Gimbal protector left on

Back Country · Nov 24, 2019

That does sound like a costly mistake : (

Being totally new to drones I decided to pay the extra and gain a bit of piece of mind so I grabbed the DJI Care Refresh deal as well, so as lobg as I can recover the thing when I crash it I should be good(lol, maybe I should stop flying it over rivers while I'm learning the ropes).

Flynz · Nov 24, 2019

Rivers and water are fine if you add altitude. Low flying over water is for when you are confident. If you fly a kilometre away remember to think about wind. It takes more time and battery to fly up wind so if you explore downwind, increase your safety margin. I tend to save some battery to explore quite close to me towards the end of a mission so if I misjudge then I have the battery up my sleeve to land safely. In fact almost always finish a distance mission with something local.
Once landed at below 5% with the controller screaming at me as I over rode the auto land. However the last part of the flight was only a few metres away and over flatland. So really no risk at all.
Enjoy! this things are really clever bits of kit and so much fun to have. If in doubt, stop, add a bit of altitude and slowly rotate on the spot with the camera angled at say 45 degrees to ensure you know where you are.

Flynz · Nov 24, 2019

re the original post, Gimbal protection off before starting the drone or else the servos will fail, eventually. Forget the survey. The drone does rapid gimbal movements in start up and the servos will be damaged and eventually fail. Eventually, we have all forgotten sometime in our history. And the bulb cover off too as there is a vent behind the gimbal which feeds air to cool the chip which gets very hot under load. A stack of processing in these things. Batteries heat everything up too!