Adding landing gear spacer to keep it from getting stuck - Opinions?

YeeaaBoii · May 2, 2017

UPDATE May 16th, 2017
Alright so after figuring out my landing gear motor is NOT broken, I've come to the conclusion the landing gear lowers past the farthest thread or section of the worm screw in the middle. It seems to get off track and only gets stuck when put into landing mode. I have had to manually unscrew it out of landing mode multiple times now and the screw it starting to get stripped.

Here's my idea: I'm going to put a small rubber spacer around the base of the worm screw so when the gear is put into the landing mode position, it cannot actually go all the way down. It will be held off by the rubber by a half a millimeter or so. I've included a photo of where I'm going to place the rubber ring. Any thoughts on this?

Original Post
Hey guys,

It looks like a servo or something went bad in my Inspire 2 today. I was on a job and it flew great all day. For the last shot of the day, we swapped batteries and took it up as usual. It flew fine and there were no abnormal warnings of any kind. When I tried to lift the landing gear manually with the remote switch, it said something like "Landing gear could not deploy. Please make sure your gimbal is safe before landing." From that moment on, no amount of resets, firmware updates, or gimbal removals has fixed it. I was running the firmware version before the most recent one. It has the numbers 2.4000 or something in it.

When I try to put it in travel mode either through the app or by pressing the power button 5 times, I can hear a tiny motor try to engage and then nothing happens.

Has anyone had an issue like this and figured out how to get it working again? DJI support was no help and couldn't tell me how to lower the landing gear manually either.

Thanks!

Mad_angler1 · May 3, 2017

Have you tried using the manual screw to move it a little, in the bottom there is a hole where you invert the supplied screwdriver.

Any heavy landing or anything with this craft ?

YeeaaBoii · May 3, 2017

Mad_angler1 said:
Have you tried using the manual screw to move it a little, in the bottom there is a hole where you invert the supplied screwdriver.

Any heavy landing or anything with this craft ?

There have never been any hard landings, drops, or crashes whatsoever. I actually got it working this morning by manually screwing it all the way back to travel mode. Since then it has been working in all modes but it doesn't react as quickly as it used to. There's a click sound, then a bit of hesitation, then it will move to the selected gear setting.

Funny thing is, when I talked to DJI support, they could NOT confirm if the Inspire 2 had a screw hole to manually move the gear. They recommended I send it in for repair. I ended up calling my dealer's tech team, and they are the ones that actually told me to go ahead and turn the screw I thought it was in the first place. I was wary about turning it because it was extremely tight to begin with, but once it started turning, it moved the gear up and down with ease.

I'm pretty sure it's going to completely fail soon since it's not acting like it used to. I will be forced to manually lift and lower the gear, but thankfully I can make due with it to finish upcoming projects.

Jason Boucher · May 13, 2017

The same thing just happened to me yesterday. Flew a few times during the day with no issues.. Never had any hard landings at all. Took Off for a 4th flight of the day and landing gear would not go up.

I tried everything.

Reloaded Firmware
Downgraded Firmware
Updated back to new firmware
Manually tried turning screw.
disabled auto landing gear (which is usually always off)
turn on the landing gear override

Tried using the auto takeoff feature and then cycling the landing gear as other have said worked... not in my case.

None of the above has worked, the landing gear refuses to move.

ONE time, during this whole process, I was actually able to get the landing gear to raise and the motor sounded normal during that time. But as soon as i flipped the switch to bring the gear back down.. nothing.

Can anyone help me out with this.. Any other ideas that might help???

YeeaaBoii · May 16, 2017

Original post updated.

fei8820 · May 29, 2017

same goes to me... sometimes it stuck..
no hard landing or anything...
i just have to unscrew it when it stuck sometimes..

so i have to bring a flat head screw driver everytime just in case

Casey53 · May 29, 2017

YeeaaBoii said:
UPDATE May 16th, 2017
Alright so after figuring out my landing gear motor is NOT broken, I've come to the conclusion the landing gear lowers past the farthest thread or section of the worm screw in the middle. It seems to get off track and only gets stuck when put into landing mode. I have had to manually unscrew it out of landing mode multiple times now and the screw it starting to get stripped.

Here's my idea: I'm going to put a small rubber spacer around the base of the worm screw so when the gear is put into the landing mode position, it cannot actually go all the way down. It will be held off by the rubber by a half a millimeter or so. I've included a photo of where I'm going to place the rubber ring. Any thoughts on this?

