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Difficulties calibrating gimbal on Evo Pro 2

AndrewS

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Hello all. I just uploaded firmware (I believe) 2.5.18 and have started experiencing difficulties calibrating the gimbal. Prior to this firmware update I had no problems. Despite placing the drone on a solid flat table, during the calibration process I see a red message indicating that the drone is shaking and is unable to calibrate. On the remote another message says "Gimbal is Not Ready." During the process, however, the gimbal rotates in different directions as it normally does.

Any Suggestions? I've heard recently that the order of calibration addresses some issues. Some say gimbal, compass then IMU. Others say the reverse. Not sure if calibration order is an issue here or not. Thanks much.
 
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Hello all. I just uploaded firmware (I believe) 2.5.18 and have started experiencing difficulties calibrating the gimbal. Prior to this firmware update I had no problems. Despite placing the drone on a solid flat table, during the calibration process I see a red message indicating that the drone is shaking and is unable to calibrate. On the remote another message says "Gimbal is Not Ready." During the process, however, the gimbal rotates in different directions as it normally does.

Any Suggestions? I've heard recently that the order of calibration addresses some issues. Some say gimbal, compass then IMU. Others say the reverse. Not sure if calibration order is an issue here or not. Thanks much.

I would try rebooting a few times and maybe flashing the firmware again.

As far as the IMU and compass, I never calibrate either of them unless the drone is doing something that you do not expect. The drone does a partial IMU calibration every time you turn it on.

The compass does not need to be calibrated unless you make a major location change such as traveling out of town or if you get compass warnings.

If you really want to calibrate all 3 anyway, the order should be IMU, compass, gimbal.
 
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2.5.18 is known to have introduced this issue for some. I am one of them too. Nothing works. Hoping for a firmware release soon that alleviates the issue.
 
2.5.18 is known to have introduced this issue for some. I am one of them too. Nothing works. Hoping for a firmware release soon that alleviates the issue.
Bummer! I actually put off firmware upgrades for this very reason but XYZ.18 sounded like a pretty comprehensive one.

Have you flown your Evo since making this upgrade? I'm wondering how the gimbal functions (assuming it does) despite the calibration failure. I've got a paid shoot coming up in March so I need to be ready to go by then.
 
The "gimbal is not ready" message should only display a few times and then stop. To double check swipe from the far left of the screen to the right and click on the status button. You can verify there if the gimbal is in a proper state.

Best bet is to power the drone up, power the remote up and connect the app. 9 times out of 10 you'll never notice the gimbal message because the drone has had time to power up and run through it's own calibration processes.
 
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It flies fine besides the fact that the horizon will tilt greatly and not self correct like it should when I yaw, hence why I attempted to calibrate the gimbal. Manual adjustments fix it…until I yaw the opposite way. Hoping for a release sooner than later.
 
Tilt issues seems to be a whole separate can of worms unrelated to the gimbal error thrown in explorer. Agreed. It's something that needs sorted. More people that report it to Autel the better.
 
Tilt issues seems to be a whole separate can of worms unrelated to the gimbal error thrown in explorer. Agreed. It's something that needs sorted. More people that report it to Autel the better.
No. The gimbal error about not being ready is it’s own benign thing. That’s not the issue. The real issue since 2.5.18 is the inability to calibrate the gimbal. The gimbal calibration will not calibrate. It fails 100% of the time. The tilt issue and this calibration issue for many has only been introduced since this firmware release. Autel knows about it.
 
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No. The gimbal error about not being ready is it’s own benign thing. That’s not the issue. The real issue since 2.5.18 is the inability to calibrate the gimbal. The gimbal calibration will not calibrate. It fails 100% of the time. The tilt issue and this calibration issue for many has only been introduced since this firmware release. Autel knows about it.

Huh. I haven't had calibration issues on any firmware versions, just tilt not holding and the gimbal error (which wasn't as bad with the latest update).

With your sides cracking and seeing others issues like this, I wonder how many different versions of the various bits of hardware are in the wild. I'll hopefully be able to get to popping the shell off of mine this week to check out at least the side screws.
 
I’ve been wondering this too. The thought has come to mind. Different suppliers, manufacturers or factories perhaps? QC issues….I have no idea. I just find it bizarre and puzzling that some are working, while others have had issues. New vs original production and so on as well. If this gets fixed in a new release, mine will finally be good to go. Fingers crossed.
 
I’ve been wondering this too. The thought has come to mind. Different suppliers, manufacturers or factories perhaps? QC issues….I have no idea. I just find it bizarre and puzzling that some are working, while others have had issues. New vs original production and so on as well. If this gets fixed in a new release, mine will finally be good to go. Fingers crossed.

