DJI Mavic teardown

A look inside this Christmas, drone sensation the DJI Mavic.

A Tom Peters saying comes to mind, “Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing… layout, processes, and procedures.”

You can see that thought and consideration in spades have gone into the Mavic.

I don’t have one, but luckily YouTube user Nils Rohwer does. He made a fantastic Mavic teardown video.

So very much neater than the late and hardly lamented GoPro Karma.

Remember the Karma mounted the GPS between the speed controllers and flight control board on the same single board. That has to be cheaper but is it wise? Other have done it but with years ago.

I have a single board FPV racer, in that guise its fine. I’m not carrying an expensive camera trying to get the shot!

Mavic shields speed controllers from the rest of the electronics with a metal plate.

The GPS is mounted right at the back of the Mavic as far away as possible from all that noise. There is even a ferrite bead on the very short GPS cable to minimise electrical outbursts even further.

The IMU for Mavic placed on rubber anti-vibration pads so will suffer much less from vibrations from damaged props for instance. Vibration is the enemy of sensors as it confuses them.

Quite simply to compare the guts of both machines and completely ignore the flying specs the Mavic beats the Karma in basic nuts and bolts ways. These give it an advantage before turning a blade.

For me, that is reason alone to ignore the GoPro Karma should it ever be relaunched.

Now that the Phantom 4 Professional has arrived with a camera that betters the GoPro5 I don’t think Karma in its current form will ever see the light of day again.