may not be much innovation.
My Avata had a failed take off and fell half submerged into water. The Dji service in Bangkok does not repair water damage. They did a deep cleaning, told me that 2 motors would start and the other 2 won't. They also told me that Dji does not ship boards. I got my drone back and it's not working. After I saw this video I think that if I would replace the ESC it should fly again. Would you agree to this? I found the ESC as used part online for 80 USD. Would you recommend trying? Or the risk too high that there is more damage? What would you recommend? Thank a lot for your thoughts.
Thanks for the great teardown. Is the E3T chip really the rom? I couldn't find a datasheet about this chip online. I would like to dump the firmware from this chip, so any information would help. Thanks a lot in advance.
i think the latches are requires with the kinds of vibrations these drones experience, i dont think DHI wants us to repair our own drones. But i guess its a nice touch
I bought a used avata that turned out to be a flyaway so i couldn't fly it, since the serial is bound to an accout. It turns out the board where the sd card goes, is the flight controller and thats where the serial information is stored. Thats what i have to replace and its the hardest part to find, Because its easy to recycle all the Avata's parts except the flight controller because most recycled avata is still bound to the previous accout, which makes the flight controller impossible to recycle, unless you can contact the previous owner and ask them to unbind the drone to their account. So reselling that part is a liability for the seller.
2nd flight sport mode smacked into a sign and busted the gps cover. Still flies and I have a cover on order for like 15 dollars with shipping costs. Thanks man because it looks like I can just pop off the old and pop on the new right ?
On the power plug connection on the drone, are the two pins supposed to be equal? or does one sit lower than the other? I am getting a battery installation error and can't get the bird in the air! MOST CASES on the web are surrounding the actual battery connection being the issue. I have a NEW battery & an old one. The old one is separating from the rubber boot as i see in others. I bought a NEW battery and is still an issue. I think my case is that the pins are not aligned correctly on the drone.
It annoys me that parts that do matter are still not available. You cant buy the frame where gimbal is attached to. You can buy the upper frame where battery is attached, you can buy the bumper frame but not the part in between them. If you for example, tear one of the gimbal attaching points with rubber bushes, you are SOL. You can only send your drone to be repaired by DJI. Which makes no sense they will void your warranty if you replace any of these parts yourself, so not selling them and forcing users to pay for DJI Care (which is not even available globally) or force them to buy a new drone is just a great customer experience. Anyway, this video sure will be helpful.
I hope someone can clarify this for me. On the battery for the avata there are 2 "extra" wires besides the +/- one is labeled as TX_RX and the other BAT_ON. Do these wire also carry current? The reason I ask is because I want to experiment and test if I could solder a xt30 connector in place of the original battery connector and use 4s lipos but if i do so where should i connect those 2 extra wires. "BAT_ON" to positive and "TX_RX" to negative? Please help before I end up trying my avata 🤦♂️
there is some part with imu+gps to replace in my avata? it always says error, it goes to the end of calibration OK but after restart it appears again (with last firmware)
Awesome tear down! I'm curious, why people haven't reverse engineered the entire drone or x rayed the various chips (I know the cost) or found more exploits or even writing custom firmwares? Is it because the chips are pretty well known being older? Is it just the community in general aren't into that? or are there more legal repercussions?
Reading in between the lines. JB had a pair of goggles 2 on the workbench last night. JB does not have an Avata. Ian releases Avata teardown with large focus on the 03 air unit. Is this a preemptive activity for the 03 AU release. Has to be.
@@MadRC Yep, it looks like it is the most fragile piece in the drone. Would like to see it disassembled to see if it is easy to fix it myself if needed.