I got mine about 2wks ago and didn't fly it until I had flashed it to the latest firmware. I then did an IMU, compass, and gimbal calibration, all were successful. I too think its slightly different chipsets that could be affecting how the EVO reacts after a firmware upgrade. I used to have to work with Dell firmware in their desktops, two identical Dell's and internally their chipset model numbers had a night and day difference depending on what assembly line they rolled off of or even what day of the week they were built.

How bad is your horizon? Mine is off all the time, I just keyframe it if it fluctuates throughout a clip that I will use, or if its a short clip I can just straighten it once in post. I never bother trying to fix it in the air. Within Davinci Resolve I just change the Y position of the video frame until the horizon is just touching the top edge of the preview window then I rotate it until it is perfectly level, I then reset the Y value and add zoom until the preview window's frame is filled; takes all of 2 sec.

If the horizon tilt lessens or tilts the other way I just repeat those steps again but hit the keyframe button before I start to make sure that it does not affect the previous correction, last step is to go into the curves and smooth the keyframe transitions. I've had to do this with every drone I've ever owned. Its kind of funny...the horizon stays perfectly level in a strong crosswind, but if I perform a yaw maneuver I will nearly always get a horizon tilt issue. With the DJI drones sometimes it would slowly correct itself, and sometimes it wouldn't.
 
The "gimbal is not ready" message should only display a few times and then stop. To double check swipe from the far left of the screen to the right and click on the status button. You can verify there if the gimbal is in a proper state.

Best bet is to power the drone up, power the remote up and connect the app. 9 times out of 10 you'll never notice the gimbal message because the drone has had time to power up and run through it's own calibration processes.
Sure enough, the Aircraft Status indicates that the gimbal is "Normal." Good tip! Thanks.
 
Same problem here as well - Autel Tech Service told me a BS story that this is normal. BS this is not normal, I've owned a hundred gimbals on drones and cameras and none move so I'm not accepting their goofy answer. If all that was not enough, they next tell me I have to pay freight and insurance on a drone that was defective from the factory and wait 2-3 weeks, so I'm paying for my own warranty service.

The reason these won't calibrate is because the gimbal is always moving. Sit your drone on a table and zoom in on an object and you'll see the image is always moving, this is why you can't calibrate it, like any calibration the drone needs to be stationary.

Oh Well . . . . .
 
Same problem here as well - Autel Tech Service told me a BS story that this is normal. BS this is not normal, I've owned a hundred gimbals on drones and cameras and none move so I'm not accepting their goofy answer. If all that was not enough, they next tell me I have to pay freight and insurance on a drone that was defective from the factory and wait 2-3 weeks, so I'm paying for my own warranty service.

The reason these won't calibrate is because the gimbal is always moving. Sit your drone on a table and zoom in on an object and you'll see the image is always moving, this is why you can't calibrate it, like any calibration the drone needs to be stationary.

Oh Well . . . . .
I feel your pain man. That’s why I gave up on this thing for the most part. Now a days I casually fly it and don’t expect much from it.
 
Regretfully, Autel knows this is a problem, yet keep on selling machines to the un-experenced buyers. Here's a short video of the drift you can expect from the EVO's defective gimbal processor. This machine is sitting on a hard wood table with a current IMU and Comp calibration.

 
I was told by the dealer that just sold me mine that this issue was a thing of the past. Dang it.
 
Mine is fine. purchased last month.
the focus breathing you see is me hitting the AF .

 
My Evo II Pro with the most recent firmware will not calibrate the gimbal. And as with many of you, the “shaking” error message pops right up. I was planning to use this drone for filming, and if I have to, I will keyframe my way through this mess, but would certainly prefer to have a drone I can count on holding a decent horizon. I don’t have a backup at this point, so will deal with the problem for now, and hope they can fix in the next firmware.
 
I'm having this issue now with one of my two E2P's. Not sure what to do going forward. The gimbal calibration fails every time. The sensor calibration message disappeared for a while then the bad sensor message came back so I guess I have a bad sensor. Time to contact Autel customer service I guess. Wish me luck. It sounds like I will need it.
 
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Good luck with that. Haven’t been able to get mine to pass a gimbal calibration since a few firmware updates ago like others have experienced. Never get any errors though. They were useless and denied it’s firmware related, even though it was fine prior to that without any damage or crash. The only option they gave was to send it in. They’ll probably wanna charge me man hours and a new gimbal. Yeah….pass. I was hoping the most recent firmware negated the issue, but it still prevails like a bad STD.
 
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