Gimbal smoke and metallic smell

[Ccr41981]

Hey guys, brand new to the community. I recently picked up a Solo on ebay, and then picked up a solo gimbal. After installing, and powering on, I noticed a whiff smoke and a strange mettalic smell. I shut it down immediately, and removed the gimbal. I determined that the soldering points were not broken, and didn't notice any scorching or burning on the mother board. I replaced the gimbal, powered back on. No smoke this time, and I got a visual from my GoPro.

However, the "Update" light is on on the gimbal, and never turns green. The app (still stock Solo app, haven't made the change to Solex yet) says "Gimbal not Found". I apologize if this has been addressed somewhere in the forum already, I haven't found a thread about it, nor can I find an answer via Google.

Has anyone encountered this before?

 

[RichWest]

You really need to locate the source of the smoke. Otherwise the effort to help is just guessing, and nobody's got time for that....

 

[Ccr41981]

I get that; but, like I said, there is no more smoke, nor any evidence of any burning/scorching etc. While I would LOVE a definitive answer, I was asking if this has happened to anyone before. So, not looking for speculation anyway. Just precedence, I guess.

 

[IrishmanPDX]

RichWest has a point, without more info, we'd just be guessing. Based on the limited info, it sounds like you have a bad gimbal that caused a short somewhere.

 

[Ccr41981]

Ok, so second gimbal, same thing happened. I'm thinking it's not the gimbal.

 

[RichWest]

Hmmm... Maybe you'll have better luck with a third gimbal...

 

[Ccr41981]

Yea, maybe. What are the chances the data cable from the drone is bad?

 

[RichWest]

Decent chance, couple of wires pinched is all it takes...stuff happens. You can pop (unscrew) off the battery tray and have a look down at the gimbal and wires. Likely the source of the smoke will be obvious, you know burn marks and such.

I presume you bought the Solo and gimbal(s) used....?

To answer your first question, no occurrences from my memory...at least no smoking gimbals.

 

[just_bruce]

We did see one solo with the gimbal's 5V and GND wires reversed here on the forums, I think.

Seems QC got a little lax near the end.....

 

[RichWest]

We did see one solo with the gimbal's 5V and GND wires reversed here on the forums, I think.

I thought about that, that was truly a freak thing but no smoke...iirc

 

[Ccr41981]

Well, I guess I'll take some time over the weekend and take the thing apart.

 

[RichWest]

There are several threads/videos on how to disassemble Solo. It's not difficult after the initial effort.

Once you get underneath the battery tray you'll expose more of the components and connections. If you do find the source, take pictures and post them here. More help will follow.

 

[Ccr41981]

Will do; I'm not sure I'll find evidence of burning, though. The smoke originally emanated from the housing immediately surrounding the gimbal.

 

[RichWest]

Let us know what you find....

 

[artcuda]

Same thing happened to me in the past. Turns out it was the (for lack of correct terminology and abundance of ignorance) a thing I'll refer to as a 'mosfet'. It's a black square electronic component, located close to the HDMI port on the gimbal. It's black and square, like I said, and has 8 tiny little 'spider' type legs -4 on each side- that are soldered to the board. THAT's the component that fried on mine. No clue as to why, but suffice it to say that after undergoing my surgical attempts to repair and replace said 'mosfet', (without firstly diagnosing the root cause of the malfunction) I was unsuccessful in resusitating that pos gimbal. For what it's worth, the sound of a gimbal assembly tossed forcefully into an empty commercial dumpster makes a quite pleasant 'ting' sound upon impact.

 

[Ccr41981]

I am back. It's been a while, but things got busy, fell behind on this, etc. etc. ANYWAY. I did take the drone apart, and cannot find any physical issues; there is no evidence of any burning, and the hdmi cable does work and provide an image to the app. The "Update" light still blinks, and the gimbal is still not recognized. Does ANYONE have any ideas?? I've reached the limits of my troubleshooting capability.

 

[RichWest]

I am back.

Reading back over this thread, I think Bruce's suggestion could be valid. Something is shorting out the gimbal. If the data wires were hooked up wrong from the factory, in the previous case on the main board, could be your undetectable magic smoke...

I could not find the specific thread. Find an image of the gimbal data cable wiring, both at Solo's main board and the 8 pin gimbal data connector.

We did see one solo with the gimbal's 5V and GND wires reversed here on the forums, I think.

Seems QC got a little lax near the end.....

 

[Ccr41981]

I'll see if I can find an image of a properly wired board and compare

 

[Ccr41981]

So, another issue that has been happening is that I cannot control the GoPro from neither the Solo or Solex app. I think, in general, there is something bad under the hood. I just ordered a new, tested main board with fresh wires and will do a swap when it comes in.

 

[RichWest]

That's through the gimbal data wiring as well...so yeah replacing with a known good board is a good approach.

@just_bruce has a keen sense about these things...I'm learning Bruce....