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

How I FIXED My Mavic Gimbal Problem

Cyber3xpert

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 8, 2019
Messages
167
Reactions
89
Hey everyone,
Thought I would share my experience with you all.

I crashed my Mavic Pro into a 4-in tree branch in October. It curled the top cover back a bit, folded the front arm back, and scratched the battery up. Cosmetics. The only broken piece was the gimbal vibration absorbing board. I ordered a new one of those and replaced it, and the drone flew fine.

A month or so later, I took it out of the case to fly it, and my gimbal got stuck in the middle of its startup procedure. It was flipping back, forth, back, forth, then going limp. Then it would start flipping back and forth again and keep doing this till I turned it off. On the way over to where I was going to fly, my case slid across the bed of the pickup and smacked into the other side. I had also forgotten to put the gimbal lock on.

I thought, crap, I broke the vibration board again. It didn't look broken, but I replaced it anyway. It still wasn't fixed.

I sent it in to @djidroneservice in Virginia. They inspected it and said the camera had to be replaced and the whole deal was going to cost $400. I told them to send it back to me; I was going to fix it myself.

I took apart the gimbal and camera because I was going to order a new one instead. I took the cables out and took the camera off of the gimbal. I decided to test the camera to see if it worked right or not. I connected the camera straight to the gimbal control board and hooked that to the drone via the power plug. I then put a battery in and turned on the drone to find that I got a video feed! So I knew the camera worked and the cable was not damaged.

I ordered a gimbal and camera setup on eBay, and it came a few days later. I put it on and put my drone back together and went out to fly. I had noticed that I wasn't getting a video feed from the new camera, but didn't really give it any thought. I started the drone up and connected the controller and tablet, and all I got for video was a black screen.

I was very frustrated that my new camera didn't work. The gimbal worked fine, but now the camera didn't. I tried using the old camera with the new gimbal, the new camera with the old transmission cable, and even the old cam with the old cable that I knew both worked. All of it gave me a black screen. So now I was getting a black screen with the camera that I tested and knew worked. I got on the web and searched up mp black screen fix and one of the videos that came up said the latest firmware made the camera go black a few flights after the update. So I downgraded to the previous firmware and went out to fly again. I got a cam feed but it wouldn't focus. The whole feed was blurry. I thought maybe I'll restart it and it'll fix it. I did so, and when it connected again, I had a black screen.

I felt like throwing it into a jet engine by now, so I just left it for a day. The next day I was like, one of those videos said that a different lens fixed the problem. I'll just change the lens. My Mavic now had the one-before-latest firmware and a new camera that wouldn't focus. In my earlier tests with my old camera, I found that it would still focus, so I switched out the lenses. And Whaddya know, it worked! I flew it around and it focused fine. It worked like a dream!

So all in all, I had about $182 in fixing my drone. I now have the new gimbal with the old camera, and it works great. I am very happy that it's fixed now and wanted to maybe give some of you a solution, whoever might have the same or a similar problem.

I hope this helps someone. It sure helped me!
 
Hi,
What do you mean by changing lens? You mentioned that your original camera module did NOT work with the new gimbal ie black screen and then you changed the lens itself? Meaning the glass lens? From the "new" camera to the old camera?
 
So when I was switching everything out with everything else, the firmware was still the latest. It didn't matter which camera I put in there; it would still give me a black screen. After I downgraded and got a completely unfocused feed once, the screen went black again when I restarted the drone. This was with the new camera. This new camera wouldn't focus for some reason, so I decided to switch it with the old one that did focus. The only thing I changed was the actual camera unit. I didn't have anything to do with the glass part. Does that answer your question?
 
So, older firmware which was not what you crashed with, and the old camera, right?

What version is that? I'm about to do something very similar except that I'm waiting for a replacement, used Gimbal control board.
 
Once I downgraded, it flew fine with the old camera. I haven't flown it yet with the latest firmware because it works with the older version.

The version I'm running now: V01.04.0400

The latest version: V01.04.0500

You need DJI assistant on your laptop to downgrade. You also need an internet connection, but I assume you already have that.
 
2020-05-04.png

Here is a screenshot of the DJI Assistant 2 app. It shows the version you're running and previous versions. If you're running an older version, it will show the latest above the one you're running.
 
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
130,599
Messages
1,554,262
Members
159,605
Latest member
petravka