VISION+ CAMERA AND GIMBAL IS JUNK

Bespoke Wind Up · Jun 8, 2014

colonelangus said:
the cam is actually fine it like a gopro

Funny.

AIR BOSS · Jun 8, 2014

With your obvious lack of education and coordination, you should not be flying anything, as you are a danger to yourself and others.

yawnalot29 · Jun 8, 2014

JUSTNONEYA said:
I own a vision and a vision plus and I think the vision plus camera and gimbal are crap. They are so fragile it is ridiculous. I had a some what hard landing but not really hard at all not even 4 ft off the ground didn't even bend the gimbal or touch the camera on my vision plus. Now the camera and gimbal are toast it turns on and jumps around like crazy. I have had my phantom vision over 8 months crashed it like 100 times and not one thing happened to my camera or anything except a few broken props. also when you break your camera or gimbal on the vision plus all you have is a drone with no camera because you cant replace it with no other gimbal or buy another camera gimbal combo like it came with unless you buy one off ebay from some guy that is buying a lot of vision plus's and parting them out making a killing. he sells the cameras with gimbal for 899.00. I bought one from him and installed it and it works perfect but I wont fly my vision plus unless I am completely away from anything just to get a quick video or a pic. If I had a choice I would never buy a vision plus. Get a vision and buy you a rotorpixel gimbal for it or a taco gimbal and it will be just as good and more reliable as the vision plus . Look and videos on you tube of broken vision plus camera there are a lot of them

I think your 2nd mistake is buying the P2V+ gimble/camera parts for $899.

Given what you knew up 'til that time, a smarter move would be to sell your P2V+ for parts (even the broken gimbal/camera) like the eBay guy. And then use that money to buy a P2 with H2D3 Gimbal. Take the money you get from selling off the P2V+ for parts and the $899 that you were going to shell out, I am sure you would have gotten a much more robust replacement.

Doono · Jun 8, 2014

Opwan said:
Well, through no fault of my own. My brand new Vision+ at 60 feet of altitude decides to start gyrating and falling out of the sky today. Did all the calibrations, as I always do. 10 plus flights with 0 crashes, been flying RC for 30+ years. Green steady blinking on the system lights, 15 minutes into the flight the Phantom starts wobbling like crazy. Came down fairly easily, didn't hit too hard but now the gimbal is toast like he said. At 1 1/2 weeks old I am a little miffed. This was not pilot error, and now I have no camera.

I guess the first question is, what were you doing at the time? Going sideways, forward, backward, up or down?

That really sucks, nothing can make up for the damage. So sorry.

Michigan_PI · Jun 8, 2014

Opwan said:
Well, through no fault of my own. My brand new Vision+ at 60 feet of altitude decides to start gyrating and falling out of the sky today. Did all the calibrations, as I always do. 10 plus flights with 0 crashes, been flying RC for 30+ years. Green steady blinking on the system lights, 15 minutes into the flight the Phantom starts wobbling like crazy. Came down fairly easily, didn't hit too hard but now the gimbal is toast like he said. At 1 1/2 weeks old I am a little miffed. This was not pilot error, and now I have no camera.

One question:
Dis you have prop guards on it?

Thank you

PetePerrim · Jun 8, 2014

Opwan said:
I was descending and coming back towards home, I know about the prop wash going straight down so that wasn't the case, and yes I have prop guards.

Any bad solders inside? Any chance of RFI? It seems very strange that the flight characteristics changed suddenly while in flight and caused this issue. I had a close call a few weeks back when I flew my P2 over a cell-tower. It was about 1km from where I was standing so I was flying FPV but the whole thing jerked violently a couple of times and then stabilized again. Could yours have been caused by a burst of RFI?, perhaps.

Anyway, nothing I can say is going to un-wreck your gimbal and camera and I am very sorry that you have suffered this damage.

PetePerrim · Jun 8, 2014

Opwan said:
I was descending and coming back towards home, I know about the prop wash going straight down so that wasn't the case, and yes I have prop guards.

Also, I've read about prop-guards causing all sorts of issues when descending. I saw a video on YT of a guy flying around nicely who then started to descend and his P2 started shaking around, lost control and SMACK!!, hit the roof of a house. The comments on his video all pointed towards prop-guards being the culprit. IMHO, prop guards seem a little pointless.

Dirty Bird · Jun 8, 2014

Opwan said:
Well, through no fault of my own. My brand new Vision+ at 60 feet of altitude decides to start gyrating and falling out of the sky today. Did all the calibrations, as I always do. 10 plus flights with 0 crashes, been flying RC for 30+ years. Green steady blinking on the system lights, 15 minutes into the flight the Phantom starts wobbling like crazy. Came down fairly easily, didn't hit too hard but now the gimbal is toast like he said. At 1 1/2 weeks old I am a little miffed. This was not pilot error, and now I have no camera.

Sorry about the damage to your Vision+. I see you have prop guards installed. Out of curiosity, what was the weather? Temp & humidity to be specific. There already appears to be ample evidence that prop guards greatly increase the chances of prop turbulence. It certainly isn't the added weight of the prop guards, which is minimal. I speculate that the shape of the prop guards is distorting the slipstream under the props. I would love to see wind tunnel testing from a bare Phantom, and one with prop guards installed. I would almost bet the problem would become readily apparent in a wind tunnel.

