Camera Gimbal Centering adjustment

[dougcjohn]

May be a duplication, did find a few previous posts... found a few in Inspire 1 section.
It's not the IMU calibration, or anything related to the I2... it's the Camera's Gimbal out of adjustment.

The area I'm interested in comments is the adjustment of the Gimbal YAW for centering.
The mag-nut adjustment, small movement to Lf or Rt.
Any experience on performing this adjustment on the X4S, X5S cameras?

Have 2- Inspire 2, 2 - X4S, 1 X5S and 1- X7
1 of the X4S & X7 on both I2's are center and correct.
The 2nd X4S and X5S are skewed to the Left a few degrees.
You can adjust within Go4App, although when you perform a reset gimbal that gets wiped too.

The degrees off are consistent on both I2's, indicating the problem is within the X4S & X5S, not the I2's.
The other X4S & X7 are correctly centered on both I2's.

Anyone offer a little more insight into the Gimbal's Mag-Nut adjustment and the procedure.
Any caution to observe or be aware of preparing or performing the adjustment?

 

[mmarian]

May be a duplication, did find a few previous posts... found a few in Inspire 1 section.
It's not the IMU calibration, or anything related to the I2... it's the Camera's Gimbal out of adjustment.

The area I'm interested in comments is the adjustment of the Gimbal YAW for centering.
The mag-nut adjustment, small movement to Lf or Rt.
Any experience on performing this adjustment on the X4S, X5S cameras?

Have 2- Inspire 2, 2 - X4S, 1 X5S and 1- X7
1 of the X4S & X7 on both I2's are center and correct.
The 2nd X4S and X5S are skewed to the Left a few degrees.
You can adjust within Go4App, although when you perform a reset gimbal that gets wiped too.

The degrees off are consistent on both I2's, indicating the problem is within the X4S & X5S, not the I2's.
The other X4S & X7 are correctly centered on both I2's.

Anyone offer a little more insight into the Gimbal's Mag-Nut adjustment and the procedure.
Any caution to observe or be aware of preparing or performing the adjustment?

It is very easy to adjust the yaw for proper gimbal centering. My x5s and x4s require both about 55 clicks. Why would you want to reset the gimbal ? It is not something which needs to be done regularly. And if you do for whatever reason, just make note of number of clicks required for each camera, dial them in and you are good to go until you reset the gimbal next time. It is as simple as that and only the entire process only takes a few seconds.

 

[dougcjohn]

It is very easy to adjust the yaw for proper gimbal centering. My x5s and x4s require both about 55 clicks. Why would you want to reset the gimbal ? It is not something which needs to be done regularly. And if you do for whatever reason, just make note of number of clicks required for each camera, dial them in and you are good to go until you reset the gimbal next time. It is as simple as that and only the entire process only takes a few seconds.

Yep, would agree... simple process in App, but would rather adj physical and not software. Often use other software apps and in my opinion the physical has worked it's way out of alignment and I'd like to bump it back into alignment. May have been a little object contact before I purchased or just usage & possibly worn... if not an overly complex operation, I'd like to align and able to mount and have it setup correctly.

The software app adjustment to me is a "fine tuning" adjustment or temporary method to allow continuation of flights pending time to send camera in for service and alignment or self alignment.

55 clicks is a lot, I think my X4S is mid 30's and my X5S is mid 20's.

 

[mmarian]

Yep, would agree... simple process in App, but would rather adj physical and not software. Often use other software apps and in my opinion the physical has worked it's way out of alignment and I'd like to bump it back into alignment. May have been a little object contact before I purchased or just usage & possibly worn... if not an overly complex operation, I'd like to align and able to mount and have it setup correctly.

The software app adjustment to me is a "fine tuning" adjustment or temporary method to allow continuation of flights pending time to send camera in for service and alignment or self alignment.

55 clicks is a lot, I think my X4S is mid 30's and my X5S is mid 20's.

I see it differently. To me it is not a fault or temporary short term fix or even something which would require service. It is simply matter of manufacturing/assembly process of the yaw motor and its magnet's stator-rotor allignment inthe gimbal. It is more or less random and hence likely to result in the gimbal being off-centre. That is where the software yaw adjustment comes handy. Once done, all is good. I do not loose sleep over how many clicks it requires. But to each his own.

 

[dougcjohn]

I see it differently. To me it is not a fault or temporary short term fix or even something which would require service. It is simply matter of manufacturing/assembly process of the yaw motor and its magnet's stator-rotor allignment inthe gimbal. It is more or less random and hence likely to result in the gimbal being off-centre. That is where the software yaw adjustment comes handy. Once done, all is good. I do not loose sleep over how many clicks it requires. But to each his own.

As you say... all good.
When each camera was new, the magnet random placement due to poor tolerance was still later calibrated to "center" for the installed set of rotor / stator. That calibration has changed for some reason over time and can be recalibrated by DJI or self.

If new out of box required SW adjustment... it'd be a return exchange. Out of all my camera Gimbals (14 plus) those are the only 2.

Software adj works, glad it's available.
Just not my preference when it can be corrected.

 

[niki]

May be a duplication, did find a few previous posts... found a few in Inspire 1 section.
It's not the IMU calibration, or anything related to the I2... it's the Camera's Gimbal out of adjustment.

