Air 1 gimbal repair - won't calibrate

[mobby_6kl]

Hi all,

A few months ago I got a used Air for a specific project. It did the job, but the gimbal had been repaird at some point before and would sometimes get stuck and not keep completely horizontal.

I got a replacement gimbal from aliexpress (just the case/motors) and swapped it. After jiggling the wires and connectors a bit, the camera works, and the gimbal turns on but is locked in extreme left (or maybe right?) position, and will get stuck at 10% when trying to calibrate.

Unfortunately the previous repair glued the big wire loom to the case in one place and I had to break off parts of the case to remove it. It looks like all the wires are intact, although the insulation is a bit torn in some places, so it's possible that something is damaged where I can't see it.

I tried to check the smaller flat ribbon cable, and it seems that one pin might not be connected through, although it's hard to say for certain testing it with a multimeter. It might even be by design if they have power and signal going through that cable. Does anyone know which cable does what? Any ideas what is the most likely cause of these symptoms? I'm trying to decide between:

• Buying one cable
• Buying both cables
• Buying the whole gimal again

I'd rather get either the correct cable, or the whole gimbal, since I could at least sell my working parts in that case. Unfortunately I don't have extra parts to test it, and would have to wait weeks for anything to arrive. So any suggestiosn would be helpful, thanks!

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Problem? gimbal doesn't calibrate after replacement

Was unit in a crash? probably

What have you tried so far?: restart, change batteries, refresh firmware, wiggle the cables

What device are you using? Galaxy Note9

What firmware are you running ( aircraft, remote controller)? newest

What Go app version are you using? newest version

Any modification? its all a stock unit

Did you change anything or install any apps? No

Do you have a video or pictures of the problem? See above, can make more if it'll help

 

[mobby_6kl]

Well. Anyway

I was literally one click away from ordering a new (used) gimbal for $50 from aliexpress, but decided to give it another go. It's not just the fifty bucks, but also I might have to wait months for it to arrive while the drone was sitting in bits on my desk.

So I opened it again, checked all the connectors, and put it back together. Then doing some more research, I came across DJI Firmware Tools that had some procedures for calibrating the gimbal, but initially it failed too. Thankfully I noticed that one of the covers on the gimbal popped off and was binding the yaw motor. I then ran the two calibration steps, restarted it, and, as far as I can tell from test flights indoors, it now works perfectly, better than before my repair. It keeps the horizon level and doesn't get stuck any more, and no "gimbal overloaded errors".

I haven't really seen this process suggested here, so here it is in case someone runs into a similar problem:

0. Install Python 3 if you don't have it: Download Python
1. Download DJI Firmware Tools: o-gs/dji-firmware-tools
2. Turn on and connect the drone via USB to the PC
3. Open the command line window in the DJI tools folder and runs "python comm_og_service_tool.py COM3 -vv MAVAIR GimbalCalib JointCoarse", without quotes, and replacing COM3 with the port of your drone if it's different (you can run the "mode" command to see it)
4. Wait about 15 seconds or until it finishes, and run "python comm_og_service_tool.py COM3 -vv MAVAIR GimbalCalib LinearHall"
5. Wait about 30 seconds and disconnect, restart the drone just in case.

So yeah it turned out to be a software issue, the cables, althogh visually a bit rough, were fine. Hopefully this helps someone.