Once again proof that you do talk securely but do not understand what you are talking about. The latency is increased because there is an additional link in the chain? Not really. The communication seems not to be highly serialized (look at connector and traces) Plus it’s likely that the old AU would be better in latency with a coprocessor. Like your PC. If you have an integrated graphics it’s closer to the CPU, but nevertheless an dedicated GPU on a separate pcb even going through connections is still faster for processing heavy work… like encoding. Second… do you Even know the Concept of an ESC? They have two FETs per motor because it is by design! That does NOT! double the Ampererating! Yes you have approx. 50% duty max per FET in one halfbridge, but that does not increase currenthandling capabilities by 100%!
Ok first of all your not taking into account I’m simplifying things for the audience. 1: The E3T being in the link has an affect as a result of the additional processing going on. I simplified it for the video but the P1 is linked to the E3T via USB and while that is fast enough the overall additional processing is what’s adding latency. This processing for image stabilisation has an affect. As for the ESC I am an electronic engineer by trade. I am well aware of duty cycle and affect of FET’s in Parallel and the affect of that. Again I simplified it and gave an opinion on rating based on the actual spec of the FET’s. Something you have to understand is things often have to be simplified for the audience that may not be quite as technical as you.
![KAYTRANADA - Witchy (feat. Childish Gambino) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jGK3YVmGZ3Y/mqdefault.jpg)
Good job showing of the teardown of the avata. It is just incredible how DJI is craming tech into tight spaces
Fascinating and fantastic teardown. Impressive how well modularized and technical friendly. (won't say consumer friendly, as going this deep requires some basic knowledge to stay out of trouble)
Thanks for doing this.
Exellent teardown video. Simply the best.
Many thanks for this helpful tear down video. I plan on doing a rebuild video of the Avata for my channel. Videos like this help in my research. Thankfully parts are starting to become available. Now it's off to find a broken Avata.
thanks for this. had to re-attach rubber camera stabilizers after a crash, fixed the camera wobble
“Today we’re going to tear it down”….best thing for it! 🤓
Great video Ian, very interesting to see all the boards.
That's why the dji goes ahead of most of other companies in this market.
Thank you so much for sharing this information. Was on the fence buying this, and now my decision is more clear.
At 11:48 you mention the glue they place inside the screw head. The glue is fluorescent. It will glow if you hit it with UV or violet light. I'm pretty sure it's a way to detect if someone has taken the drone apart.
I love to tear stuff down. I occasionally even put the stuff back together. I really need to start recording my teardowns. In the past I've posted photos of some teardowns on my Hackaday IO page. If anyone is interested, I have photos of inside of the DJI grey controller used with FPV Drone and Avata. I also have some teardown photos of DJI's RoboMaster S1 on my Hackaday page. The RoboMaster S1 had lots of screws with the fluorescent glue.
Thanks for the teardown Ian.
I'm just thinking, how come dji electronics are so reliable, in terms of consumer cine drone electronics not vistas and air units, whenever someone buys a mavic etc they are more than confident to fly it over water etc. I haven't heard often of mavic falling out of the air due to electronic faliure. I wonder if DJI could make 4 in 1 eses for us to buy and be promised 99% reliablilty. You think thats possible
GPS, and altitude vision enable position hold capability, which allows a pilot to pause and think through next flight actions. (ie: not 100% focused on flying)
As far as ESCs, good cooling via heatsinks, and likely good margin in current specs ensure not overheating. Software is also a factor in reliability.
@@AerialWaviator Next is the DJI FPV drone that you build yourself lol
Look down a few comments, guy had a DOA esc, and now his replacement has ESC errors too
@@TheFPVmechanic dji sucks
You also gotta remember these ESCs aren't being it hard at all, my phantom 4, a 9" drone, draws 15 amps on avarage cruising. A mini quad draws upwards of hundreds of amps, it's just incredibly hard to design and build electronics that can handle those loads and especially loads where one second you're drawing 5 amps total, and another second you're pulling 160 amps out the battery driving motors that are spinning 500 times a second
Which board handles the serial number of the drone? That changing the said board will fix the DJI fly away lock?
Thank you for the video. It’s interesting how modular everything is on the avata.
