Calibrate your gimbal before first flight!

[Hindsight]

The gimbal kept dropping down during the test flight and it had scratches on the rear mount upon inspection. This might not save you from scratches, but will at least make your maiden flight more enjoyable.

 

[Goof]

Scratches are possibly from the gimbal cover not sitting in the right spot and/or a rough shipping experience.

Keep an eye on that gimbal, it only has a 6 month warranty. If the impacts that caused the scratching were hard enough they could've damaged the camera IMU. If you're having drooping or "gimbal overload" issues now it won't get better. Get it replaced before your 6 months is up.

 

[Prmath]

Please guys, if we can afford a 12-$1500 drone, another 20 bucks on a good landing pad won’t kill us...........
Just thinking out loud........ safe flying

 

[Goof]

I'm also now on the lookout for a better gimbal clamp design. My fly more bag should arrive this week, so up until then/now I've been driving around with the mavic on the front seat. The ride in my ute is, (in my opinion) pretty smooth, yet I'm not happy with the amount of rattling and banging I'm hearing from under that gimbal clamp.

I've killed a phantom 4 camera IMU by accidentally dropping it less than 3 inches onto a desk, so I'm not convinced this constant rattling is good for the camera at all. If the new bag is not sufficiently padded, it might be better in the long run to just forego the clamp and let the vibration dampeners in the gimbal mount absorb the shock.

Even if this wears out the rubber faster, at least they're a lot cheaper and easier to find than IMU boards...