Gimbal Not Centered

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I am wondering if other people are having the same issue.

I have had Solo & Gimbal replaced multiple times now and the same problems keep coming up:

1. Solo #1 - Would not do level calibration. Would get to the last screen in level calibration and go nowhere. Took back to retailer and they replaced Solo.

2. Solo #2 and Gimbal #1 - Gimbal was getting really hot. So hot that I actually burnt my thumb. It was also freezing up my GP4B requiring it be removed from gimbal and battery taken out to reset. This was the best gimbal so far that at least it was centred and was working fine with both GP3B and GP4B. I made contact with 3DR tech support via email and after corresponding with them for a week they finally gave me an RA# to return to retailer. Took back to retailer and they replaced both Solo & Gimbal. When at retailer they told me they had been instructed from 3DR that now they would not accept a return without an RA#. Lucky I had one otherwise it was going to get messy!

3. Solo #3 and Gimbal #2 - Gimbal was not centering after initilaztion. Would move to the right by about 5 degrees. Yes I have done the stick, level and compass calibration. Contact 3DR tech support via email wait 36hrs with no reply so contact them via phone from Australia, receiver RA# to have replaced. Took back to retailer and they replaced both Solo & Gimbal.

3. Solo #4 and Gimbal #3 - Gimbal again was not centering after initilaztion. Would move to the right by about 5 degrees. Yes I have done the stick, level and compass calibration. Freezing up my GP4B requiring it be removed from gimbal and battery taken out to reset. Have not yet taken back to retailer. I am considering my options and are now leaning towards asking for a full refund.

I would like to say that the retailer I made the purchase from here in Australia, Harvey Norman have been great about every return and have replaced with no questions asked. But now require an RA# from 3DR for each return (getting this RA# from 3DR is painful and takes far to long). It doesn't help with the embarrassment I feel every time I walk back into the store, but they have been willing to help each and every time.

I really want this to work! I have now spent an entire week of my holidays stuffing around with Solo and I'm now losing my patience. 3DR have promised so much but are failing to deliver on their promises as far as I am concerned. I was blown away with the marketing of Solo, the videos and everything else they have shown. I'm now finding it hard to be happy with my purchase and feel like I am wasting a lot of time and money.

I am hoping some other people in the community are also experiencing the same problems but haven't been concerned or had the time to post a lengthy forum thread. I would love to hear from you.
 
Had the same thing happen to my gimble. I turned everything on one day and noticed it was off by a few degrees to the side. I began smelling a very hot burning smell coming from the solo. Thought it was the gopro because as soon as I touched the lcd screen, I burned the crap out of my hand. Shut everything down and pulled the go pro really quick and found out the heat was coming from the go pro side gimble motor. After cooling down, it worked a little but now has trouble getting balanced. Sometimes it works fine, which is real weird. Most of the time it won't hold balance or tilt up and down. Still charges and runs the gopro fine. It does lock the gopro up occasionally and I have to pull the battery.
Did you ever talk to anyone at 3DR? I'm just going to return mine foe another one instead of waiting to send it in to them.
 
The "non-centered" gimbal has been discussed here several times. Apparently it is supposed to face off-center to help keep the landing gear out of the shot because the GoPro lens is not centered on the camera.

The other problems you mention are not supposed to be happening.
 
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I'd ventured to bet that your installation of the gimbal's HDMI/Data-cables is in question rather than the 3 birds and 3 gimbals. Just don't see 3DR having defects like described on multiple units for one user. However anything is possible. To bad it appears Harvey Norman is a BestBuy of the land down under, not much tech support in store for what you purchased.

Can you describe your HDMI and Data Cable installation? What method for installation did you follow, 3DR's recommended installation or other sourced here on the forum?

For the record, the gimbal/camera should face forward, it was not designed with an offset. The offset described, in my experience, is related to the HDMI cable pushing or pulling gimbal. I would check your HDMI cable's installation. There are several HDMI installation resources here on the forum, there is not a consensus as to what method is fool proof or the "one".
 
