P3A Gimbal Going Crazy After Crash - But All Motors Aligned

Phantom 3 Pro/Adv
1

Hey there,

Recently I crashed my Phantom 3 Advanced, the only thing on the drone that broke was the roll arm on the gimbal (specifically, the ring around the roll motor).

I bought a replacement part, and well… replaced it and it spins freely just like before.

But now when I turn on the drone the gimbal goes crazy, not side to side but as if the camera is trying to look backwards, to one of the max-turn corners it can turn to (most left down or most right down, etc).

I figured one of the motors is not aligned, so I checked all the motors and their potentiometers.

  1. The yaw motor, on the base of the gimbal is aligned with the flat side to the small black screw and the black screw is tight.
  2. I checked and aligned the roll motor, made sure the flat side is facing the drone when the roll arm is level
  3. I checked the pitch motor (the one that directly holds and turns the camera) and I actually wasn’t sure if the flat side is supposed to face the camera’s forward direction (where the lens is looking, to be specific) or the other way around - so I tried both, multiple times, and it didn’t fix the issue.

So my question is, what could be the problem? And which way is the pitch motor supposed to face? (flat side looking at the same direction as the camera or opposite?)

Thanks!

1 Like
2

I am sorry, but I cannot advise you what might be wrong, but if you do not find a solution here, you might try the PhantomPilots Web Site, they are all Phantom…

3

Thanks! I’m heading over there now.

4

Update: I tried updating/reinstalling the firmware, hoping it would work. The firmware update was successful but after it was done, I rebooted the drone and the gimbal still did the crazy dance, so no chance.

I inspected the flat ribbon cable up close and saw a little dent in the cable, perhaps that’s the root of the problem? But again this doesn’t make sense to me because the gimbal was working fine (centering) before I replaced the broken roll arm. I could order a new ribbon cable, but would rather avoid it if it’s not necessary.

5

It sounds like you’re describing this problem:


For ensuring you've assembled everything correctly, you'll find lots of Phantom 3 gimbal repair videos on YouTube. I don't know that you'll find much help in other forums since most DJI drone owners don't repair Phantoms -- and even fewer still own Phantoms these days.
6

Thanks!