My Skydio 2 crashed out of warranty recently. I was flying in the open desert, 3rd flight of the day. I don't know exactly what happened it was following behind me and then when I looked it was gone. I found it upside down just off the road I was driving on. No major damage, one motor is loose and all the motors are locked up with sand in them. I emailed skydio and sent all my logs, they said it crashed due to a gimbal malfunction and estimated 200-800 for repair. I've had a lot of drones over the years and never had one crash due to a failure of some piece of the drone. I'm kinda unsure I want to spend any money on repair or replacement when I feel like it might just auger into the ground again on its own. I'd rather this had been my fault then I could just avoid doing something silly again. But since it crashed on its own it was out of my hands. DJI still doesn't seem to offer a follow drone with skydio's capabilities though. So i'm kinda unsure what to do. My current thinking is that i'll try and get the motors apart and clean them and see if I can repair it myself and get it flying again.
Bummed out after skydio 2 crashed on its own, should I replace it?
- Thread starter Jonny360
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I've had my motors locked up due to sand probably 3 or 4 times, usually 1 or 2 of the are real bad the others kind of grind as you spin the props. A blower from a compressor is what I used and it got it free with no indication that occurred. The sand is likely somewhere inside but it's didn't ruin them and I had many more flights with that drone. The motor being loose is concerning, that to me indicates something might have cracked. A screw loosening up same time as a crash seems a little too coincidental.
If you want to open it up on your own, the small black covers around the avoidance cameras come off to reveal the screws holding the halves together. If the motor is damaged and you want to fix it PM me, I might be able to get you another motor.
Did the battery disconnect?
Check your battery, make sure it's not bulged. The top surface must be flat.
Check your battery, make sure it's not bulged. The top surface must be flat.
I recently had my controller report a Gimbal malfunction while I was flying at some distance from me, it was very concerning as I no longer had control of the drone but it seemed to begin a return to home flight from my view of it and then control returned and it was already headed back. I am wondering now if I should send in the flight logs to get it checked out.
So sorry to hear about you losing your drone. That's always like losing a member of the family---or worse!
I had assumed from watching Skydio hq videos that their drones would be more reliable than this! What causes a gimbal malfunction on the Skydio 2?
BlueHeeler
Well-known member
I wish they could provide you with a more definitive answer, was the "gimbal malfunction" Mechanical or Software related ? Why would a gimbal malfunction disrupt the mechanics of flight, one would think the drone being smart enough to separate those two functions in an emergency situation. The price tag to fix absolutely affects us all in different ways, IMHO, I would pay for it since Skydio likes to ship ( repaired/refurbished drones ) out like new, sometimes one would get a drone that someone else owned.
To each his own, but better luck going forward.
To each his own, but better luck going forward.
BlueHeeler
Well-known member
I had one last month, landed & turned off everything, rebooted and returned to flight, didn't see it again.
Sometimes I think those things show up just to annoy us, LOL !
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Wouldn't be the fist time a reboot fixed some weirdness.
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