I asked the question about temperature & humidity, because hot, humid air produces far less lift than does cool, dry air. Within a given volume of space, there is more "air" when it is cool & dry, than when it is humid & moist. Couple prop guards with warm, humid air, and the chances of this occurring would be greatly increased. It is a personal choice but, given how many times one of these incidents involves a Phantom fitted with the guards, I could never suggest using them.

varmint · Jun 9, 2014

You can always tell you're dealing with the savvy ones when they get banned with < 10 posts and then wonder why it's not the only forum that's happened to them on...

FearOfTheDark · Jun 9, 2014

I would love to see a crash with a 3D printed gimbal. Both The Taco and Rotorpixel have 3D printed plastic part, that will break more easy then regular Injection molding plastic parts. The Taco for example is made of 100% crappy 3D printed PLA plastic part.

Just my 5 cents!

jaked_902 · Jun 14, 2014

Another dead gimbal here, after first time out. No "drop from the sky" crashes, it just began to malfunction after powering it up yesterday (last time on it was fine). After disassembling the gimbal it's immediately apparent why they fail so easily. The first axis, the closest one to the camera, is the cause. There are no external end stops on this axis, the entire job of stopping over-rotation is done by a tiny, flimsy varistor, the one which senses the pitch. This varistor is mounted to the board with 3 contacts on one side, and only a single surface mount contact on the other. The axle (with the motor on one end and the camera on the other) passes through this varistor, and it alone takes the full brunt of any impact on the camera. In my case, the single contact had dislodged and the varistor has a crack down the middle, which is not surprising given the design. The camera assembly rests entirely on this one tiny and fragile part.

I doubt it is repairable in my case, but I expect at least some of you may only have the contact broken rather than the entire varistor. In that case a simple fix is to reflow that joint, in my case I don't think it can be repaired. I would need a new board for the camera pitch axis, or even just the varistor. Unfortunately, dii have not responded to my emails, and from what I've read here I shouldn't expect a response.

Has anyone been able to source replacement parts for the gimbal, or an entire gimbal / camera assembly?

marcusdji · Jun 15, 2014

My gimbal just went bad as well. About 12 flights and NO crashes!!

I was about to take off today and the camera was doing the calibration dance after the Phantom was turned on. The camera just fell off and the ribbon cable broke!!! Seems that the part that fell off is attached only by pressure. Do you know if I can buy the ribbon cable?

Sasquatch · Jun 15, 2014

marcusdji said:
My gimbal just went bad as well. About 12 flights and NO crashes!!

I was about to take off today and the camera was doing the calibration dance after the Phantom was turned on. The camera just fell off and the ribbon cable broke!!! Seems that the part that fell off is attached only by pressure. Do you know if I can buy the ribbon cable?

Sorry to hear about your misfortune, Marcus. Truly, that really sucks. I read these posts because I could very well be the next potential victim of such a disaster.

I am new to this forum and quads (UAV's) but from what I have read and heard, DJI is really backlogged on spare parts and I doubt that the ribbon cable would be an easy or feasible fix. Let us know what happens or what you find out though.

Doono · Jun 15, 2014

gmbn.inc said:
Another firmware update was just released which stops the gimbal jitter / twitch on boot up. I updated today & when I fire up the Phantom, the camera centers immediately & no twitching... A bit late for those already affected by the jerky camera/gimbal.

Would you post the link please. Edit: Oh, I guess it comes up when running assistant software.

Double-D · Jun 15, 2014

jaked_902 said:
Another dead gimbal here, after first time out. No "drop from the sky" crashes, it just began to malfunction after powering it up yesterday (last time on it was fine). After disassembling the gimbal it's immediately apparent why they fail so easily. The first axis, the closest one to the camera, is the cause. There are no external end stops on this axis, the entire job of stopping over-rotation is done by a tiny, flimsy varistor, the one which senses the pitch. This varistor is mounted to the board with 3 contacts on one side, and only a single surface mount contact on the other. The axle (with the motor on one end and the camera on the other) passes through this varistor, and it alone takes the full brunt of any impact on the camera. In my case, the single contact had dislodged and the varistor has a crack down the middle, which is not surprising given the design. The camera assembly rests entirely on this one tiny and fragile part.

I doubt it is repairable in my case, but I expect at least some of you may only have the contact broken rather than the entire varistor. In that case a simple fix is to reflow that joint, in my case I don't think it can be repaired. I would need a new board for the camera pitch axis, or even just the varistor. Unfortunately, dii have not responded to my emails, and from what I've read here I shouldn't expect a response.

Has anyone been able to source replacement parts for the gimbal, or an entire gimbal / camera assembly?

Very interesting indeed. Is there any easy way to disassemble the gimbal to inspect it without breaking it?

pyrophantom · Jun 15, 2014

gmbn.inc said:
Another firmware update was just released which stops the gimbal jitter / twitch on boot up. I updated today & when I fire up the Phantom, the camera centers immediately & no twitching... A bit late for those already affected by the jerky camera/gimbal.

Ive just been on DJI website and see no updates ??

4wd · Jun 15, 2014

It just does it when you connect to the assistant.
A bit annoying you can't even choose. I wonder if the jiggling around might be implicated in failures(?)

pyrophantom · Jun 15, 2014

Trouble is people are getting so wary about the effects an update is having on the aircraft, that many wont bother and some actually useful firmware upgrades may be missed but I fully understand why people are very wary of it now.

:roll:

Doono · Jun 15, 2014

pyrophantom said:
Trouble is people are getting so wary about the effects an update is having on the aircraft, that many wont bother and some actually useful firmware upgrades may be missed but I fully understand why people are very wary of it now.

:roll:

That's very true (I'm not on the latest, I let others be the test pilots).