H3-2D repair parts

rilot · Feb 25, 2014

The problem with using the older plastic mount is that it ends up with your GoPro further back than with the new mount. This in turn means that you get your landing legs in your shots when shooting in "wide" mode.

ussvertigo · Feb 25, 2014

I have broken lower bracket. It broke at its weakest point at the gimbal mounting screw holes and two arms were completely broke off. Super glue back together to hold in place, then two part epoxy spread around to join parts back together, with a approx half inch by 1 inch aircraft aluminum piece drilled to match mounting holes on backside. When mounting the gimbal, the backing plate sandwiches the broken joint section agaisnt the mounting arm. Its ugly as hell and has a slight tilt to one side due to the bent sections of the lower bracket, but is holding until new parts arrive. I tried to straighten before repair, but its a delicate task. In the meantime, I also saw the dis-satisfied fliers with the plastic mounts. The Phantom1 mount will fit but it is scewed 45 degrees? from the Phantom2 mount. My final choice was to pick between a USA supplier of the identical lower bracket for $75, which was out of stock, or a Chinese supplier (I use Chinese suppliers often for all kinds of parts, with no problems so far, often very economical, it just takes longer delivery times) that has both the upper and lower bracket (aluminum as original) for the Phantom2 for $64.74. AT least they had in stock and has already shipped. Expect in 1st week of march and will report on this thread the quality and fit. The ebay post says for Phantom2 Vision, but pics are identical for my Phantom2. The ebay link for the brackets are as follows:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251456303651?_t ... _369wt_868

Wind_Shear · Feb 26, 2014

rilot said:
The problem with using the older plastic mount is that it ends up with your GoPro further back than with the new mount. This in turn means that you get your landing legs in your shots when shooting in "wide" mode.

Negative, Ghost Rider. If you mount it correctly it looks to me like the GoPro sits further forward on this one than the new one.

Can someone take a similar pic of their stock metal Zenmuse mount to confirm?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Justiceair · Mar 1, 2014

What about the 8 pin cable, I sliced a little covering off the wire when I pushed it through the hole in the arm to get it outside the body, Can I purchase the cable somewhere.
Also, Is there a software download needed to make the gimbal come alive, I already have the upgraded firmware (4.0.0) and PMU (2.0.4).

rilot · Mar 1, 2014

Wind Shear, which holes are you using to mount? I could only get 2 holes to line up and it set the gimbal a lot further back than yours.

Wind_Shear · Mar 4, 2014

rilot said:
Wind Shear, which holes are you using to mount? I could only get 2 holes to line up and it set the gimbal a lot further back than yours.

Attached should answer this.

It's been two weeks and so far so good, though I've noticed a little more vibration since I switched from the metal mount which used 50g rubber spacers to the plastic mount with 40g spacers. I decided the 30g (white) ones were too soft, but I may try to see if there is any benefit.

Wind_Shear · May 9, 2014

UPDATE: After two months of increasingly bad vibration--in the form of shuddering, or fast side-to-side shaking--during which I attempted every other possible fix including replacing all four motors, I finally bit the bullet and purchased a replacement metal mount for $75.

I figured I'm past the point of newbie crashes and hopefully will not break this one, which helped justify the cost.

All the vibration is now gone.

Tl;dr - the plastic mount is not as good as the metal one and not a reliable substitute.

Case29247 · Jul 30, 2014

OneJoe said:
thanks for your thoughts @MenaceCat. Although I don't expect DJI to reply any time soon, I think I might have found a replacement but it's very, very expensive. And I'm embarrassed to say that the part is, in fact, aluminum .. not plastic. (A DJI dealer pointed this out to me)

But I do understand your "crush zone" concept. Better to lose a small, mounting part than the precision parts of the gimbal itself.

I'm no metallurgist but I find it surprising that a piece of aluminum would "crack" like a piece of plastic. Makes me think it was either designed to do that or was defective.

I have seen several posts in the forums criticizing the materials used in the gimbal mounting parts. I'm not an expert metallurgist, but I am an engineer and have an opinion. My best guess is that these parts are made of alloy aluminum that has been milled out as much as possible to reduce the weight, and then heat treated to increase strength. Unfortunately, the heat treating also reduces the aluminum's ductility, which means it doesn't bend much before fracturing and breaking. And when one tries to repair the parts by bending, it's even easier to break the part because bending induces work hardening that reduces the ductility even further.

In a few words: weight, strength, ductility, durability, etc.---They're all related, and each one is a trade-off in the others.