Hi All,
Hoping to get some of the experienced members to advise me and maybe help me find a way forward please.
Relatively new to drones (won a cheap one that the kids and I flew to destruction, got a DJI mini 3 pro last month that I'm learning on).
Last week I saw a Autel Evo II V3 enterprise bundle with the thermal camera and the large controller on ebay - bid and got it for $1800 - seller specified that the gimbal didn't move but everything else was 100%.
I'm pretty good at fixing things so I took a gamble that I could fix this. 24 hours since I got it and I'm running out of easy remedies. Have removed the gimbal and checked the connection. updated to the latest firmware. Used an air duster to try and blow any debris out of the joints.
The previous owner had only flown it for 30 min before they had a crash and the gimbal stopped working. You can still see the footage and logs - it's practically brand new. I've flown it twice, once at night and once in the day. With an elastic band you can stabilize the gimbal so that it doesn't move, you just have to pick an angle and that's what you have for the rest of the flight - it's useable but not great. Feels like you are missing out on half of the experience without a moving gimbal.
On startup the gimbal does its initialization moves - the movement left/right and tilt is smooth, but when it moves up/down there is significant wobble. it moves up/down several times and then stops, as if confirming that something is off. Once the controller connects then the "gimbal not ready - do not fly" message comes up. you can see the image with visual and thermal just fine, zoom works but no up/down or stabilization.
When you try and calibrate the gimbal it takes a while but usually it will go through the sequence same as on startup that rotates it through all three axes before saying "gimbal not ready - do not fly".
There's no visual damage I can see, not even any scratches on the camera. The gimbal moves freely in all three axes.
So - I have a few options
- Go deeper - try to take the gimbal/camera apart to find what's broke. I've seen spare wiring harnesses for this model on ebay/alibaba but no spare gimbal motors like you can find for any DJI model. Pros - I could fix it for cheap. Cons - I could wreck what still works.
- Buy an 8K camera, fit it and sell it on - any ideas how much it would be worth in this state? Is a V3 8K camera going to drop right in? I've seen them for $573.
- Send it to Autel - I've heard their customer care is bad, and that they'd probably not fix the gimbal motor but just replace the whole assembly for >$3K
- Carry on using it with a fixed gimbal and just get used to it.
The "wobble" you get in up/down movement when the gimbal does its startup sequence fells like it could be the issue. it's like it's missing a damper to make the movement smoother, or maybe some of the coils on the motor are not connected. If I could get at the up/down motor assembly I could possibly verify but I'm unsure how to access it safely.
I feel like the drone has a programming line in it somewhere that says that if one of the gimbal motors doesn't respond the way it expects it to (i.e. the wobble) on startup sequence, then it will just cut power to all the motors for the reminder of that cycle. If I could get into the programming and either prevent the calibration cycle on startup or tell it to ignore the issue then the motors would still work - albeit perhaps with the wobble.
looking forward to hearing from some of the sky gods and goddesses out there what I should do with my latest project
Cheers,
Dave
Hoping to get some of the experienced members to advise me and maybe help me find a way forward please.
Relatively new to drones (won a cheap one that the kids and I flew to destruction, got a DJI mini 3 pro last month that I'm learning on).
Last week I saw a Autel Evo II V3 enterprise bundle with the thermal camera and the large controller on ebay - bid and got it for $1800 - seller specified that the gimbal didn't move but everything else was 100%.
I'm pretty good at fixing things so I took a gamble that I could fix this. 24 hours since I got it and I'm running out of easy remedies. Have removed the gimbal and checked the connection. updated to the latest firmware. Used an air duster to try and blow any debris out of the joints.
The previous owner had only flown it for 30 min before they had a crash and the gimbal stopped working. You can still see the footage and logs - it's practically brand new. I've flown it twice, once at night and once in the day. With an elastic band you can stabilize the gimbal so that it doesn't move, you just have to pick an angle and that's what you have for the rest of the flight - it's useable but not great. Feels like you are missing out on half of the experience without a moving gimbal.
On startup the gimbal does its initialization moves - the movement left/right and tilt is smooth, but when it moves up/down there is significant wobble. it moves up/down several times and then stops, as if confirming that something is off. Once the controller connects then the "gimbal not ready - do not fly" message comes up. you can see the image with visual and thermal just fine, zoom works but no up/down or stabilization.
When you try and calibrate the gimbal it takes a while but usually it will go through the sequence same as on startup that rotates it through all three axes before saying "gimbal not ready - do not fly".
There's no visual damage I can see, not even any scratches on the camera. The gimbal moves freely in all three axes.
So - I have a few options
- Go deeper - try to take the gimbal/camera apart to find what's broke. I've seen spare wiring harnesses for this model on ebay/alibaba but no spare gimbal motors like you can find for any DJI model. Pros - I could fix it for cheap. Cons - I could wreck what still works.
- Buy an 8K camera, fit it and sell it on - any ideas how much it would be worth in this state? Is a V3 8K camera going to drop right in? I've seen them for $573.
- Send it to Autel - I've heard their customer care is bad, and that they'd probably not fix the gimbal motor but just replace the whole assembly for >$3K
- Carry on using it with a fixed gimbal and just get used to it.
The "wobble" you get in up/down movement when the gimbal does its startup sequence fells like it could be the issue. it's like it's missing a damper to make the movement smoother, or maybe some of the coils on the motor are not connected. If I could get at the up/down motor assembly I could possibly verify but I'm unsure how to access it safely.
I feel like the drone has a programming line in it somewhere that says that if one of the gimbal motors doesn't respond the way it expects it to (i.e. the wobble) on startup sequence, then it will just cut power to all the motors for the reminder of that cycle. If I could get into the programming and either prevent the calibration cycle on startup or tell it to ignore the issue then the motors would still work - albeit perhaps with the wobble.
looking forward to hearing from some of the sky gods and goddesses out there what I should do with my latest project
Cheers,
Dave
