Mavic Mini strange gimbal movement

megazoom · Dec 4, 2020

Hello everybody. I had this strange gimbal movement (or maybe strange drone movement) when flying today. Maybe caused for cold weather? Any ideas why?

Thanks

PanX · Dec 4, 2020

megazoom said:
Hello everybody. I had this strange gimbal movement (or maybe strange drone movement) when flying today. Maybe caused for cold weather? Any ideas why?

Thanks

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Definitely seems a yaw movement to me. Maybe you had gloves on? Did you see the data on airdata. Com to be sure there was no any accidentally stick input?

DanMan32 · Dec 5, 2020

That could also be the gimbal being knocked around. Seems more likely to be the gimbal since the yaw is quite abrupt. I would doubt AC yaw would be that abrupt.

scro · Dec 6, 2020

I've had that happen on my mini1 a few times. I'm fairly sure it is a gust of wind forcing the gimbal to pan sideways as I've only seen it in fairly breezy conditions. It has shown no damage before or after, and continued to work normally.

boblui · Dec 6, 2020

It has occurred to my Mini as well. The flight log indicates that it was the craft that yawed without any rudder input. Not the gimbal. Reason ? unknown and I could never reproduce it. If you can post the flight log may be more insight can be obtained.

scro · Dec 6, 2020

@boblui now you mention it, I've seen my MM body yaw briefly without stick input like this. I'd only assumed what I'd seen on the fpv view was the gimbal itself as the forward trajectory of the flight didn't seem to have been affected. I didn't think to capture the logs to do some detailed analysis.

Such occurrences have been quite rare (maybe 3 times in the year I've had the MM) and I too haven't been able to replicate.

scro · Dec 8, 2020

@boblui I wonder if you have the flight log handy that you took a screenshot of in post #5? What were the 4 motor speeds like at that moment when you had the abrupt yaw?

It just occurred to me that if one prop were to lose lift momentarily (micro pocket of turbulence if such a thing exists, prop strike, ESC glitch?!?!) then the diagonally opposite prop might slow down in sympathy to avoid flipping the drone, with the result that the 2 unaffected props would cause an uncommanded yaw. It's maybe a bit too contrived, as I'd have expected loss of lift in 1 corner to initially manifest itself with that corner losing altitude, ie drone pitching towards that corner - maybe another thing to check, if you have the log.

boblui · Dec 8, 2020

scro said:
@boblui I wonder if you have the flight log handy that you took a screenshot of in post #5? What were the 4 motor speeds like at that moment when you had the abrupt yaw?

It just occurred to me that if one prop were to lose lift momentarily (micro pocket of turbulence if such a thing exists, prop strike, ESC glitch?!?!) then the diagonally opposite prop might slow down in sympathy to avoid flipping the drone, with the result that the 2 unaffected props would cause an uncommanded yaw. It's maybe a bit too contrived, as I'd have expected loss of lift in 1 corner to initially manifest itself with that corner losing altitude, ie drone pitching towards that corner - maybe another thing to check, if you have the log.

Unfortunately I have got the .TXT file only. The unexplainable yaw with no rudder input is circled. It always happened when the craft is flying at full speed forward. If I remember right, there was not much wind when it happened and the craft was at rather low height.