Camera spins out of control!

Kirk Pleasant · Mar 9, 2015

Hi all,
Picture this, the 3rd day out of the box and all is going well. Taking some aerial footage of mountain bikers, land to move the Inspire to another location. We have a good video link and we are using two controllers. While discussing the shot the video link is lost, so after trying few things like restarting the controllers, we restart the Inspire 1 and this happens -

We restart the inspire 1 and it does the same, shooting is done for the day. We go home and give everything a good inspection and find nothing obviously wrong. Try to start it one more time and the camera still going crazy. I took the camera off and calibrated the IMU and compass and took it for a flight. It flies ok with no issues. We then put the camera back on and it is dead.
I live in the Middle East and bought the Inspire 1 in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. We don’t have any dealers close so it will be either back to Germany or the China.
Any recommendations ?

Thanks for your help!

Quadpilot · Mar 9, 2015

Kirk Pleasant said:
Hi all,
Picture this, the 3rd day out of the box and all is going well. Taking some aerial footage of mountain bikers, land to move the Inspire to another location. We have a good video link and we are using two controllers. While discussing the shot the video link is lost, so after trying few things like restarting the controllers, we restart the Inspire 1 and this happens -

We restart the inspire 1 and it does the same, shooting is done for the day. We go home and give everything a good inspection and find nothing obviously wrong. Try to start it one more time and the camera still going crazy. I took the camera off and calibrated the IMU and compass and took it for a flight. It flies ok with no issues. We then put the camera back on and it is dead.
I live in the Middle East and bought the Inspire 1 in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. We don’t have any dealers close so it will be either back to Germany or the China.
Any recommendations ?

Thanks for your help!

That was painful to watch. It's obvious that that the gimbal is going nuts because of some bad signals. My best guess is that there is a bad connection between the gimbal and the mount. Check the connection for bent pins, dirt, or pinched wires. Is the rubber gasket blocking a good connection?

andisblue · Mar 9, 2015

Looks like you have one of those special gimbals that can spin around MANY times. Mine only does 660*

Mazz · Mar 10, 2015

It is weird that the gimbal has the ability to turn more than 360 degrees but all we get is one rotation. Have you tried calibrating the gimbal?

Kilrah · Mar 10, 2015

Mazz said:
It is weird that the gimbal has the ability to turn more than 360 degrees

It doesn't. In the video it's just going back and forth so quickly it looks like it's turning continuously.

Dead cam it seems.

Mazz · Mar 10, 2015

Kilrah said:
It doesn't. In the video it's just going back and forth so quickly it looks like it's turning continuously.

Dead cam it seems.

.....I am going to have to disagree. OP? Is that cam spinning continuously? looks like it bounces the first couple of times then does a couple of full rotations between direction changes.

sdjackaerial · Mar 11, 2015

Mazz said:
.....I am going to have to disagree. OP? Is that cam spinning continuously? looks like it bounces the first couple of times then does a couple of full rotations between direction changes.

ya, it herky-jerks once or twice and then clearly spins all the way around many times. WTF! I want to be able to do that--lol! Mine stops before making it all the way around too like "andisblue" (above).

Kilrah · Mar 11, 2015

Then it likely jerked so hard that it broke the end stops...

Kirk Pleasant · Mar 11, 2015

Hi All,

DJI so far has been good as gold. They sent me DOA form and I have dropped the parcel with the camera at DHL and sent them a tracking number.

12 hrs later I get a tracking number from DJI for the replacement!

I checked DHL website and it is en-route -awesome job for support DJI!

Kirk Pleasant · Mar 20, 2015

Replacement camera arrived last Monday, the first thing I noticed was how smooth the initial gyro start-up/stabilization was compared with the original camera.
That makes me think the original was defective from the factory.

Figbar · Mar 20, 2015

It is very encouraging to hear about the support DJI gave you. So many times, all we hear about is how DJI does not give good support.

Mazz · Mar 21, 2015

Glad to hear your experience was a good one. Nice to hear another good one.

Harry Nicholson · Mar 21, 2015

Kirk Pleasant said:
Hi all,
Picture this, the 3rd day out of the box and all is going well. Taking some aerial footage of mountain bikers, land to move the Inspire to another location. We have a good video link and we are using two controllers. While discussing the shot the video link is lost, so after trying few things like restarting the controllers, we restart the Inspire 1 and this happens -

We restart the inspire 1 and it does the same, shooting is done for the day. We go home and give everything a good inspection and find nothing obviously wrong. Try to start it one more time and the camera still going crazy. I took the camera off and calibrated the IMU and compass and took it for a flight. It flies ok with no issues. We then put the camera back on and it is dead.
I live in the Middle East and bought the Inspire 1 in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. We don’t have any dealers close so it will be either back to Germany or the China.
Any recommendations ?

Thanks for your help!

Check this out I found on a vine:

https://vine.co/v/OUxmeUOtmBQ

Another bad one?

Jetwash · Mar 21, 2015

Thought I'd tag into this thread. I've had mine since mid Feb. Worked pretty well until today. Got about 5 hours of flight time on it. The gimbal has always had tilt issues ( constant adjustment to roll. But today started it up for the 3rd flight. And the gimbal goes crazy. Horrible grinding noises then sets up looking forward with a 45degree roll and stabilizes there. Tried recalibration of imu, compass, and gimbal. Still does it. Tried on multiple surfaces same thing. I'm out of ideas. Anyone else have any??

Dewey · Aug 18, 2016

The gimbal can spin continuously when you loosen the magnetic nut in the top housing. This allows space so the end stops (don't know if that is the technical term for them) do not meet. However, your ribbon cable will prevent this from happening until it breaks. The ribbon cable is wrapped around the shaft and is only so long. Once it reaches its end, the cable will break or it will pull apart at its contact points.