Thank you very much. Good and detailed report, now we can only wait for DJI to release the spare parts on the market so that we can sink our drones, which I already did.
AWSOME TEARDOWN. what board has the s/n number linked to it?
Anyone know the answer? Not 100% but I'd assume it would be the board with the USB/sd card. I believe it is the "video processing" board.
please make a video assembling the atava thanks
PERFECT DUDE thank you so much !!
great tear down. dji has some great electronics
Great video, love to see the inner parts.
Fantastic vidio👍
Amazing video, thank you very much
Put that in a Fpv drone!
Thanks Ian! Nice job!
Hi Mads, yesterday I had my yaw tumble experience which made my avata drop from 25m height, while I was editing the video I observed that when the issue happened my height changed virtually from 25m to 34m. Could a barometer issue be causing the tumble? Do you see any hole on the gps module that could be from where the barometer is linked to the outside world? Im wondering if the issue is actually caused by a depression inside the gps house, which makes the barometer gets a wrong altitude reading making the IMU freak out while doing a sharp turn.
Im going to try to make a whole on my GPS module to see if it sorted the tumble isso by equalizing the inside and outside pressure.
Hi. I have this issue, "height is changing randomly from REAL HEGHT to -10 to -15m in goggles telemetry" (but not changing the real dron's height), did you solve your problem ? I see 4 holes at the corners on GPS MODULE
@@israelvazquez2617 unfortunately I crashed it. But I will increase the size of the holes on the next one I buy
gotta start making your own coffee
Great work dude. Very interesting!
Thanks for sharing
Good informative video Ian.
Thanks for the vid, but where is the RID module?
Showin a DJI remote controller 2 nowadays is flexing 🤣
Love to no where to solder vifly busser to if the battery comes out an interesting video
Great video! But take apart the gimbal now!!!!
Hello and thanks for the informative videos. I ordered my first Avata as soon as it was made available. It arrived but I never managed to even start it. There was a esc error as soon as I connected it. Returned it and ordered another one. Came about 20 days ago. All good, been flown only 4-5 times due to strong winds where I live. Finally yesterday after a very small crash that broke one blade from my prop, it flew again and got another two flights before it happened again! Esc error and since I'm unable to start it. I'm really disappointed with dji. I've had almost every consumer drone they ever made including the fpv of last year. Never experienced this before. Since you know every connection on the esc and board, do you have any idea or suggestions as to what can be wrong before I send it back again and wait for more than a month to get another one? Greetings from Greece and thanks for the reply.
We need a decent teardown of the Mavic 3 pro.the rc pro has got dead pixels and didn’t wanna send in to DJI. They told me to send it to them for free but I use the rc pro and the feature packed said that I’m used to is not on the regular RC so there was no way I was gonna send it back to him can’t really tell unless you’re flying at night about the dead pixels because they’re white and often blue but I want to see how this Mavic 3 apart. Most of them that I’ve seen on here don’t look legit at all.
sure explains the price, very well designed.
not really. many chips are reused, so less RnD was needed, but price still high!
@@Photonees I'm a mechanical designer so I guess my comment was just based on that part. Designing the molds and structure and connections etc. Sure at the pcb level there may not be much innovation.
Interesting that the Rd module closely resembles the o3 tear down. Then again the o3 is just a stripped version of the Avata o3
Nice work dude, great info
My Avata had a failed take off and fell half submerged into water.
The Dji service in Bangkok does not repair water damage. They did a deep cleaning, told me that 2 motors would start and the other 2 won't. They also told me that Dji does not ship boards. I got my drone back and it's not working.
After I saw this video I think that if I would replace the ESC it should fly again. Would you agree to this? I found the ESC as used part online for 80 USD. Would you recommend trying? Or the risk too high that there is more damage? What would you recommend?
Thank a lot for your thoughts.
