Gimbal performance in wind

[pete]

I was trying to find an answer to what is the wind limit that gimbal can handle, can't find anything here or on google.
FAQs on 3DR website tell us that Solo can handle 40MPH (64KMH), but does it apply to Gimbal as well ?

I finally got my HDMI cable sorted and went out to do some orbits around a lighthouse nearby, checked the wind forecast in the area, reported 25-35KMH (15.5-22MPH), when I got to the location it seemed little bit more windy than that but I don't think it was near 40, maybe 30MPH, I just don't know.

Solo was flying quite well in the wind, I did orbit shot around the lighthouse and Solo was fine doing that but half way through my gimbal started to misbehave quite badly - it first started to shake wildly left and right and 30secs later it went completely sideways (just the gimbal, not the copter), almost 90 degrees.

I brought it down to check the gimbal but by the time it landed, the gimbal was perfectly straight again.
Changed the battery and went for a second flight, exact repeat of the first and same thing happened again, I mean those flights were almost identical, first half lap around lighthouse good, and then the gimbal went crazy again.

Has anyone experienced similar issue ? Could it be just the wind, maybe too much for the gimbal to handle ?

Here it is on video (left-right shaking starts at 15secs, and gimbal goes completely sideways at 45secs) :

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[pete]

sorry,

here is the first half of the flight which was perfectly normal. Maybe someone's (pilots ?) trained eye can estimate the wind speed from the tree movements if you look at bottom right corner at around 30secs mark ?

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[Acroduster]

The gimbal motors have a built-in self-preservation limp mode. If the motors are over stressed, it will decouple to save the motor. Now, there were some early problems with the gimbal where this mode was being prematurely or mistakenly activated - do a "limp gimbal" search on this forum for that mess. A software patch generally fixed it.

That said, I have flown in high winds as well and have never had this problem. My advice is to turn in the log for the flight and have 3DR take a look. They may find an issue with the gimbal and help you out.

 

[pete]

The gimbal motors have a built-in self-preservation limp mode. If the motors are over stressed, it will decouple to save the motor. Now, there were some early problems with the gimbal where this mode was being prematurely or mistakenly activated - do a "limp gimbal" search on this forum for that mess. A software patch generally fixed it.

That said, I have flown in high winds as well and have never had this problem. My advice is to turn in the log for the flight and have 3DR take a look. They may find an issue with the gimbal and help you out.

thanks, I didn't think to search for the keyword "limp", there is quite a lot of info here actually, I'll try few suggestions. I now received spare gimbal from Amazon so next time I'll take both with me and if the first one goes limp I'll try the other.

if I submit ticket with logs, 3DR can read the gimbal data from that ?
is there any way to find wind speed from the logs (ie. reading data for Solo motors to see how hard it had to work in wind to stay in position) ?

 

[Acroduster]

Wind speed can be approximated from the logs, but that's not really important here. And, yes, gimbal data is in the logs. The issue is whether the loads that the gimbal motors were seeing should have caused it to go into limp mode, not what the wind speed was.

 

[Maddog]

If you have an iOS device and really want to check wind speed, there is a free app for iPhone called "wind speed".
Wind & Weather Meter by WeatherFlow https://appsto.re/us/Mrn9M.i

You need to buy a weather meter that plugs into the earphone jack. Amazon carries it for $39.95.

Just FYI. (Yes, I know wind at altitude can be different from surface wind)