DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

Gimbal Horizon changes when Mavic turns

Mavicsailor

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2017
Messages
199
Reactions
109
Age
44
The issue with the horizon tilting when turning the Mavic while moving forward (pitch and yaw) appears to be a frequent problem. (Not in FPV mode) At least on mine, the horizon becomes level again after about 5 seconds once flying straight. I don't have to readjust. It won't do this (Tilt horizon) if in one positioning yawing 360. Interesting that the lense appears to stay level with the same rotational orientation all the time when holding the Mavic and rolling and turning it. I've done IMU and gimbal calibrations without change. This issue can be observed in multiple postings on YouTube. (most aren't bringing attention to this issue) The following post documents this issue very well. Skip forward to about 2 minutes for the demonstration of this issue.


How wide spead is this issue really? Are owners just ignoring it, or maybe they haven't noticed it. For those of you that have noticed this, have you found any solutions, other than sending it back, or are you just living with it? Some have blamed it on the cross winds as the AC needs to fly off level to compensate to maintain course or position. A gimbal should easily compensate for this. Given that the gimbal appears to easily adjust the camera when manually (by hand) moving the Mavic, I'm hopeful this is just a firmware fix.
 
Last edited:
The issue with the horizon tilting when turning the Mavic while moving forward (pitch and yaw) appears to be a frequent problem. (Not in FPV mode) At least on mine, the horizon becomes level again after about 5 seconds once flying straight. I don't have to readjust. It won't do this (Tilt horizon) if in one positioning yawing 360. Interesting that the lense appears to stay level with the same rotational orientation all the time when holding the Mavic and rolling and turning it. I've done IMU and gimbal calibrations without change. This issue can be observed in multiple postings on YouTube. (most aren't bringing attention to this issue) The following post documents this issue very well. Skip forward to about 2 minutes for the demonstration of this issue.


How wide spead is this issue really? Are owners just ignoring it, or maybe they haven't noticed it. For those of you that have noticed this, have you found any solutions, other than sending it back, or are you just living with it? Some have blamed it on the cross winds as the AC needs to fly off level to compensate to maintain course or position. A gimbal should easily compensate for this. Given that the gimbal appears to easily adjust the camera when manually (by hand) moving the Mavic, I'm hopeful this is just a firmware fix.

The Mavic is doing what it's supposed to. This will get better with firmware. The Gimbal readjusts automatically to level itself. If your jerky with the motion etc. You will throw it off and it may take a second to come back into alignment. Everyone has it. When you align your gimbal make sure it's on a level surface. But Normal. The gimbal does take a few seconds to re center itself after major movement. Just about every drone does something similar. Although the Mavic has a gimbal to keep it straight there is a motor as well to level it. Try turning synchronous follow on. It allows the camera to turn with the stick. May help a little for the quicker motions.


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots
 
In my case,
The Mavic is doing what it's supposed to. This will get better with firmware. The Gimbal readjusts automatically to level itself. If your jerky with the motion etc. You will throw it off and it may take a second to come back into alignment. Everyone has it. When you align your gimbal make sure it's on a level surface. But Normal. The gimbal does take a few seconds to re center itself after major movement. Just about every drone does something similar. Although the Mavic has a gimbal to keep it straight there is a motor as well to level it. Try turning synchronous follow on. It allows the camera to turn with the stick. May help a little for the quicker motions.


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots
Gimbal synchronous follow is enabled in the case of my tilted horizon, and my understanding is this feature is used more to take the rough edges off of panning with yaw, not camera rotation that affects horizon level. Perhaps this Horizon tilting (camera rotation) issue will be fixed in future firmware....I hope so. For now many find it unexceptable. In extreme cases mine will tilt probably 20 degrees off horizon, but then normally corrects itself to level within about 5 seconds, almost as flying FPV mode.
 
Last edited:
Hi! I've been investigating this phenomenon. Today I did a cold IMU calibration, I put my mavic in the refrigerator to cool it (DJI does the IMU calibrations of the controller boards before the assembly in special rooms at a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius), then I made one Calibration of IMU on a level surface. With this temperature the calibration of the accelerometers produces a more perfect BIAS. In my tests of this afternoon I have verified that the problem of has minimized much, although it has not totally disappeared, because this phenomenon is normal and is provoked by the force G applied in the change of direction. It can also be minimized by increasing the Roll Gain to reduce the angle of inclination of the aircraft. The increase must be in steps of 5 until the desired effect is achieved. This problem is due to the speed of recovery of the gimbal buffer. DJI has eliminated this advanced gimbal setting in the latest versions of DJI GO. Many users were reporting jumps and falls of gimbal and DJI has increased the time of recovery of the gimbal buffer in the last two versions of fimware. You can consult DJI after sales service but they are employees without technical knowledge. They will not tell you this. My recommendation for you is that you perform a cold calibration of the IMU and gimbal and make some adjustments in the gain of the Roll and also reduce the Exponential of the stick corresponding to the lateral displacements. We can not do anything until DJI hears complaints about this, and decides to increase again the speed of recovery of the gimbal's buffer. But by increasing this speed, the performance of gimbal in cold environments decreases. The only solution to this problem would be to isolate the gimbal controller plate in helium gas, as do the military engineers in the intelligent electronic guidance systems of UAV. DJI may not know this. Each Mavic is different, and requires slight adjustments. I hope I have clarified your doubts and concerns. You can check my test result:
Test
 
View media item 2047I have this issue and I am tired to fix it. Even if I turn my mavic slowly the horizon is tilted. Usually I use camera-up-down button on my remote controller to fix that, switching look from bottom-to-forward once or twice and trying to do not rotate the drone filming only straight, but wtf...
 
Last edited:
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
131,296
Messages
1,561,790
Members
160,242
Latest member
dominicus15