Red Alert - Gimbal Shake

khurram52c · Mar 18, 2018

Ok guys. I just experienced the dreaded gimbal shake on my mavic pro plat ... out of the blues.

Conditions were that i had done some normal and sports mode flying. One bty changed, into the second, nothing really crazy ... just normal flying at 40-50 m and 30 km/hr (19-20 mph)

I first noted a lag and jump in transmission, ignored it thinking it was a transmission error, although the HD bars were full and i was in an open field.

But then it jut shook a bit and then some more.
i brought it down and inspected the craft and gimbal and all seemed in place
did calibration and then took off again...
the shake seems to have gone, but one interesting thing ..... when i fly it backwards in sports mode and let go of the sticks, no braking just let go of stick, the gimbal automatically drops down 2 notches.

i have not bumped or crashed it ... all has been good thus far.
What could be causing this shake?

tictag · Mar 18, 2018

The 'dreaded gimbal shake' you refer to has been reported many times for MP owners using the new MPP blades, this initially had a workaround (dropping gain settings) then a firmware fix. I don't think there are many reports of the MPP with this issue.

You mention 'it shook a bit' - aircraft or gimbal (or both)?

If you let go of the sticks, you're aircraft will brake, the severity of the braking is adjustable. You might be simply reaching the end-stops of the gimbal's ability to stabalise - try either slowing down the braking speed, or control your stop more smoothly.

A shaking aircraft is likely either due to incorrect gain settings (leave them all at 100%) or IMU calibration.

Kilrah · Mar 18, 2018

khurram52c said:
when i fly it backwards in sports mode and let go of the sticks, no braking just let go of stick, the gimbal automatically drops down 2 notches.

That's totally normal. Letting go DOES brake exactly the same as if you gave input the other way.

Robert P Stenerson PLS · Mar 18, 2018

tictag said:
The 'dreaded gimbal shake' you refer to has been reported many times for MP owners using the new MPP blades, this initially had a workaround (dropping gain settings) then a firmware fix. I don't think there are many reports of the MPP with this issue.

You mention 'it shook a bit' - aircraft or gimbal (or both)?

If you let go of the sticks, you're aircraft will brake, the severity of the braking is adjustable. You might be simply reaching the end-stops of the gimbal's ability to stabalise - try either slowing down the braking speed, or control your stop more smoothly.

A shaking aircraft is likely either due to incorrect gain settings (leave them all at 100%) or IMU calibration.

Thanks tictag, I am a newbie Mavic Pro pilot, and yesterday I tried a set of 8331 MPP props for the first time, and experienced this gimbal shake. I thought maybe I'd purchased counterfeit props ($8.95/set of four) from Amazon marketplace, so I swapped my normal 8830-s back on and everything went back to normal.

They sure looked like the real deal, but with this shaking gimbal
I was going to try returning them, until I saw your post here. Can you tell me more about the workaround gain settings? I am using the latest firmware.

Thanks, all the best

tictag · Mar 18, 2018

It would be worthwhile checking out the threads on here regarding the vibrating gimbal, the reason I say this is because apparently there has been a firmware fix for this very problem i.e. don't do the workaround THEN the firmware fix. The workaround is to lower the pitch and roll gain values in small equal increments until the gimbal stops shaking. Most reports (on here) have said that 89% is the magic number but it's best to be methodical because you can get other problems e.g. instability, oscillations etc if the gain is too low. I would recommend doing this as a last resort e.g. refresh firmware, calibrate everything, try a friends 'official' 8331 props etc

Personally, I have had the 8331 props fitted to my MP since they came out and have had no issues whatsoever.

Robert P Stenerson PLS · Mar 18, 2018

Thanks again, I used your term "vibrating gimbal" as a search term on this forum and found petter_m77's excellent YouTube explanation of the problem and how and why it's fixed with incremental adjustments to the advanced gain settings. I'll try that next.

All the best,

khurram52c · Mar 19, 2018

tictag said:
The 'dreaded gimbal shake' you refer to has been reported many times for MP owners using the new MPP blades, this initially had a workaround (dropping gain settings) then a firmware fix. I don't think there are many reports of the MPP with this issue.

You mention 'it shook a bit' - aircraft or gimbal (or both)?

If you let go of the sticks, you're aircraft will brake, the severity of the braking is adjustable. You might be simply reaching the end-stops of the gimbal's ability to stabalise - try either slowing down the braking speed, or control your stop more smoothly.

A shaking aircraft is likely either due to incorrect gain settings (leave them all at 100%) or IMU calibration.

thanks ... the helped. I was just doing some extreme stops and starts ... i have made em more smoother now.

khurram52c · Mar 19, 2018

this is full speed ahead, normal mode, just let go of controls and gimbal jerks. i am quite sure that i had not experienced this before. this is the jerk / shake that i was talking about in the beginning of the post.
Can any friend help me figure it out?

Kilrah · Mar 19, 2018

As already mentioned, perfectly normal. Ease the stick out instead of just letting it go and/or reduce your braking strength in settings.

khurram52c · Mar 19, 2018

Kilrah said:
As already mentioned, perfectly normal. Ease the stick out instead of just letting it go and/or reduce your braking strength in settings.

thanks mate ... saved me a lot of worry ...
i observed something interesting today .... the stream coming from the drone to my phone experienced some flicker which when played from the phone,had it in recording as well. but when i copied the same clip from the SD card of the drone, the video was perfectly clear. just something that i wanted to share with everyone. i was flying close to overhead electric cables and i guess thats why experienced the flicker.