RichWest - It is definitely not the HDMI cable or control cable. I have the flat HDMI cable from David @ Relish3D (And before anyone mentions that its not shielded, its working fine with no interference) and control cable is installed in a way so it is only pushing down on the connector not from the side. I have now installed and reinstalled in multiple Solos and I think I'm pretty good at it now considering I have done it over and over so many times this last week. And I also remove the battery tray to check that everything is A OK from above.

To finalise this thread, I did have the gimbal replaced again, after taking Han Solo and his gimbal down to show the guys at Harvey Norman. We fired Han up and I showed the guys at Harvey Norman exactly what keeps happening over and over. We swapped it over for a new gimbal from a new shipment and low and behold it works fine just like the first gimbal (I had before it was replaced cause it was getting so hot it burnt me). The new (fourth gimbal) was centred like it should be and not five degrees to the right.

I was told I am the only customer expect for one other that had returned a Solo. I may be the only customer that has picked up on this, given that Solo is being sold to less experienced operators. I knew that I was not getting what I paid for and encourage other people with the same problem to question 3DR and your retailer and get a replacement.

Now if only we could also solve the GoPro overheating and freezing issues and well as the well publicised GPS locking problems we would be making some headway....

3DR needs to investigate and solve these issues for Solo to be a game changer like the have marketed to all of us.

I would like to commend Harvey Norman for replacing Solo & gimbal each and every time I returned to the store with these recurring problems. Harvey Norman now require an RA# from 3DR to be able to process a return and 3DR did come to the party although at times the correspondence back and forth to get an RA# did take sometime. In the end I did end up calling them from Australia and that was quicker than emailing back and forth for a week to get an RA#.

Remember people, if you pay for it and you don't believe your getting what you paid for, say something and get it sorted.
 
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RichWest - It is definitely not the HDMI cable or control cable. I have the flat HDMI cable from David @ Relish3D (And before anyone mentions that its not shielded, its working fine with no interference) and control cable is installed in a way so it is only pushing down on the connector not from the side. I have now installed and reinstalled in multiple Solos and I think I'm pretty good at it now considering I have done it over and over so many times this last week. And I also remove the battery tray to check that everything is A OK from above.

To finalise this thread, I did have the gimbal replaced again, after taking Han Solo and his gimbal down to show the guys at Harvey Norman. We fired Han up and I showed the guys at Harvey Norman exactly what keeps happening over and over. We swapped it over for a new gimbal from a new shipment and low and behold it works fine just like the first gimbal (I had before it was replaced cause it was getting so hot it burnt me). The new (fourth gimbal) was centred like it should be and not five degrees to the right.

I was told I am the only customer expect for one other that had returned a Solo. I may be the only customer that has picked up on this, given that Solo is being sold to less experienced operators. I knew that I was not getting what I paid for and encourage other people with the same problem to question 3DR and your retailer and get a replacement.

Now if only we could also solve the GoPro overheating and freezing issues and well as the well publicised GPS locking problems we would be making some headway....

3DR needs to investigate and solve these issues for Solo to be a game changer like the have marketed to all of us.

I would like to commend Harvey Norman for replacing Solo & gimbal each and every time I returned to the store with these recurring problems. Harvey Norman now require an RA# from 3DR to be able to process a return and 3DR did come to the party although at times the correspondence back and forth to get an RA# did take sometime. In the end I did end up calling them from Australia and that was quicker than emailing back and forth for a week to get an RA#.

Remember people, if you pay for it and you don't believe your getting what you paid for, say something and get it sorted.
Glad you got that part fixed- thanks for posting the info! It will help others with similar issues.:cool:
 
Glad you got it sorted out, 4 Solos and 4 Gimbals later. Kudos to Harvey Norman as well. :)

Happy flying.
 
Glad to hear you finally got it resolved. I'm in the process of having my gimbal replaced due to the right yawing issue, but mine was at least 10 degrees. I wasn't in a hurry to replace it thinking the longer I waited, the more likelihood they'd have whatever manufacturing issue causing it worked out.

Issues like this can be frustrating, having spent a chunk of money on a product, but having a company stand behind it like 3DR does makes a huge difference.

