Phantom 4 Gimbal Issue

Wolffboy · Jul 27, 2016

While flying sideways at about 35mph in sport mode, tracking cars, the gimbal seems to roll to the left twice. Repeated the same behavior on a subsequent shot as well. Phantom is undamaged and no errors appeared.
Has anyone else encountered this on the P4?

jwt873 · Jul 27, 2016

I'm assuming you were in P mode.. It looks like the angle of the craft exceeded the capability of the gimbal.

The craft tilts considerably when flying at higher speeds. Wind will make it tilt even more. Normally we are completely unaware of the tilt because the gimbal moves in the opposite direction to keep everything level. But, with enough tilt, the gimbal reaches its endpoint and can't go further. This causes the sudden jump you see.

At one time, DJI-Go would display a message "Gimbal Reached End Point" on the screen when this happened, but they seem to have removed it in the later firmware releases. If you check your logs you might find the message printed there.

For what it's worth, I see this the odd time when I'm in P mode and flying aggressively. I've watched my craft when making snap 90 degree turns or U turns at 30 -40 miles per hour. The P4 goes completely sideways and the image flips because the gimbal can't straighten out sideways.

Bigdz · Jul 27, 2016

Sport mode is pointless, for this very reason. If I wanted to haul ***, I would've gotten a racing quad. The fact that the P4 is for Aerial videography and photography, it's a pretty useless feature(JMO). I've used it once...

Wolffboy · Jul 27, 2016

Thanks for your reply - that makes sense. I was in Sport Mode, the only way to keep up with cars on this particular stretch of road.

jwt873 said:
I'm assuming you were in P mode.. It looks like the angle of the craft exceeded the capability of the gimbal.

The craft tilts considerably when flying at higher speeds. Wind will make it tilt even more. Normally we are completely unaware of the tilt because the gimbal moves in the opposite direction to keep everything level. But, with enough tilt, the gimbal reaches its endpoint and can't go further. This causes the sudden jump you see.

At one time, DJI-Go would display a message "Gimbal Reached End Point" on the screen when this happened, but they seem to have removed it in the later firmware releases. If you check your logs you might find the message printed there.

For what it's worth, I see this the odd time when I'm in P mode and flying aggressively. I've watched my craft when making snap 90 degree turns or U turns at 30 -40 miles per hour. The P4 goes completely sideways and the image flips because the gimbal can't straighten out sideways.

jwt873 · Jul 27, 2016

I meant to type S mode and put P mode in my reply...

Wolffboy · Aug 3, 2016

Wolffboy said:
While flying sideways at about 35mph in sport mode, tracking cars, the gimbal seems to roll to the left twice. Repeated the same behavior on a subsequent shot as well. Phantom is undamaged and no errors appeared.
Has anyone else encountered this on the P4?

Now gimbal is useless in sport mode, and drifts slowly all the time.
Horizon is skewed after any turn
Multiple gimbal calibrations made no difference
Will be calling DJI support today for assistance

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Wolffboy · Aug 9, 2016

Update: After working with Prichie at DJI Support, did two IMU Calibrations and perfectly level surface, then a Gimbal Calibration. Testing since then shows the issue to be resolved. However, the P4 has a slight horizon drift after a sharp left or right taw movement. Then the horizon slowly corrects itself. I have seen this on many P4 videos posted on Youtube etc. Hopefully a firmware update will address this issue.
The P4 gimbal seems to have issues with some of the more intense movements that occur when flying in sport mode. An IMU Calibration on level surface has resolved this issue for me.
All feedback is appreciated