Broken 4 Pin Cable in Remote

Frank Biba · Oct 4, 2015

Hi. I received my gimbal a few days ago, and I was unable to get the tilt control to work. I opened the remote and I noticed that two wires (red and black) wires on a four wire ribbon cable were pulled out of the small plastic connector that goes to the main board on the remote. I am REASONABLY confident that all that needs to be done to correct the lack of tilt control would be fixed if I simply replaced this cable. BTW this cable seems to be fragile, and the wires seem to be easily pulled out of the connector!

I am assuming that opening the remote has voided the warranty. I did the R11e TX/RX mod, and it works fine.

I will call 3DR tomorrow, describe the cable and its wires and connectors (one red and three black wires in sequence straight through from both connectors) and the silk screen label on the main board which refers to the gimbal control.

1. I am HOPING that 3DR will send me a couple of those cables that I can replace on the
remote. I have no problem paying for those cables.

2. 3DR does have several cable kits and perhaps one of these kits will have the appropriate
cable.

3. If 3DR balks at sending me this cable CAN SOMEONE HERE REFER ME TO A WEB SITE THAT OFFERS BUILDING THIS CABLE FOR ME? I can send them the bad cable so they can make me the replacement. The cable appears to be a common generic cable.

Google search and checking web sites has not been fruitful.

I am hoping to avoid sending the remote back to 3DR.

TIA,

Frank

Maddog · Oct 5, 2015

Frank Biba said:
Hi. I received my gimbal a few days ago, and I was unable to get the tilt control to work. I opened the remote and I noticed that two wires (red and black) wires on a four wire ribbon cable were pulled out of the small plastic connector that goes to the main board on the remote. I am REASONABLY confident that all that needs to be done to correct the lack of tilt control would be fixed if I simply replaced this cable. BTW this cable seems to be fragile, and the wires seem to be easily pulled out of the connector!

I am assuming that opening the remote has voided the warranty. I did the R11e TX/RX mod, and it works fine.

I will call 3DR tomorrow, describe the cable and its wires and connectors (one red and three black wires in sequence straight through from both connectors) and the silk screen label on the main board which refers to the gimbal control.

1. I am HOPING that 3DR will send me a couple of those cables that I can replace on the
remote. I have no problem paying for those cables.

2. 3DR does have several cable kits and perhaps one of these kits will have the appropriate
cable.

3. If 3DR balks at sending me this cable CAN SOMEONE HERE REFER ME TO A WEB SITE THAT OFFERS BUILDING THIS CABLE FOR ME? I can send them the bad cable so they can make me the replacement. The cable appears to be a common generic cable.

Google search and checking web sites has not been fruitful.

I am hoping to avoid sending the remote back to 3DR.

TIA,

Frank

Frank, thanks for posting this issue. I haven't heard anybody else mention it.
You might try www.aerialpixels.com for cables. I'm not familiar with the one you are looking for. Let us know what you hear from 3DR.

Frank Biba · Oct 5, 2015

Thanks, Maddog (lol) for your help. Here is the drill:

1. First I called 3DR tech support. The tech guy said they would not send me
a cable. He told me that I need to send the remote to 3DR for repairs. I
Thanked him and rejected that "offer."

2. I then called Aerialpixels, and the said they could make me a special cable, but I
would have to buy the cable in a lot of 1000! DOH! Not!

3. I then called 3DR back in hopes of speaking to a different tech. I got one,
and after a little arm twisting I agreed to email him with an explanation of
my problem (you know, very complex issue, broken cable). I was instructed
to send him pix of the cable which I did. He said he would ger back to me
re whether or not he could just send me a new cable. Incidentally I had
offered to SEND THE BROKEN CABLE BACK TO 3DR to see 3DR has
any of those cables around (I bet they do...). In the meantime I looked
in the 3DR "store" and found several cable that look as though they have the
same connectors as my cable. I think that I found several matches!

4. I ordered a couple of these cables; they only cost a few bucks plus
ridiculous shipping cost and tax. It cost me $32. So what the heck,
a cheap gamble.

STAY TUNED! MORE TO COME ON THIS FIASCO!

Here is a pix of my funky broken cable:

Frank Biba · Oct 5, 2015

Bad news from 3DR. Tech support said that they will "check for a replacement" and if they don't find one I will have to send BOTH THE SOLO AND THE REMOTE BACK TO 3D ROBOTICS AT MY SHIPPING EXPENSE.

Gimme a break. If they cannot "find a cable" I have no intention of sending the whole Solo and remote back to them. If they do find a cable, so much the better. Let's see if I can use one of the kit cables I just ordered.

If not I will put the Solo on the shelf until I can find a replacement cable, e.g., on eBay. All this mess for one lousy 2 buck cable...

