Gimbal Out of Control Issue

Shaneoc · Jul 2, 2017

Hi Guys,

So 2 days ago I was flying and went through 1 1/2 batteries and got some great footage. I stopped flying and moved location and sent the mavic up with very low battery. All of a sudden the gimbal started going a little crazy and unsteady. My first thought was that it came loose out of the hooks but after landing it all looked to be secure and fine, I then thought it was something to do with the very low battery and once I put a fully charged battery in I wouldnt have an issue.

So then yesterday I flew and about 2.5min into the flight the gimbal decided to do the same thing, it was perfectly fine for the first 2.5minutes and then just started going a little crazy.
I have not recalibrate the gimbal yet, just sticking this info up here to see if anyone has had the same issue?

See videos below

Skip to 1:43 to the start of the gimbal going crazy.

Londonpilot · Jul 2, 2017

Mine spazed out today as well. A bit more severe and it really freaked me out at one stage the bird swings violently around on its own. Also you can see a very close out of focus object swing past the camera and I think it was the vertical pivot arm. I didn't think the the camera could pan that far right but I could be wrong.

I'm interested if others with lower fw have experienced this gimbal behavior? I'm on .900 and don't want it happening again.

I have to add that this is cache footage and I couldn't find the same footage on the mavic.

Shaneoc · Jul 2, 2017

Londonpilot said:
Mine spazed out today as well. A bit more severe and it really freaked me out at one stage the bird swings violently around on its own. Also you can see a very close out of focus object swing past the camera and I think it was the vertical pivot arm. I didn't think the the camera could pan that far right but I could be wrong.

I'm interested if others with lower fw have experienced this gimbal behavior? I'm on .900 and don't want it happening again.

I have to add that this is cache footage and I couldn't find the same footage on the mavic.

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I dont think the bird is out of control, just the gimbal right? My bird was completely stable,the gimbal was just going crazy.Makes it a little difficult to fly it back. I am on FW .700.

I had an ND filter on at the time but had been flying with it all day, I am wondering if that caused the issue

infors · Jul 2, 2017

I had similar behaviour to the top video on both .700 and .800. Freaked me right out!! I thought it might be the bird wobbling out of control. I'll try and dig out the video. In both cases it was in relatively (but not excessively) strong wind. My guess was that the wind caught the gimbal slightly and it tried to fight against itself (looks like a feedback loop). Same as you...no physical damage and no lasting problem...in fact I've not had any problems for a while now (fingers crossed!!)

Shaneoc · Jul 2, 2017

Video from Day #2

2017_07_01_11_53_42 - Streamable

As you can see the gimbal is completely normal and all of a sudden starts going out of control.

Wind was minimal infors so I dont think that was the cause.

tibook · Jul 2, 2017

Hi, been lurking...anyway, yes, mine has done that on the last couple flights, and its disconcerting to say the least. My Mavic was built 3/17/17. Running the latest firmware (900?). Both times no wind warnings, etc. It also seems to stop recording video when this kind of thing happens.

Path Finder · Aug 16, 2017

Any updates to a fix?

Finding lots of issues and no "fix"

Camera tilted badly, then went back to normal but lost settings

Riel_Highlife · Jan 13, 2018

Londonpilot said:
Mine spazed out today as well. A bit more severe and it really freaked me out at one stage the bird swings violently around on its own. Also you can see a very close out of focus object swing past the camera and I think it was the vertical pivot arm. I didn't think the the camera could pan that far right but I could be wrong.

I'm interested if others with lower fw have experienced this gimbal behavior? I'm on .900 and don't want it happening again.

I have to add that this is cache footage and I couldn't find the same footage on the mavic.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Hi any update or fix? or did you figure out the core of the issue? This is exactly what my Mavic Platinum is doing. I only flew my drone about 10x and it happen 3 times. I do use ND filters, and the gimbal calibrates fine. Kinda scary because the gimbal ends up sitting at an odd angle, making it difficult to fly home. Also, I noticed that it happens when at about 500ft distance, while recording.

Londonpilot · Jan 14, 2018

Riel_Highlife said:
Hi any update or fix? or did you figure out the core of the issue? This is exactly what my Mavic Platinum is doing. I only flew my drone about 10x and it happen 3 times. I do use ND filters, and the gimbal calibrates fine. Kinda scary because the gimbal ends up sitting at an odd angle, making it difficult to fly home. Also, I noticed that it happens when at about 500ft distance, while recording.

Hi, unfortunately I know of no update or fix for this issue currently. I haven’t flown my Mavic Pro in months now so I wouldn’t know if it’s been fixed in a recent update or not. It’s such a random glitch to and I now know that it’s still happening even on the Platinum. If you could post a vid of your issue it might help others to diagnose the glitch but in my case I put it down to very excessive high altitude wind currents. I firmly believe that the bird encountered a large wind current that caused the gimbal to hit it’s limits and then freaked out. It certainly freaked me out that I needed a change of underwear lol.

It happened while I was flying on the coast of Cornwall and while I was in sports mode trying to manually return home. It’s really an odd random issue and one I hope won’t repeat but just remain calm and even if it happens again just hit the rth button and once in view safely bring it in but you sound like you already know that. Just wish more people who have experienced it would chime in. Another thing to add is that during the glitch video was not recorded to the internal memory, only the cache on my phone recorded it. Hope we can come up with a solution because it really scary, fly safe buddy

endlesssummer · Apr 29, 2018

Signed up so I could reply that I'm having the same issue. About 10 minutes into the flight, the gimbal goes bonkers making it impossible to fly through the camera. I reviewed the footage and it cuts out right before the gimbal went crazy. Scared me the first time it happened. I thought the quad was spinning out of control. I checked the errors and couldn't see anything. My firmware is the current version for 4.29.18. Sorry, I don't know what this is at the moment.
This happens 50% of the time. The quad only has 7 flights, Zero crashes, and I've been flying in calm weather with no mods done to the quad. It's so stressful that I don't even enjoy flying it anymore. Going to get in touch with DJI tomorrow and will update you all if I find a solution.

Shaneoc · Apr 29, 2018

endlesssummer said:
Signed up so I could reply that I'm having the same issue. About 10 minutes into the flight, the gimbal goes bonkers making it impossible to fly through the camera. I reviewed the footage and it cuts out right before the gimbal went crazy. Scared me the first time it happened. I thought the quad was spinning out of control. I checked the errors and couldn't see anything. My firmware is the current version for 4.29.18. Sorry, I don't know what this is at the moment.
This happens 50% of the time. The quad only has 7 flights, Zero crashes, and I've been flying in calm weather with no mods done to the quad. It's so stressful that I don't even enjoy flying it anymore. Going to get in touch with DJI tomorrow and will update you all if I find a solution.

Hey,

I figured out my issue,it was the fact i was critically low on battery.The gimbal power is cut so that the battery is solely used by the motors so you can land it. I have never had the issue since so thats my only thought.

For you, I would recommend doing a hard reset on the mavic and if you still have the same issues..Download the flight record to your computer and send it to dji with all the info you can.The fact that it continually happens sounds like a hardware issue rather than software but give the reset a go and/or reinstall the firmware.