Gimble lock

[Direwolf]

What type of damage is incurred by powering up
The phantom with the gimble lock still in place? Not
Flying but simply powering up the bird.

 

[Patsion]

I would advise against that, you could break the gimble very easily that way. Was reading about a guy who broke his gimble this way before even flying it once.

If you have done this, is your gimble shaking and going all over the place and not settling?

 

[Direwolf]

Yes I have done it on accident of course. There's
No shaking or anything.The camera seems to
Float or point down till I use the app to adjust
Pitch of the camera. Is that normal?

 

[beachvision]

I dont believe it does immediate damage to the camera as the software will tell you to remove the lock if you leave it on. I believe the gimble can detect that the camera cant move. The pointing down on an angle is normal til you adjust the camera up for flying.

 

[freeskier989]

I do think this can effect the levelness of the camera - when you turn on the bird with the lock in place, the camera tries to right and balance itself, but cannot. So i think that axis point in the gimbal ends up shifting creating a tilt to your horizon and shifting the D-plate off axis. I'd try to always remember do not turn on with lock in place!

 

[DrTelemark]

Freeskier is right. That has happened to my camera already - now I have 1.5 degree tilt on my horizons - this doesn't seem fixable, other than in post with frame rotation of the video. I think I accidentally left the gimbal lock on 2-3 times when powering up the unit- that could be all it takes to mess up the alignment.

 

[Werz]

I dont believe it does immediate damage to the camera as the software will tell you to remove the lock if you leave it on. I believe the gimble can detect that the camera cant move. The pointing down on an angle is normal til you adjust the camera up for flying.

I think gimbal damage can occur pretty quickly, though. I made that mistake once, just from turning on the battery to use the Phantom 2 Assistant. I could hear a faint buzzing sound; it was the gimbal trying to move against the gimbal lock. When I finally figured out what I had done and removed the gimbal lock, the motors were pretty warm. Just because the Phantom senses a gimbal obstruction doesn't mean that it will stop trying to move the gimbal.

Get one of those "remove before flight" tags and attach it the to gimbal lock as a blatant reminder. But don't take those works too literally. You need to remove the gimbal lock every time before powering up the battery.