Thanks for the great teardown. Is the E3T chip really the rom? I couldn't find a datasheet about this chip online. I would like to dump the firmware from this chip, so any information would help. Thanks a lot in advance.
i think the latches are requires with the kinds of vibrations these drones experience, i dont think DHI wants us to repair our own drones. But i guess its a nice touch
Thanks for this awesome details
Wish DJI would make a sub 250 version of the Avata.
I bought a used avata that turned out to be a flyaway so i couldn't fly it, since the serial is bound to an accout. It turns out the board where the sd card goes, is the flight controller and thats where the serial information is stored. Thats what i have to replace and its the hardest part to find, Because its easy to recycle all the Avata's parts except the flight controller because most recycled avata is still bound to the previous accout, which makes the flight controller impossible to recycle, unless you can contact the previous owner and ask them to unbind the drone to their account. So reselling that part is a liability for the seller.
hello, so if i replace that board with clean unbonded motherboard will it work?
Cool teardown!
Awesome video 👌👍
2nd flight sport mode smacked into a sign and busted the gps cover. Still flies and I have a cover on order for like 15 dollars with shipping costs. Thanks man because it looks like I can just pop off the old and pop on the new right ?
On the power plug connection on the drone, are the two pins supposed to be equal? or does one sit lower than the other? I am getting a battery installation error and can't get the bird in the air! MOST CASES on the web are surrounding the actual battery connection being the issue. I have a NEW battery & an old one. The old one is separating from the rubber boot as i see in others. I bought a NEW battery and is still an issue. I think my case is that the pins are not aligned correctly on the drone.
It annoys me that parts that do matter are still not available. You cant buy the frame where gimbal is attached to. You can buy the upper frame where battery is attached, you can buy the bumper frame but not the part in between them. If you for example, tear one of the gimbal attaching points with rubber bushes, you are SOL. You can only send your drone to be repaired by DJI. Which makes no sense they will void your warranty if you replace any of these parts yourself, so not selling them and forcing users to pay for DJI Care (which is not even available globally) or force them to buy a new drone is just a great customer experience. Anyway, this video sure will be helpful.
You mentioned providing a link to the .stl file for the parts organizer, that would be great, thank you.
Hi ! Is it possible to mount the Air Unit from the DJI Avatar on another drone to avoid buying a DJI O3 ?
Hi, nice job!. What part do i neet to replace in order for me to unbound my avata to an account?
Haia will you plz tell where should I buy the downward vision sensor screws
Can we improve gps antenna on this by replacing it with any other one?
Great video man! Thanks to you I finally made 3.5inch avata mod. You can see it in my channel haha
My dji avata Camera went black screen all of a sudden no crashes, any suggestions what could be wrong? & how can i fix it? :(
I hope someone can clarify this for me. On the battery for the avata there are 2 "extra" wires besides the +/- one is labeled as TX_RX and the other BAT_ON. Do these wire also carry current? The reason I ask is because I want to experiment and test if I could solder a xt30 connector in place of the original battery connector and use 4s lipos but if i do so where should i connect those 2 extra wires. "BAT_ON" to positive and "TX_RX" to negative? Please help before I end up trying my avata 🤦♂️
Has there been an update to the Avata? Did it fix the wipe out problem? And most importantly - is the FCC hack broken by the update? Thx!!!
what about the gimbal?
Would it be worth it to swap the logic board of a bound avata with a board off of eBay? Are there multiple skews of uncompatable parts?
What kind of thermal compound did you use for the reassembly and how did you remove the old?
Could someone please post the STL for the screw organizer? I looked around a bit but cant find an STL for it
Where did you buy esc board to avata !? I need it to
there is some part with imu+gps to replace in my avata? it always says error, it goes to the end of calibration OK but after restart it appears again (with last firmware)
Where is barometer sensor ?
