Anyone had their gimbal go limp?

DattaGroover · Feb 3, 2016

My gimbal started acting up a few flights ago. It wouldn't respond when Solo started up, so I had to hold it in place as I powered Solo up, then the gimbal took over.

Then today, it went limp in flight.

I've never crashed this or had a hard landing. Any idea what this could be?

DattaGroover · Feb 4, 2016

DattaGroover said:
My gimbal started acting up a few flights ago. It wouldn't respond when Solo started up, so I had to hold it in place as I powered Solo up, then the gimbal took over.

Then today, it went limp in flight.

I've never crashed this or had a hard landing. Any idea what this could be?

I also sent a ticket in to 3DR. See what they say . . .

RichWest · Feb 4, 2016

Curious, do you have any weight added to your gimbal?

I've had no issues to date and I tend to fly the bird hard. I like the idea of balancing the setup, but haven't had the need to make the effort.

Edit to add: Sounds like a power loss to the gimbal motors, may want to check your data cable connections. Do you have a green light on the gimbal when this fails?

DattaGroover · Feb 4, 2016

RichWest said:
Curious, do you have any weight added to your gimbal?

I've had no issues to date and I tend to fly the bird hard. I like the idea of balancing the setup, but haven't had the need to make the effort.

Edit to add: Sounds like a power loss to the gimbal motors, may want to check your data cable connections. Do you have a green light on the gimbal when this fails?

Yes, I had a X8 Circular polarizer, but had the gimbal balanced.

Didn't check the green light. Had to shut down anyway, but will check that tomorrow.

erikgraham · Feb 4, 2016

Not a good idea to hold the gimbal during start up. Bad for the motors and screws up the calibration.

I had a gimbal go limp after a week of hard flying in high winds. It was really rough flying though. At some points we were shooting in wind gusts up to 15 meters per second which I think is over 30 miles per hour and way beyond the published specs for the Solo (those were gusts of wind, not a constant 15m/s). We were also traveling in very rough country in bumpy trucks. One Solo had an IMU go bad. We think from the constant hard jostling.

As for the gimbal on the other Solo, at first it would flop occasionally in the stronger gusts of wind. There's a fail safe that kicks in when it detects too much voltage going to the gimbal motors. The fix was to just wait for it to recover. Then tilt up and down a few times. But then after I got back, the gimbal started to act strange even on perfectly calm days. It would start out fine, and then lose level. Again, tilting up and down seemed to help. After awhile it just couldn't find level at all and I swapped it out. Didn't even ask 3DR for support because we'd thrashed it so hard I knew it was done for (and it wouldn't have been legit to ask for a warranty replacement).

David Weston · Feb 4, 2016

Probably an overload of the motors. Possibly the HDMI cable binding the gimbal internally. Had it happen until I switched to the "ribbon" cable and circumcised the other cable. Never had a problem since.

DattaGroover · Feb 7, 2016

David Weston said:
Probably an overload of the motors. Possibly the HDMI cable binding the gimbal internally. Had it happen until I switched to the "ribbon" cable and circumcised the other cable. Never had a problem since.

Please tell me more about this ribbon cable.

David Weston · Feb 8, 2016

I got it from Relish. It is much more flexible and a better fit. I also used an X-acto knife to pare back the insulation on the insulation and shielding on the other cable. I have had no interference or any other issues and the occasional vibration is totally gone. Best two improvements I have done since I got one of the 1st Solo's. PS my 3.97 Peau arrives today. Been following your analysis. Thanks There is a youtube video on how to replace the cable with the ribbon cable. Wasn't that difficult.

DattaGroover · Feb 8, 2016

David Weston said:
I got it from Relish. It is much more flexible and a better fit. I also used an X-acto knife to pare back the insulation on the insulation and shielding on the other cable. I have had no interference or any other issues and the occasional vibration is totally gone. Best two improvements I have done since I got one of the 1st Solo's. PS my 3.97 Peau arrives today. Been following your analysis. Thanks There is a youtube video on how to replace the cable with the ribbon cable. Wasn't that difficult.

Thanks for all that. I will try the paring. I just ordered the ribbon from Relish 3D. I will probably order the 3.97 lens soon. Let me know how it works out with yours.

355spider · Feb 9, 2016

I've heard they have medication for when your gimbal goes limp.

RichWest · Feb 9, 2016

355spider said:
I've heard they have medication for when your gimbal goes limp.

Every time I see this topic pop up, I'm thinking the same...poor guy.

Robert Rose · Feb 10, 2016

DattaGroover said:
My gimbal started acting up a few flights ago. It wouldn't respond when Solo started up, so I had to hold it in place as I powered Solo up, then the gimbal took over.

Then today, it went limp in flight.

I've never crashed this or had a hard landing. Any idea what this could be?

I have the same problem. I don't know the source of the problem, but I shut everything off, pull out the GoPro Hero4 Black, reseat it, and plug in the HDMI cable, last slip the green tab under the HDMI black plug. That all eventually seems to work. Since the HDMI port is only for video output (I am guessing) my first suspect is the back port. I have a separate GoPro Hero4 Silver, and I am next going to try to see whether the problem is in the camera or the gimbal. My suspect is the camera. I have also taken the gimbal off and reinstalled it after making sure all connections are firm, so I am ready to absolve the gimbal.

Steve K · Feb 10, 2016

I have only had the limp gimbal one flight. It was many flights ago. It was cold and blustery in that area that day. But the thing I never figured out is why did the gimbal not recover until the very moment it began descent in auto RTL mode? Why, all of a sudden, was it able to correct then? Odd behavior I thought. Here's an unpublished vid I took of it. Go to 1:30 for it to begin. Go to 2:50 for it to finally recover.