And just for the record, the gimbal shouldn't point right at all. Doing so makes centering a subject in an orbit shot impossible, since Solo orients itself towards the orbit point, not the camera. If the camera is pointing off-center, you'll never be able to keep a subject centered.
 
Good to know....I am also having the same exact issues of overheating and off center alignment. Read somewhere it was an issue with the gopro in 4k mode.
 
Good to know....I am also having the same exact issues of overheating and off center alignment. Read somewhere it was an issue with the gopro in 4k mode.

Given that Solo was developed with GoPro in mind, I find it staggering that a problem using GoPro's flagship camera in its highest resolution would have been ignored and sent to market.

C'mon 3DR these problems are not acceptable!

Why would I want to buy a flashy aerial platform and use it to half of its capability?
 
The gimbal is not supposed to point straight, it's offset from the leg closest to the GoPro, it's actually in the code, as I've seen it mentioned on GitHub for Arducopter Solo.
 
Well the one that I have now that is straight must be faulty...

Can you elaborate on the code you have seen?

And if it's meant to be how come 3DR would give me three return authorisations for faulty gimbals?

I think your yanking my chain!
 
I'm not in the habit of yanking chains. Look at the GoPro the lens is closer to one leg than the other so it was offset slightly.

The code is here: 3drobotics/ardupilot-solo - GitHub

I remember seeing the commit at the time, but there's now almost 17,000 commits so I can't go through each one to find it...
 
If it is supposed to be off centre how would orbit and selfie then be in the centre of the frame?

The GPS in Solo does not account for the vehicle being off centre.
 
Because the gimbal is master in the moves (the SoloLink controls those), so cablecam and orbit etc is driven by the gimbal's orientation, so it's flying the direction of the gimbal and the Solo is aligning itself to the gimbal to keep the legs out of shot.

I've tried looking for the commit I was thinking of but can't find it. Generally the gimbals I've seen have been aligned a tiny amount to the right, so much so they look straight unless you look directly down. I've never seen any video of there being an issue in flight.

I'll ask 3DR specifically about this question to clarify it.
 
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So I guess the ones that are pointing straight are the defective ones lmao. I have a buddy who's is straight and mine is off a little. Maybe I'll tell him, he's got the defective gimbal.
 
If the goal is to have a perfectly symmetrical quad, then his wins. If the goal is avoid having the leg in the video, yours wins. Which is more important? Just looking at the Solo head on is kind of obvious why this is necessary since the GoPro lens isn't in the dead center of the GoPro....so it has to be off a little and 3DR compensates for it to keep the leg out of the shot.
 
Because the gimbal is master in the moves (the SoloLink controls those), so cablecam and orbit etc is driven by the gimbal's orientation, so it's flying the direction of the gimbal and the Solo is aligning itself to the gimbal to keep the legs out of shot.

If that's true, then there's a bug in the flight controller software, because it never worked like that on mine. In an orbit, I'd frame the shot with the subject in the center, but as soon as I placed the orbit point and hit go, Solo would rotate to face the subject, moving it out camera center, and proceed to orbit, and you can't reframe during the orbit.

I could see rotating it a few degrees, and maybe the flight controller accounts for that and mine was just rotated too much. I measured it to about 13 degrees. When I showed this to 3DR support, they said it looked to be defective and are replacing it.

I'll ask 3DR specifically about this question to clarify it.

Please do, it seems gimbals run the gamut from dead straight to rotated so much that centering in orbits and other modes is impossible. The variation alone seem to point to some type of manufacturing or calibration issue.
 
If that's true, then there's a bug in the flight controller software, because it never worked like that on mine. In an orbit, I'd frame the shot with the subject in the center, but as soon as I placed the orbit point and hit go, Solo would rotate to face the subject, moving it out camera center, and proceed to orbit, and you can't reframe during the orbit.

I could see rotating it a few degrees, and maybe the flight controller accounts for that and mine was just rotated too much. I measured it to about 13 degrees. When I showed this to 3DR support, they said it looked to be defective and are replacing it.



Please do, it seems gimbals run the gamut from dead straight to rotated so much that centering in orbits and other modes is impossible. The variation alone seem to point to some type of manufacturing or calibration issue.
Please ask about the overheating issues some are having as well
 

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