Gimbal creaking?

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I ate it into a tree the other day with my P3P. Was surprised the thing started up at all after - just some prop damage, a little bending in the casing. It flies - but: the horizontal stabilization in the gimbal sounds like it's pushing against something & yields a vibrating picture.

Here's what it looks like from the outside - definitely listen with sound (it's not pretty)... Any thoughts much appreciated.

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The video shows it sitting, pick it up and move it all around so the gimble moves. It looks bent in the pic.
 
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here are a couple shots from it - you can see some pretty crazy shutter roll caused by the high-frequency vibration. does that help any?
 
Try tightening the hex screw where the gimbal arm attaches to the gimbal plate. It's just above the camera dead center.

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Interesting! That was super helpful. I tightened it - then found it was too tight, and the arm was scraping on the plate above the camera - backed it off a little - no dice - backed it off a lot - something was now spinning freely. (Error message: "gimbal motor overloaded)" Tightened it up a bit more and the vibration is gone.

Now the problem seems to be the camera is spinning like it's very confused. The gimbal appears to be no longer overloaded and working correctly, but I'm seeing x 0 y 0 z -1 on my accelerometer, so a couple whacks may be in order.

Thanks for the tip - any more thoughts much appreciated. Will keep you apprised as I recharge and try again in the morning.
 
Today's update - these two videos.

The audio is interesting; I would guess that the P3P is sending out a lot of radio and that's interfering with the iphone camera. But the main thing is that the gimbal is trying to look 45 degrees away from center. When you push it gently back over, it does the head shake. Any thoughts?

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...update; I tried taking the back off the gimbal - everything was normal in there. Reassembled; same problem continued. Tried once again loosening and then re-tightening the hex screw, and it appears to have worked.

There might be some sweet spot of tightness - or, doing it the right way up is important (so gravity pulls the arm in the right direction as you tighten it) - or, doing it with the power off is important.

Let's see how it flies.
 
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