How To Replace Mavic Air Arm: Easy DIY Guide
My DJI Mavic Air recently fell out of the sky quite unexpectedly. Its tumble to Earth left the left-rear motor smooshed and deformed and wouldn’t spin freely anymore. I didn’t even think to replace the whole arm on my Mavic Air initially.
At first, I tried to see if I could simply replace the motor but a quick search led me to a replacement arm for $27, (though it’s now up to $52.) I decided to replace the Mavic Air arm because besides the motor being damaged the arm was a little crunched from the fall and the landing pad was missing.
When the arm arrived I examined it and saw that it just had three wires coming out of the end of the arm, so I knew that I was going to have to solder them to something inside. Easy enough, so I jumped right in and started tearing down the drone.
How to Replace Mavic Air Arm
- Remove The Upper Shell Cover
The first step in replacing the arm on my DJI Mavic Air was to remove the upper shell cover. Mine is red because Amazon was selling it for $70 less than the black or white ones.
It pops off easily by sliding a screwdriver under the edge of the plastic and gently prying it up.
- Remove The Decoration Plate
Underneath the upper shell cover is a smaller plastic cover called the decoration plate. This one was a little harder to take off because it’s held down with double-sided tape but it is very resilient and it came off with a bit more effort than the outer shell. I slid the blade of my pocket knife under the edge of the plastic, gently prying it up as I worked my way around the plate.
- Remove Upper Shell Screws
With both covers off I had access to all of the screws holding the top case to the chassis. There was one screw covered with a sticker that I had to peel back to get to. I assume that’s there so that if I were to make a warranty claim after I fucked up this repair DJI could tell that I’ve been messing about inside my drone. But the warranty period is well over by now, so it’s fine.
The screws that hold the arm to the chassis, however, are always accessible without tearing the aircraft down. There is one on the top side of the arm and one on the bottom side.
- Remove Circuit Board Screws
The main circuit board has almost as many screws as the case does. I had to remove them all to get to the motor wires. Then I had to disconnect four cables from the mainboard. They just snap into place, so I was able to pry them loose with the tip of my knife.
- DeSolder The Motor Wires
This step to replace the Mavic Air arm would be so much easier if it wasn’t for the white blob of glue encasing the solder joints. I had to remove it to desolder the wires. I tried scraping it off with a knife blade, but it didn’t work.
So I tried heating it with the soldering iron, which helped a little but also smelled bad. It didn’t, however, work well enough to be worth the smell.
Ultimately I used a 1/4″ chisel to scrape enough of the glue off to get to the wires. I have no doubt that there is a better way to get the glue off, but I don’t know what that way is. Nobody would recommend doing what I did, including myself, but it’s done now, and it worked, and I was able to desolder the three wires and remove the arm.
- Solder The New Motor Wires
From here on out, the process was the reverse of everything I just did to replace the Mavic Air arm. I soldered the three motor wires to the board. Each terminal on the board was labeled for the wires so I didn’t have to guess where each wire went. The only problem was that they labeled the red wire terminal with “G” instead of “R,” but the black and white terminals were labeled properly so it wasn’t a problem.
- Replace The Glue
I didn’t have any of the white glue that I scraped off before, and I didn’t even know what it was anyway. I did, however, have a glue gun, and since the interior of the Mavic doesn’t get anywhere near the melting point of the hot glue, I figured it would be safe. So, I put a blob of hot glue over the solder joints.
- Replace All Of The Screws
Once the glue cooled, I laid the board back down and snapped the cables back into place. Then I replaced all of the screws in the board and in the case.
Getting the SD slot door in properly was a little tricky. It has two metal tabs that need to line up with two plastic strips in the chassis. After a couple of attempts, I was able to get it in there. - Replace The Outer Shells
I snapped both the decoration plate and the red shell back onto the aircraft. The double-sided tape was still sticky enough to hold the decoration plate down tight.
- Test It Out
I turned the aircraft on, and it powered up like normal. So then I took it outside for a test flight. It worked like new again!
That is how to replace a Mavic Air arm. Or at least that’s how I did it. I probably didn’t do everything the “right way,” but it works, and you can’t argue with results.
I have had no issues after many hours of flight time on the new arm. So, I am confident that the repair was legit.
I was a bit surprised at just how serviceable the Mavic Air is. I would have expected it to be more difficult to do a DIY repair on it, like an iPhone. I always prefer repairing to replacing, especially when we’re talking about things that cost as much as a Mavic Air.
I made a video of the repair. You can watch it down below.
