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Strange gimbal behaviour in wind

Bruce Lythe

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Apr 4, 2019
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Sorry newbie question. I was flying twice today in winds and the gimboal seemed to lock at a strange angle. I was flying fast in wind - not in sports mode. Stopping and restarting corrected it. Any ideas??
 
Sorry newbie question. I was flying twice today in winds and the gimboal seemed to lock at a strange angle. I was flying fast in wind - not in sports mode. Stopping and restarting corrected it. Any ideas??

Did it happen during a head wind or crosswind? The angle of attack of the drone will have an effect on the way and the delay that the gimbal is able to maintain the horizon. The stiffer the head wind, the lower the nose of the drone will need to be to give itseld more thrust into the wind.
 
Mavic Air at heavy wind in normal mode to fight with a wind is tilting and rolling more then normal. In this situations it is exceeding the tilt and roll limits of gimbal (like it is happening in sport mode).

Last time at really heavy wind when I was trying to go to home point manually, against the wind, the Mavic was acting in sport and normal mode absolutely same. No difference at all. And I almost lost my bird [emoji14]

I am lucky. And stupid.
I checked in the beginning of the flight that Mavic was using 90% of its power just to hold its position but I flew it anyway [emoji1]
 
I guessed as much. Is there a safety mode where the gimbol just locks at a false horizon position? When I have looked at the video I will be able to tell you more, but from my phone screen it looked as though the horizon had stuck at perhaps 30 degrees from true. I guess the drone was down on the side from which the wind was blowing....and the gimbol stopped trying to compensate.... Or had it reached a hard physical limit?
 
Yes there are hard physical limits. If the gimbal is forced all the way to its limits by anything and the motors are trying to compensate, smoke will usually follow.
 
Can I post a video (when i have downloaded it off my card this evening - to show the problem? How do I do this to this forum???
 
hello guys, i actually had this problem yesterday, i was getting smooth gimble shots, then all of a sudden the gimble locked, and wasnt compensating for the wind which resulted in super jerky footage, i have been a mavic air owner for 1.5 years, my first mavic covered 250 flights before it failed and i never experienced this problem once, my second mavic air i bought second hand, so i am trying to establish if this a problem on the unit as its pre used, or if a firmware update has caused this, also this morning i was moving the gimble camera up and down, and i can feel that the camera locks in about 2-3 positions , this is with the unit off, i have pulled the gimble clamp left and right a bit further out, the camera now rotates freely but i dont know how it will react once in the air, i also got a gimble overload error yesterday as well for the first time. Bruce can you confirm if you feel any resistance when you move the gimble up and down? cheers pal, hopefully we can sort this issue
 
i have flown in sports mode with my first mavic air in the wind etc and i have never encountered any problems with the gimble or camera this is why im onto this issue straight away as im on my second unit now, and its acting rather strangely
 
Not at my laptop. It travels freely now so think this was software or a hard physical stop because of extreme leaning into wind. It corrected itself when I halted drone in mid air. Will post video in next 24 hours promise
 
Not at my laptop. It travels freely now so think this was software or a hard physical stop because of extreme leaning into wind. It corrected itself when I halted drone in mid air. Will post video in next 24 hours promise
Yes when I brought it down to eye level to inspect what was going on it seemed to be fine, but when I took it up again around 50 metres it would lock again, I really do hope it sorts itself out, like I said my first mavic air had 250 flights and I flew it in the wind and sports mode and the gimble never locked or froze, this is like my 5th flight from a pre used drone so I'm just curious and hoping it's not a hardware fault
 
Youtube

Strong wind gusting from right about 110 degrees from direction of travel. Possibly 25mph wind or more in gusts?

Problem demonstrated on video. In this case it corrected itself.

On previous case (video was not switched on so not recorded) it went to an angle. Not sure if it was same angle or reverse one. I slowed to a stop and as I did so it corrected itself.
 
Hhmmm yours is at a angle, mine for example might lock looking down but won't go back up again until I stop and bring it back down, il try upload my footage, iv had My old one flying where the wind gusts are strong and I can see my mavic in the air at an angle but the camera feed is perfectly straight, it's quite and impressive sight to see the little drone fighting the wind yet providing buttery smooth footage due to the 3 axis gimble, is your Drone under warranty? I wouldn't class this as normal regardless of the 25mph, did you get any wind warnings on your controller? Iv pushed my drone to the limit my old one anyway and never once did my gimble tilt or lock.
 
If you didn't get any wind warnings to land the drone then the wind wouldn't have been that high and within the tolerance that the drone can handle ideally.
 
How old is your Drone? And how many flights have you done? Has it had any crashes? Also be careful and gentle when putting on the gimble clamp
 
Youtube

Strong wind gusting from right about 110 degrees from direction of travel. Possibly 25mph wind or more in gusts?

Problem demonstrated on video. In this case it corrected itself.

On previous case (video was not switched on so not recorded) it went to an angle. Not sure if it was same angle or reverse one. I slowed to a stop and as I did so it corrected itself.

Not as bad as it was in your case but this has happened to me too. It wasn't that windy and I was not going fast or in sports mode. There was this sudden jolt of the gimbal as the drone stopped moving, but it corrected itself pretty much quickly. I am still puzzled as to what caused it. You can see a clip of it here
 
Thanks for the comments. It seems to be reproducible in high wind so I will tomorrow when I have downloaded today's video (reproducing it repeatedly) I will post it and and the details of this morning's flight. It is definitely a high wind problem and did get high wind warnings. It seems fine outside of high cross winds.....
 
Any help much appreciated. Is this a PROBLEM or is the MA parking the gimbal temporarily because of the cross wind (a FEATURE) ???

I have now uploaded yesterdays mornings flight where I reproduced the problem. I attach screenshots from my phone, a link to youtube for the video, and a link to telemetry



Any help much appreciated. Is this a PROBLEM or is the MA parking the gimbal temporarily because of the cross wind (a FEATURE) ???
 

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