My P3A gimbal problems - help?

[jimlips]

A little background: I bought a used P3A as a newbie, and crashed several times. I broke the gimbal mount, and tore the flex section, and dented the camera shroud. I was able to buy replacement flex and mount and install, and the camera dent did not appear to hurt the camera. It had been working great since April of 2017. Now, to the problem that started yesterday.

I had the drone sitting in the hatchback area of my car, was driving, and someone pulled out in front of me. I made a panic stop to avoid them, and heard the drone hit the back of the car seat. I checked it, and all seemed OK, other than the plastic white camera lens cap/gimbal guard came off. When I went to fly the aircraft an hour later, the gimbal just keeps pointing in different directions (click here for video). The RC says "gimbal overload", but shows the camera video just fine.

I figured that maybe the flex got torn, but I disassembled the gimbal and checked the flex with a flashlight, and can't find any tears or problems. All the ends are securely inserted into the connectors. I checked the two ribbon cables, and they seem fine as well.

Does anyone have any idea what else may cause this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Mark The Droner]

Be sure the gimbal cables are fully inserted. They must be pushed down quite a bit so that they click.

 

[quaddamage]

At startup, all of the gimbal arms should move. In your video, yaw and pitch motors are moving, but roll motor stays at one limit all the time. This is the arm which has issues.

It is possible that the shaft of this arm moved, and now it has "zero position" beyond its movement limits.

But if the issue was caused by a kind-of "light crash", I'd still say the most probable reason is the flex flat cable.

 

[jimlips]

At startup, all of the gimbal arms should move. In your video, yaw and pitch motors are moving, but roll motor stays at one limit all the time. This is the arm which has issues.

It is possible that the shaft of this arm moved, and now it has "zero position" beyond its movement limits.

But if the issue was caused by a kind-of "light crash", I'd still say the most probable reason is the flex flat cable.

Thanks! I'll have a look at the roll motor.