Lord....

Del · Oct 5, 2015

Frank Biba said:
Bad news from 3DR. Tech support said that they will "check for a replacement" and if they don't find one I will have to send BOTH THE SOLO AND THE REMOTE BACK TO 3D ROBOTICS AT MY SHIPPING EXPENSE.

Gimme a break. If they cannot "find a cable" I have no intention of sending the whole Solo and remote back to them. If they do find a cable, so much the better. Let's see if I can use one of the kit cables I just ordered.

If not I will put the Solo on the shelf until I can find a replacement cable, e.g., on eBay. All this mess for one lousy 2 buck cable...

Lord....

Is there anyway you can fix the broken one you have now somehow ..?

Frank Biba · Oct 5, 2015

No. That would have been the first thing I would have tried. The connectors are very small, the wires are not much bigger than threads. There is no way that I can solder or crimp these wires on the tiny (not much bigger than 1/4 inch) connectors.

Del · Oct 5, 2015

Frank Biba said:
No. That would have been the first thing I would have tried. The connectors are very small, the wires are not much bigger than threads. There is no way that I can solder or crimp these wires on the tiny (not much bigger than 1/4 inch) connectors.

That's to bad Frank.. Well hopefully you get your problem solved soon..

franknitty69 · Oct 7, 2015

the cable for the tilt paddle is indeed df13 4pin. They sell those cables on 3dr's website. The shortest is 10cm/3.9in.

If that's what you ordered then you are fine.

Frank Biba · Oct 7, 2015

franknitty69 said:
the cable for the tilt paddle is indeed df13 4pin. They sell those cables on 3dr's website. The shortest is 10cm/3.9in.

If that's what you ordered then you are fine.

Hi, franknitty. Thanks! That is great news. I ordered TWO of those to replace the broken funky cable of mine. I believe in redundancy. I will post whether or not the replacement fixes my tilt problem. Probably a no brainer. I think the wires on the replacement cables are much sturdier than the wires on the broken cable.

Frank

Frank Biba · Oct 7, 2015

BTW, I begged 3DR for the replacement cable and they "found" one. Another post on this BORING thread. My apologies...

Frank Biba · Oct 13, 2015

Frank Biba said:
Hi, franknitty. Thanks! That is great news. I ordered TWO of those to replace the broken funky cable of mine. I believe in redundancy. I will post whether or not the replacement fixes my tilt problem. Probably a no brainer. I think the wires on the replacement cables are much sturdier than the wires on the broken cable.

Frank

Franknitty, just for info I received the df13 4 pin cables from 3dr. There is good news and bad news: The CONNECTORS are correct but the WIRES are REVERSED. The simple solution for me is to reverse the wires (cut and solder). I will give that a try; it SHOULD work. I am assuming that just plugging the cable in with red and black at the reverse ends might blow out the gimbal tilt motor.

I am awaiting shipment of the ORIGINAL cable from 3DR.

franknitty69 · Oct 13, 2015

Frank Biba said:
Franknitty, just for info I received the df13 4 pin cables from 3dr. There is good news and bad news: The CONNECTORS are correct but the WIRES are REVERSED. The simple solution for me is to reverse the wires (cut and solder). I will give that a try; it SHOULD work. I am assuming that just plugging the cable in with red and black at the reverse ends might blow out the gimbal tilt motor.

I am awaiting shipment of the ORIGINAL cable from 3DR.

the colors don't matter. as long as the same pins as the original cable are connected. for instance if the original is 1-red, 2-black, 3-black, 4-black but the one you ordered is 1-black, 2-black, 3-black, 4-red you can just plug it in. the only reason it won't work is if the pins are out of order (i.e. 1,4,3,2)

you could also remove the wire from the connector housing without cutting it. there is a tab that lifts up for each pin/wire. it just slides out. you could re-order the cable exactly like stock.

Frank Biba · Oct 14, 2015

Hi, FN69,

The pins are reversed. 1-red, 2-black, 3-black, and 4-black on ONE connector, and the wires are reversed on the other connector, e.g., 4-red. I think these cables were prepared for the 3DR IRIS drone.

The good news is I looked on YouTube and found a little tutorial on how to rewire these obnoxious mini df13 connectors. A small pin did the job.

VOILA!!!! The*tilt*control*works!!!! DOH! I say again the wires for the new cable are much more robust than the original cable. This sure beats sending whole drone/remote back to 3DR with presumably voided warranty. I had installed the GPS and the more powerful wifi modules into my system.

Thank you, FN69, for hanging with me on this incredibly boring topic, but it at least it might make users aware of the cheesy cables ( and there are several in the remote) in this expensive drone.

Back to dive bombing commercial aircraft and spying on neighbors (just kidding!).

Frank