View attachment 13750

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Interesting idea on the rubber spacer to limit the travel and binding, if that's the actual cause. Maybe a rubber or vinyl grommet too as Radio Shack sells assorted sizes in a bag. O-rings?

How hard is it to get the screw apart to get the washer on? Might be easier to cut the rubber to get it around the worm screw and then glue it back together with some CA or rubber cement.

Good luck, and post back if this is the fix.

The Editor · May 29, 2017

The problem with this 'fix' is without knowing how the landing gear servo senses end of travel may mean by inhibiting full throw using an o ring or similar it will increase the current draw to the servo until it prematurely burns out.

Casey53 · May 29, 2017

The Editor said:
The problem with this 'fix' is without knowing how the landing gear servo senses end of travel may mean by inhibiting full throw using an o ring or similar it will increase the current draw to the servo until it prematurely burns out.

Good point. Don't know if it has a software setting as to the travel which could cause it to burn out trying to proceed. If it is a stepper-motor it is software driven. That would mean DJI screwed up their software travel programming setting - like that never happens.

YeeaaBoii · Jun 5, 2017

The Editor said:
The problem with this 'fix' is without knowing how the landing gear servo senses end of travel may mean by inhibiting full throw using an o ring or similar it will increase the current draw to the servo until it prematurely burns out.

We went ahead and put 2 little pieces of 3M foam behind and in front of the screw. When we lowered the gear into landing mode, it smashed the pieces of foam to about the same thickness as 2 sheets of paper. It does not sound like the gear motor is stressing in any way when it is lowered. Since we have done this "mod", the landing gear has not gotten stuck once. We've raised and lowered the gear over 30 times since then. The 3M pads are 100% removable and we didn't disassemble anything to put them there.

The pads have been smashed down so many times now that they do not expand back to their normal shape. They stay about the same thickness as a sheet of paper or 2. The same effect could probably be done by putting a thin strip or 2 of electrical tape in front of and behind the screw as well.

YeeaaBoii · Jun 5, 2017

Casey53 said:
Interesting idea on the rubber spacer to limit the travel and binding, if that's the actual cause. Maybe a rubber or vinyl grommet too as Radio Shack sells assorted sizes in a bag. O-rings?

How hard is it to get the screw apart to get the washer on? Might be easier to cut the rubber to get it around the worm screw and then glue it back together with some CA or rubber cement.

Good luck, and post back if this is the fix.

We ended up using 3M foam pads cut into thin strips to go across the front and backside of the screw. They are spaced to not touch the screw at all. I'll post a picture if I have time. It seems to have fixed our problem completely. You can read my reply above for more info as well.

Fuwu · Dec 2, 2017

Hi guys, So i think i've got the same problem. After the latest firmware the landing gear wouldn't go out of landing mode. Then i downgraded the firmware and the gear moved again. Then i went to a job and it was stuck again :S. I wasn't able to turn the screw on the bottom, it seems stuck. This was also the case before the firmware upgrade. Now it's stuck again, i hear a sound when i move the landing gear switch. I want to add the tape between the gear as i think it pushes to far down and locks somehow. Any help on the screwdriver part would be awesome. Everybody seems to be able to turn this thing. I'm quite technical but cant seem to get this screw moving

Any help would be more than welcome.

Cheers!

CopterBob · May 9, 2020

YeeaaBoii said:
We went ahead and put 2 little pieces of 3M foam behind and in front of the screw. When we lowered the gear into landing mode, it smashed the pieces of foam to about the same thickness as 2 sheets of paper. It does not sound like the gear motor is stressing in any way when it is lowered. Since we have done this "mod", the landing gear has not gotten stuck once. We've raised and lowered the gear over 30 times since then. The 3M pads are 100% removable and we didn't disassemble anything to put them there.

The pads have been smashed down so many times now that they do not expand back to their normal shape. They stay about the same thickness as a sheet of paper or 2. The same effect could probably be done by putting a thin strip or 2 of electrical tape in front of and behind the screw as well.

Hello, I realize this reply is a couple of years past your post. My Inspire 1 gear will not go into Transport Mode. The gear will raise to nearly 'there' then reverse back to Landing mode. My bird has been grounded for two years and I have replaced the VPS and Power Dist Board and the story is the same... been flying my Mavic Pros pretty steady and just ordered the Mavic Air 2 but really want to get the Inspire 1 back in the air.

Any chance you can post pictures of your 'fix' and report back on the long term results?

Thank you so much.