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Different camera options for xstar premium??

dentat2

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I recently crashed pretty hard into the side of a building. My gimbal was smashed all to hell and the camera tore off. I’m having trouble finding a new gimbal and camera without having to buy a whole drone. I was thinking go pro or something similar any help would be awesome.
 
Anything other then the camera from the X-Star will not work. You can try Autel for a camera but they will charge you almost the full price for a used X-star. Some people wanting to upgrade to the EVO are trying to sell their X-Stars but if it was me I would just get a EVO. With all the black Friday sales going on you can get a pretty good package at reasonable price.
There are no more dealers selling cameras for the x-star and the ones on ebay are mostly for parts.
 
I was thinking there would be some kind of setup like a go pro or something similar that could be mounted on the drone and show on my phone
 
Well I am sure you could find a gimbal that might mount underneath but how are you going to control the angles? It could be a solid mount and pointing in only one direction but then you are limited to the distance you can receive the GoPros signal to you phone.
Autel had some proto types of the GoPro setup and there was one for sale on here a while back but I think you are out of luck with trying to homebuild a GoPro into the system.
 
I understand I would be very limited with the setup. But being that I bought the drone used and am not prepared to buy another one just for the camera set up I could live with the limitations
 
I had a site bookmarked for 3D printed gimbals, I think I deleted it but I will see if I can find it again. If I do I will post back.
 
Something else I was thinking about. Can the ribbon cable be replaced?? The camera itself is fine the ribbon cable is torn in two. If I could replace that I could make it work.
 
@dentat2 I had a similar thing happen to my XSP when a prop came off and the thing landed hard from 20ft to solid pavement. The camera and gimbal went in pieces everywhere. I collected what I could find and shipped it back to Autel full expecting to pay the $399 they sell the gimbal/camera assembly for (if they're ever even in stock). I received a message from them in a couple days saying that they had repaired the camera and that it was as good as new. They charged me $149 and paid for shipping both ways. I bought my XSP 2 years out of warranty from a pawn shop for $280 and told them as much. I don't know why I received the treatment that I did, but I'm nothing special. What I do know is I'm pretty sure that the camera that was on my XSP when I got it back from them looks as though it's brand new and works great, not sure if they repaired or replaced it. Maybe give them a try, who knows?
 
Maybe I’ll try that. Can’t hurt I suppose. The camera is actually fine it’s the gimbal and the ribbon cable that the camera is connected to is torn. I’ll definitely check with them. I’m a tattoo artist and I traded some work for the drone so I don’t mind paying a decent amount for it I just can’t find one lol
 
Maybe I’ll try that. Can’t hurt I suppose. The camera is actually fine it’s the gimbal and the ribbon cable that the camera is connected to is torn. I’ll definitely check with them. I’m a tattoo artist and I traded some work for the drone so I don’t mind paying a decent amount for it I just can’t find one lol

If all you need is the ribbon cable, you might go to the Autel site and look up “X-Star Series Small Parts Replacement Kit” it includes the ribbon cable and it is only $20.
 
@dentat2 I had a similar thing happen to my XSP when a prop came off and the thing landed hard from 20ft to solid pavement. The camera and gimbal went in pieces everywhere. I collected what I could find and shipped it back to Autel full expecting to pay the $399 they sell the gimbal/camera assembly for (if they're ever even in stock). I received a message from them in a couple days saying that they had repaired the camera and that it was as good as new. They charged me $149 and paid for shipping both ways. I bought my XSP 2 years out of warranty from a pawn shop for $280 and told them as much. I don't know why I received the treatment that I did, but I'm nothing special. What I do know is I'm pretty sure that the camera that was on my XSP when I got it back from them looks as though it's brand new and works great, not sure if they repaired or replaced it. Maybe give them a try, who knows?

You are lucky. I just sent in an XSP where the ribbon cable and the camera was ripped apart and my only option was to pay ~ $360.00 for a new camera gimbal Assembly, a few compass components and .5 hours of labor. The crash was due to Magnetics Interference is what was stated and the latest firmware was not on the unit and therefore it was my fault. I stated that I felt this was too much to pay for a drone that is outdated as the XSP. I tired to work with them but they would not attempt to offer anything else as they felt that they had already reduced the camera assembly by $50 and they said the labor was reduced as well. I even asked if they would sell me the ribbon cable for the camera / gimbal unit and the other compass related parts that they quoted and send it back to me and they would not. I was told by two different people that these parts are "proprietary" and they are not available for sale. Therefore I asked that they send the drone back to me just as it was. I guess I will have a large orange paper weight! :)

Very very disappointing and I find it hard to believe that they will make it in the drone market by not offering parts to repair their products outside of there repair department. I have to say that repairing a DJI drone is very very easily done and the same would be possibly for Autel drones if Autel would make replacement parts available. I think it is a very bad business model and I will likely never fly another Autel product again.

Copy of Invoice from Autel:

Gimbal Camera Assy/900M/Black/64G
$349.00
$299.00

Compass Cable Black
$8.42

Compass Cover OR
$3.00

Compass PCB
$18.55

Labor
0.5 hour
$30.00


Total
$358.97 USD
 
Considering the free shipping both ways on their part, i would say they offered you a fair deal, just saying
 
Considering the free shipping both ways on their part, i would say they offered you a fair deal, just saying

The drone crashed due to issues in their product I didn’t fly the thing into the ground, it went nuts and flew directly into the ground. Then on top of that when you need to get it fixed they force you to send it in to them and then charge prices that are very high for nearly obsolete hardware.

On top of that they are not willing to sell parts of the camera or fix the camera they just want to replace it with a new camera assembly.

You can get some any part for “the other drone company” units very easily and at prices much more reasonable than what Autel is offering.

$199 for a new 4K camera gimbal assembly for a comparable DJI P3 on eBay right now.
Lest than 2 years ago I replaced the entire mother board and motors on a DJI P3S for $129 and these parts were brand new parts. The crash was due to hitting a tree limb and it took a swim for about 3 hours.

I wanted to like Autel products but I can not support a company that passes the blame off on to their customers / users for bugs / defects in their own products that causes a crash. Bad company policies. I wonder if they will still be in the consumer drone business in 3 years given their lack of drone models and their less than good customer service level.
 

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