Solo Gimbal Spinning out of Control

Mattster25 · Aug 3, 2017

Hello,

Just bought my solo a few days ago and have been flying it every chance I've had. Today on my 6th or 7th flight I came down to the ground too fast and the drone bounced off the ground fairly hard. It continued to fly fine but the gimbal was stuck pointing the camera up and to the right. Once I landed, I realized that the grassy area which I bounced off of was actually a large puddle so the gimbal and camera were wet (not completely soaked, but I had to wipe off several droplets).

I rushed home, removed the gimbal and put it in a bag of rice for an hour or two. My GoPro and Solo are completely fine, however when I turn on the drone with the camera in, the gimbal starts to spin up, down, left, right uncontrollably with a bad scratching sound. I've looked over the gimbal and the housing for it and everything appears completely normal (wires, plugs, etc.). There's no cracks or any noticable damage.

Anyone have any idea what the issue is and/or how to fix it? Thanks

skyhax · Aug 3, 2017

If this doesn't fix it then most likely the board is hosed.

Maddog · Aug 3, 2017

1. The bag of rice, which many people claim doesn't work, takes several days not hours.

2. Based on your description, I doubt that it can be fixed.

3. You might want to practice flying without the gimbal attached- just the fixed mount with no camera ( if it came with one) or you can buy a cover plate for about $3 at B&H camera.

I don't think calibration will fix that bad scratching sound- sounds like a damaged servo motor.

Mattster25 · Aug 3, 2017

skyhax said:
If this doesn't fix it then most likely the board is hosed.

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Yeah, unfortunately it didn't work. The gimbal just kept on losing its mind. Thanks for the help though

Mattster25 · Aug 3, 2017

Maddog said:
1. The bag of rice, which many people claim doesn't work, takes several days not hours.

2. Based on your description, I doubt that it can be fixed.

3. You might want to practice flying without the gimbal attached- just the fixed mount with no camera ( if it came with one) or you can buy a cover plate for about $3 at B&H camera.

I don't think calibration will fix that bad scratching sound- sounds like a damaged servo motor.

1. Yeah I figured it probably wasn't gonna do much anyways, especially since the gimbal started acting up immediately after it landed

2. That's looking more and more likely

3. I have practiced on other drones (although not as high end as the solo) so I'm familiar with the basics. However, I switched the flight speed from slow to very fast on this flight to see what it could do. Obviously not the best choice.

4. Calibration didn't work. Idk what/where the servo motor is but what seems to be making the noise is the silver circle on the backside of the gimbal.

Mattster25 · Aug 3, 2017

If anyone else has any more ideas or info it would be appreciated

Maddog · Aug 4, 2017

Mattster25 said:
1. Yeah I figured it probably wasn't gonna do much anyways, especially since the gimbal started acting up immediately after it landed

2. That's looking more and more likely

3. I have practiced on other drones (although not as high end as the solo) so I'm familiar with the basics. However, I switched the flight speed from slow to very fast on this flight to see what it could do. Obviously not the best choice.

4. Calibration didn't work. Idk what/where the servo motor is but what seems to be making the noise is the silver circle on the backside of the gimbal.

That silver circle is the servo motor. Probably got damaged in the crash.

Mattster25 · Sep 14, 2017

UPDATE:

A few days after trying those suggestions and a few minutes before throwing in the towel and buying a new gimbal, I decided to test it out one more time. To my surprise, the gimbal worked great: it stayed completely level when I moved the solo, didn't spin out of control, and didn't make any noise. However when I hit the trigger to point the gimbal down at an angle, it wouldn't budge. I took it for a flight and it stabilized completely fine, but would not angle down when I hit the trigger.

I told b&h (who I purchased the drone and gimbal from) and they offered to switch it out with a new gimbal. I sent it back, and recieved the new one, only to find the exact same problem, where the gimbal wouldn't point down. This was extremely disappointing and discouraging because I assumed something must have been damaged inside the actual drone and I would be forced to buy a new one since I couldn't find anyone else with this problem.

However, before throwing in the towel a second time I remembered the adjustments I made in mission planner which was suggested by skyhax above. I had messed with the gimbal settings a ton before and nothing stopped the gimbal from going crazy, so I just left those adjusted settings as they were. I simply had to go back into mission planner and change the settings back to what they were originally and the gimbal would pan down perfectly.

My best guess as to why the gimbal was spinning out of control originally was that it still had water either in the board or in the servos. Once I let it sit for awhile the water dried up and the gimbal was fine. The only problem for me was that I messed with the settings in mission planner, so once I reset those, my drone and gimbal were back to normal. I've been on a few flights since and it is working great.

rcflyingaddict · Sep 15, 2017

Mattster25 said:
UPDATE:

A few days after trying those suggestions and a few minutes before throwing in the towel and buying a new gimbal, I decided to test it out one more time. To my surprise, the gimbal worked great: it stayed completely level when I moved the solo, didn't spin out of control, and didn't make any noise. However when I hit the trigger to point the gimbal down at an angle, it wouldn't budge. I took it for a flight and it stabilized completely fine, but would not angle down when I hit the trigger.

I told b&h (who I purchased the drone and gimbal from) and they offered to switch it out with a new gimbal. I sent it back, and recieved the new one, only to find the exact same problem, where the gimbal wouldn't point down. This was extremely disappointing and discouraging because I assumed something must have been damaged inside the actual drone and I would be forced to buy a new one since I couldn't find anyone else with this problem.

However, before throwing in the towel a second time I remembered the adjustments I made in mission planner which was suggested by skyhax above. I had messed with the gimbal settings a ton before and nothing stopped the gimbal from going crazy, so I just left those adjusted settings as they were. I simply had to go back into mission planner and change the settings back to what they were originally and the gimbal would pan down perfectly.

My best guess as to why the gimbal was spinning out of control originally was that it still had water either in the board or in the servos. Once I let it sit for awhile the water dried up and the gimbal was fine. The only problem for me was that I messed with the settings in mission planner, so once I reset those, my drone and gimbal were back to normal. I've been on a few flights since and it is working great.

So b and h sent you a refurb gimbal? did you end up sending the water logged one back?

Mattster25 · Sep 15, 2017

rcflyingaddict said:
So b and h sent you a refurb gimbal? did you end up sending the water logged one back?

Yeah I sent my old one back and they sent me a refurbished one that works fine. But now I know that the "water logged" one probably still works fine, I just hadn't realized that it was the mission planner settings in the actual drone that were preventing it from angling down. Hopefully they tested it out and realized that so they can resell it again.

rcflyingaddict · Sep 15, 2017

Mattster25 said:
Yeah I sent my old one back and they sent me a refurbished one that works fine. But now I know that the "water logged" one probably still works fine, I just hadn't realized that it was the mission planner settings in the actual drone that were preventing it from angling down. Hopefully they tested it out and realized that so they can resell it again.

Good to know. I have a kit coming from B&H and was curious to know if they made you ship back the unit before they would ship the replacement parts. Nice to see they will ship parts, vs having to ship the entire kit back.