The area I'm interested in comments is the adjustment of the Gimbal YAW for centering.
The mag-nut adjustment, small movement to Lf or Rt.
Any experience on performing this adjustment on the X4S, X5S cameras?

Have 2- Inspire 2, 2 - X4S, 1 X5S and 1- X7
1 of the X4S & X7 on both I2's are center and correct.
The 2nd X4S and X5S are skewed to the Left a few degrees.
You can adjust within Go4App, although when you perform a reset gimbal that gets wiped too.

The degrees off are consistent on both I2's, indicating the problem is within the X4S & X5S, not the I2's.
The other X4S & X7 are correctly centered on both I2's.

Anyone offer a little more insight into the Gimbal's Mag-Nut adjustment and the procedure.
Any caution to observe or be aware of preparing or performing the adjustment?

A few years ago I did this on X5R but I'm not sure about X5S or X7. Overal it wasn't hard to do but it took some time as I had to assemble the gimbal after each adjustment, mount it on the inspire and power up to check what the adjustment did, then power off, dismount, disassemble the gimbal and repeat until get it right. I don't remember exactly but it took me 5-6 tries to nail it.

The first thing I did was to place a mark on the bolt with marking pen so to know what was the original position, then started to mess with it. It came out that the adjustment should be very small.

If your adjustment goes too much in the wrong direction, when powering up the drone be prepeared to quickly shut it down so to prevent the gimbal doing hard hits to the end points of the pan axis. Aslo if the adjustment is a lot more than that the camera initialization may lack of any movement in the pan axis.

 

[mmarian]

A few years ago I did this on X5R but I'm not sure about X5S or X7. Overal it wasn't hard to do but it took some time as I had to assemble the gimbal after each adjustment, mount it on the inspire and power up to check what the adjustment did, then power off, dismount, disassemble the gimbal and repeat until get it right. I don't remember exactly but it took me 5-6 tries to nail it.

The first thing I did was to place a mark on the bolt with marking pen so to know what was the original position, then started to mess with it. It came out that the adjustment should be very small.

If your adjustment goes too much in the wrong direction, when powering up the drone be prepeared to quickly shut it down so to prevent the gimbal doing hard hits to the end points of the pan axis. Aslo if the adjustment is a lot more than that the camera initialization may lack of any movement in the pan axis.

I am glad to hear that you managed to make the hardware adjustment on your I1 gimbal as the off center camera gimbal can be annoying. DJI likely had to go through the same process in the factory which was time consuming and fiddly. Therefore they introduced the yaw gimbal adjustment in one of the later FW updates for I2 which perfectly acceptable (to me) and simple alternative to the tedious hardware adjustment.. They should be commended for listening to feedback from frustrated users. Regretably it was one of the very few issues they addressed via FW and ignored and abandoned all the remaining ones...

 

[dougcjohn]

A few years ago I did this on X5R but I'm not sure about X5S or X7. Overal it wasn't hard to do but it took some time as I had to assemble the gimbal after each adjustment, mount it on the inspire and power up to check what the adjustment did, then power off, dismount, disassemble the gimbal and repeat until get it right. I don't remember exactly but it took me 5-6 tries to nail it.

The first thing I did was to place a mark on the bolt with marking pen so to know what was the original position, then started to mess with it. It came out that the adjustment should be very small.

If your adjustment goes too much in the wrong direction, when powering up the drone be prepeared to quickly shut it down so to prevent the gimbal doing hard hits to the end points of the pan axis. Aslo if the adjustment is a lot more than that the camera initialization may lack of any movement in the pan axis.

Thanks for the info and insight. What I was curious, do you need to remove the IC card to reach the screw or nut? Is it remaining on the flat of the shaft or are you adj the position of magnet, I've seen both methods applied on different models.

Overall based on multiple different models, it is a simple task but tedious to assemble and disassemble.

 

[dougcjohn]

I am glad to hear that you managed to make the hardware adjustment on your I1 gimbal as the off center camera gimbal can be annoying. DJI likely had to go through the same process in the factory which was time consuming and fiddly. Therefore they introduced the yaw gimbal adjustment in one of the later FW updates for I2 which perfectly acceptable (to me) and simple alternative to the tedious hardware adjustment.. They should be commended for listening to feedback from frustrated users. Regretably it was one of the very few issues they addressed via FW and ignored and abandoned all the remaining ones...

Actually, DJI doesn't calibrate in same fashion. Their method uses different tools and can perform directly from the shaft and magnets eliminating the bulk of the multiple takedowns.
This method doesn't really matter the location of magnets since it can be mounted and adjusted relatively quickly.

Normally if sent in to have calibrated or zeroed on alignment, it's a short bench procedure without I2 or Platform required.

That said, adding easy access calibration would also add weight to the design. The goal was reduced weight, not serviceability... they would perfer performing the internal services and have the bench tools to accommodate.

The point to the thread was discussion of calibration methods, and Others contributing their experience; not a debate on using software adjustment that was a known procedure as clearly indicated in initial post.

 

[dougcjohn]

I had heard DJI uses a different method not requiring takedown based on it's circuit chipset on gimbal containing a calibration chip, where they basically electronically zero and save position... esentially adding steps in direction to zero calibration. At times, I can see this may be accurate when watching the startup procedure... how it moves slowly at the end of procedure into center.