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Powering Up With the Gimbal Cover On

ScottTX

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Hi All,

I have seen YouTube videos where they claim that if you power up the drone with the gimbal cover on, it will damage the gimbal.

Really? - If so, I think this would be a common occurrence.
 
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At off all the drones I’ve had you see it before it causes any damage .
 
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It puts some unnecessary wear and tear on your gimbal. It certainty can potentially damage the gimbal. Whether it will or not depends on how quickly you notice it. The gimbal obstructs the movement of the gimbal. It's like driving with your parking brake still on. Never a good thing. It can burn up your brakes. Damage varies.
 
I once turned on my Mavic Air 2 with the gimbal cover on, it didn't do any damage. I think DJI has some kind of algorithm that recognizes that the gimbal cover is on and stops the gimbal motors because when I removed the cover it gimbal wouldn't move and it said Motor Overloaded and Gimbal Stuck in the app. After a drone restart, it worked just fine.
I don't recommend trying it on your own drone.
 
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That’s about it ,you notice real quick and take it off. Don’t think
in over 6 years in our forums have I seen one instance of it damaging anything. Of course excess of anything could cause
damage but once you catch yourself leaving one on you rarely
do it anymore.
 
Especially after you paint it fluorescent orange and attach a 'remove before flight' flag 😁
It reall only took me a few times and made it a habit of that’s the first think I do is remove it but when I got my first P3 I did put a
remove before flight red tags on the gimbal.
 
It reall only took me a few times and made it a habit of that’s the first think I do is remove it but when I got my first P3 I did put a
remove before flight red tags on the gimbal.
Same here... I forgot it several times on my first GPS drone, a P3 Standard, until I attached a pitot flag, then moved the flag to the P3 Pro shortly after I got it. Mavic gimbal locks are much smaller with no good place to attach a flag, so I just paint 'em.

To the OP: don't sweat it, we've all done it... and like dirkclod said earlier, in 5 years I've never read of any damage.
 
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Have not had my cover on in months. I was bad to forget the cover was on. Just very careful with it.
 
Luckily I remember...now. I also fly a C-Fly Faith 2 (don't laugh!) which is used when I'm feeling more adventurous & don;t want to risk precious MA2. Once forgot to take gimbal cover off the C-Fly - once I'd realised, in a mad scramble to remove it managed to snap off one of the 2x forward clips :-( - gimabl AOK. Still holds on well with 1x front & main rear clip. Now both items have a big sign in their respective cases - REMOVE COVER, DUH :)
 
Thanks everyone!
 
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Hi All,

Here is a reply that I received from the DJI support rep that I posed this same question to:

"Dear Scott,

Usually it will not damage the drone. But we don't recommend you to power on your drone with the Gimbal Protector on. In case there is any issue occurs."
 
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It puts some unnecessary wear and tear on your gimbal. It certainty can potentially damage the gimbal. Whether it will or not depends on how quickly you notice it. The gimbal obstructs the movement of the gimbal. It's like driving with your parking brake still on. Never a good thing. It can burn up your brakes. Damage varies.
Bad analogy (parking brake). There is no mechanical wear when the gimbal is unable to move.

No damage does, or will occur. All that happen is magnetic forces occur in BLDC servos, with nothing moving. The power of the gimbal motors is so small, there is no meaningful risk of overheating (the energy has to go somewhere, and if not motion, then heat).

Don't worry about it. Really.
 
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