Install the guts on a carbon fiber cinewhoop
Easley doable.
why you not tearing the camera and the gimbal 😭
Awesome tear down! I'm curious, why people haven't reverse engineered the entire drone or x rayed the various chips (I know the cost) or found more exploits or even writing custom firmwares? Is it because the chips are pretty well known being older? Is it just the community in general aren't into that? or are there more legal repercussions?
One of the rubber grommets has pulled through on my gimbal Frame. any idea on how to pull it back through? the camera is off center with it like this.
Where is the reciber in this unit
where did you buy this Deep Dive Into Processing PCB?
do you know the hole pattern on the air unit
how to remove the sand from motors?
Thanks mate! Any thermal paste will do the work?
Yea but thing metal based like say Liquid Metal. You want thicker stiff than thinner but anything non conductive with be fine.
@@MadRC thanks, is Artic mx-6 thermal paste is good you think?
Thaaaaank you like & subs
Dobo is in need of components!
what wire gauge is the battery lead??
Is there a 7.4v solder point anywhere?
Can you please tell me which board responsible for bounding and contains aircraft SN?
hello did you find your answer?
Cool now stick it on a 5"...
Did i miss the link for your parts tray STL file?
There is a difference in "user repairable" and serviceable". I think it was designed to be serviceable.
I wanted to clarify if there are IMU sensors in the GPS module?
Yes it is.
@@MadRC thanks
Reading in between the lines.
JB had a pair of goggles 2 on the workbench last night.
JB does not have an Avata.
Ian releases Avata teardown with large focus on the 03 air unit.
Is this a preemptive activity for the 03 AU release. Has to be.
I think I’m the only person in FPV DJI has not sent O3 too 🤔. Not sure what that says but it says something.
@@MadRC “why I hate DJI”
Not sure what could have caused that 🤣
Yeah…. And JB’s live stream video from yesterday isn’t on RUclips now… DJI made him remove it? 🤔
Nice video. What about the camera module? how easy/difficult it is to disassemble and replace if needed?
Tbh I did not want to dismantle this and potentially cause issues at this time. In the future.
@@MadRC Yep, it looks like it is the most fragile piece in the drone. Would like to see it disassembled to see if it is easy to fix it myself if needed.
@@assafweiss8078 I'll add a second in case you were considering doing this
What is the IMU part number ?
That's one expensive teardown
anyone know the board size? 30x30? or 25x25? thanks
O3 is coming soon
Dude you tore everything down but the camera wtf
Once again proof that you do talk securely but do not understand what you are talking about.
The latency is increased because there is an additional link in the chain? Not really. The communication seems not to be highly serialized (look at connector and traces)
Plus it’s likely that the old AU would be better in latency with a coprocessor.
Like your PC. If you have an integrated graphics it’s closer to the CPU, but nevertheless an dedicated GPU on a separate pcb even going through connections is still faster for processing heavy work… like encoding.
Second… do you Even know the Concept of an ESC? They have two FETs per motor because it is by design! That does NOT! double the Ampererating! Yes you have approx. 50% duty max per FET in one halfbridge, but that does not increase currenthandling capabilities by 100%!
Ok first of all your not taking into account I’m simplifying things for the audience.
1: The E3T being in the link has an affect as a result of the additional processing going on. I simplified it for the video but the P1 is linked to the E3T via USB and while that is fast enough the overall additional processing is what’s adding latency. This processing for image stabilisation has an affect.
As for the ESC I am an electronic engineer by trade. I am well aware of duty cycle and affect of FET’s in Parallel and the affect of that. Again I simplified it and gave an opinion on rating based on the actual spec of the FET’s.
Something you have to understand is things often have to be simplified for the audience that may not be quite as technical as you.
To much bla bla bla .
I agree your comment is just pointless.
Love your content, but that sound, Jesus! Awfull!
Please explain more ? I’m not seeing issues my side ?
I messed up my coaxial cable going to the gos. Ordered a new cable but I couldn’t get it to snap onto the gps module 😢
Thanks.. I’m thinking of getting one, but need all the info