Camera not pointing forward after small accident

[Spitfire]

Hello all,

this is my first post on your forum and I wished it would be for better reasons :?

First of all, many thanks for this forum and my best regards to all members!

Here comes the story:
I purchased 2 days ago the brand new DJI Phantom 2 Vision + in a kind of impulsive purchase (considering the total price of the package) but, here in Belgium, it was father's day, so...

The first flights went very nice and the shots and movies with the built-in camera are just great. While practicing in my property yesterday afternoon, wind was blowing irregularly and one maneuvre brought me close to a tree. I hit a branch and the Phantom fell on the grass in some kind of "backwards attitude" slightly off centered from approximately 3 meters high...

Due to the shock, the Phantom itself was ok but the (aluminium?) frame carrying the camera (the one screwed at the bottom of the Phantom) had one corner bent down, and 2 white rubber absorbers were slightly torn: bad news. So I dismantled the whole mount, disconnected the Gimbal and managed to make the frame flat again. Then I have assembled everything back on the PH2.

Now my problem is that everything seems ok except that the camera is pointing slightly to the right instead of "looking" exactly forward!?

When I switched it on back again for the first time, the Gimbal was a bit "moving randomly" and sort of forcing/bumping in several directions.
I managed to regain control when pairing the iPhone to the camera and it now responds to the iPhone commands and takes pics and movies as expected.

Can you please tell me of there is a way to have the camera point back exactly forward or is there a damage of some sort?
Any hint, advice or preferably solution for the newbie is more than welcome

Many thanks in advance.

 

[4wd]

You've probably done what you can, unless you could just bend it slightly more to compensate?
The proper solution will be a replacement assembly when they are available which is supposed to be later this month.
Maybe you could take mostly stills in the meantime :?

You could take it off completely and fly without, or stick on some alternative camera in a temporary way.

 

[Doono]

The gimbal alloy is soft, gently bend the arm back to original.

 

[Spitfire]

Thanks already for your reactions.

In fact, I was thinking about finding a way to "reset" or adjust the neutral "forward" position of the gimbal. I am speaking about this first (rotation) motor in the gimbal to compensate the yaw movement: isn't there a way to modify its "neutral" position (through software maybe?).

Looking at this very precise mechanism and all the motors and axis to keep the small camera in level position during flight, I'm not sure which part I should "bend back"!? Furthermore, I think these parts are quite robust at first sight, I don't think these ones have suffered from the accident. Only one corner of the main support plate was bent down (thus influencing the horizontal position of the camera under the PH2).
Here we are speaking about pointing right in the "forward" direction (aligned with front of the PH2).
In other words, let's assume that my PH2 is heading to 090, then the camera would actually head to 092 or 093

Any idea with this new explanation? How to bring the camera back to the "true" heading of the PH2?

 

[Mori55]

No way to do it with software. Can't you twist the arm a couple of degrees ? When it bent it probally twisted a little.

 

[Spitfire]

Hello again,

quite honestly, this puzzles me because, when you look at the gimbal of the Vision+, which part exactly do you think about and how should I bend it?
This seems to me a very precise assembly of arms and servos linked together.

As a confirmation, we are speaking about this mounting:

I have "repaired" the upper plate shown on the picture; one of its corner was bent down and I have made it perfectly flat again before putting it back under the Phantom 2. I have then mounted back the rest (with new white rubber absorbers) and everything seems ok, to that extent.

Now all you see on the picture are quite solid "loose" arms connected to small servos in a very minutious assembly, I can't see how to bend something in there very honestly

Thinking back about the incident and how the mounting is assembled, if the shock would have bent something, it would be in the other direction if I'm not mistaken (to the left and not to the right) - let's remember that the PH2 fell in "backwards position" (nose up).

So no software solution? How do they calibrate it at the factory?

 

[Birdman]

Rather than trying to bend the gimbal arm, maybe you could somehow adjust the alignment of the mounting plate. 2 deg shouldn't be difficult.

 

[Spitfire]

Well, at least I prefer this idea indeed

Now, if it's correct that this can't be "software adjusted", I begin to wonder if this wasn't like that initially.
After all, I only did 4 or 5 flights before the incident... Maybe I didn't spot this slight "off track" position.
What about yours, are they all perfectly pointing forward?

Otherwise I will try to work on the frame and/or on the white rubber absorbers. I only changed the 2 torn ones, maybe I should have changed all of them at once.

I will check all this when I have a bit more time.
The connection between the iPhone and the camera seems more random (with many error messages) at startup.
Again, I don't know if this is linked with the incident or not. I must switch off and on again the PH2 several times before getting a successful phone connection with the camera.

Thanks anyway for the replies so far.

 

[Birdman]

Rather than quitting PH@ several times before obtaining a camera connection, try tapping the return arrow in the upper left hand of the screen. that takes you to the PH2 app home page. Then tap the camera icon. That might work. It does for me.

 

[Birdman]

And just checked. My camera actually points slightly to the left. Mabe a couple of degrees. Never noticed. Never bothered me.

 

[Spitfire]

Thanks very much again for your valuable inputs :idea:

Best regards,

 

[Torcan]

Did this ever get rectified? I find my camera also points left about 2 degrees as well, and would like to know if it is normal, or is there a way to adjust it to point directly ahead?

 

[burlbark]

Did this ever get rectified? I find my camera also points left about 2 degrees as well, and would like to know if it is normal, or is there a way to adjust it to point directly ahead?

The compass is directly related to yaw. You may need to degauss your compass. I had to do mine tonight, I did mine with the vision turned on motors not armed and the gimbal in place. If you do it correctly the gimbal will center itself unless you have a bent j-arm or your mainboard is bad.

Jeremy