Hard crash with P2 damage report (ad-infinitum)!

[iowahill]

Have you given any thought to either longer landing gear or snap on extensions? Bet you will after going through this.

I did originally buy the longer landing gear for it, but the bird is then too "tall" to fit in my Go carry-on friendly hard case. Besides, apparently the bird crashed hitting one arm almost vertically, at least from what I can determine from the overall damage. Remember, I killed the motors at maybe 100 feet to thwart what I perceived as a possible flyaway. Thinking back on that day I believe I probably didn't bother to ensure that the compass was calibrated, or that full communication with the controller was established. Thus, when I activated the motors, she went into Failsafe mode that I had programmed with a 100' altitude. Believe me, I will be far more careful to pay attention to the light status from now on!

 

[jason]

I did originally buy the longer landing gear for it, but the bird is then too "tall" to fit in my Go carry-on friendly hard case. Besides, apparently the bird crashed hitting one arm almost vertically, at least from what I can determine from the overall damage. Remember, I killed the motors at maybe 100 feet to thwart what I perceived as a possible flyaway. Thinking back on that day I believe I probably didn't bother to ensure that the compass was calibrated, or that full communication with the controller was established. Thus, when I activated the motors, she went into Failsafe mode that I had programmed with a 100' altitude. Believe me, I will be far more careful to pay attention to the light status from now on!

That was the same problem I had with longer landing gear and the hard case. So I opted for snap on extensions which gives me 30mm of additional ground clearance. Like you nothing helped when I had to knock it out of a tree and it hit the ground but luckily the vertical arm just slid up to the mounting bracket.

 

[iowahill]

That was the same problem I had with longer landing gear and the hard case. So I opted for snap on extensions which gives me 30mm of additional ground clearance. Like you nothing helped when I had to knock it out of a tree and it hit the ground but luckily the vertical arm just slid up to the mounting bracket.

I don't mean to be off-topic in discussing my Zenmuse experience, but since I have your attention have you noticed that if you position the gimbal to mid pan/yaw that you can raise the vertical arm up so that it locks into a recess on the base mount? The casting for the base mount appears to be intentionally formed to accommodate this feature, possibly as a means for transport without damaging the yaw mechanism. I made up a camera and gimbal lock from the foam from my GoPro camera that fits into the standard legs of my bird. I think I saw this tip on either YouTube or possibly this forum some months back. But I'm now giving this discovery of mine some thought as a simpler method of locking the gimbal. I have a 3D printer that I can use to make up a part if I can figure out an elegant means of doing this.

 

[jason]

I don't mean to be off-topic in discussing my Zenmuse experience, but since I have your attention have you noticed that if you position the gimbal to mid pan/yaw that you can raise the vertical arm up so that it locks into a recess on the base mount? The casting for the base mount appears to be intentionally formed to accommodate this feature, possibly as a means for transport without damaging the yaw mechanism. I made up a camera and gimbal lock from the foam from my GoPro camera that fits into the standard legs of my bird. I think I saw this tip on either YouTube or possibly this forum some months back. But I'm now giving this discovery of mine some thought as a simpler method of locking the gimbal. I have a 3D printer that I can use to make up a part if I can figure out an elegant means of doing this.

No I hadn't noticed that until you mentioned but there is a possibility one could be 3D printed to lock it for transport. I use this which does basically the same thing when it's in the hard case. Normally I do not use anything because I driving from one location to another so it sets upside down on the back seat. Here's a photo with the extensions and the gimbal lock I use.

 

[iowahill]

If you haven't tried already, push up on the camera/gimbal and I think you'll find that it moves up about 1/4" and will lock into the mid-point of yaw. This would have been some handy information to know when I first got my bird and was pimping it out!

I bought a GoPro 3 quick clip on Shapeways for about $12 that replaces the screw-mount camera securing bracket. Makes for quick and tool-free removal and replacement of my camera, necessary because I have the GoPro 30-pin bus connector mod installed on my gimbal because my "refurbished" 3+ Black came with a USB connector that was missing the internal contact block. That was "missing" until after my crash I could hear something rattling around inside the camera's case. Everything appears to be fine with the camera, so I suspect that I found the "missing" internal connector! This will be corrected when I eventually replace the camera main board, but for now everything is working the way it should.

 

[jason]

If you haven't tried already, push up on the camera/gimbal and I think you'll find that it moves up about 1/4" and will lock into the mid-point of yaw. This would have been some handy information to know when I first got my bird and was pimping it out!

I bought a GoPro 3 quick clip on Shapeways for about $12 that replaces the screw-mount camera securing bracket. Makes for quick and tool-free removal and replacement of my camera, necessary because I have the GoPro 30-pin bus connector mod installed on my gimbal because my "refurbished" 3+ Black came with a USB connector that was missing the internal contact block. That was "missing" until after my crash I could hear something rattling around inside the camera's case. Everything appears to be fine with the camera, so I suspect that I found the "missing" internal connector! This will be corrected when I eventually replace the camera main board, but for now everything is working the way it should.

On close inspection I see what you are talking about but in order move it into that cavity the set screw would have be loose. The problem with that is the yaw motor will not be stable causing it to vibrate. The other reason those cavities are there was to make the assembly lighter without the camera gimbal weighs in at 168 grams. When you start adding up all the weights such as cameras, iosd, tx and cable it doesn't take long to surpass the takeoff weight of 1300 grams

 

[iowahill]

On close inspection I see what you are talking about but in order move it into that cavity the set screw would have be loose. The problem with that is the yaw motor will not be stable causing it to vibrate. The other reason those cavities are there was to make the assembly lighter without the camera gimbal weighs in at 168 grams. When you start adding up all the weights such as cameras, iosd, tx and cable it doesn't take long to surpass the takeoff weight of 1300 grams

You see something that I didn't, and I had forgotten about the set screw which was maybe the first thing I removed in disassembly. I DO like your gimbal lock approach, though.

 

[iowahill]

Beginning to see some daylight in the Zenmuse gimbal repair. The moment that I dreaded for fear of breaking the bent vertical leg of the Zenmuse H43D has come and gone. I was able to clamp the bent leg to my workbench and surprisingly easily bend it back into the roughly correct shape using some HDMW plastic scraps as a means to protect the leg from gouging or scratching from my array of Vise Grips. No breakage or cracks, and the metal yielded quite easily.

Now the remaining trick is to reassemble the gimbal and hope that everything works as it originally did! Not a job for the faint of heart, or those without the confidence, tools, and skill set to work on something this delicate. For all the time speI'll update when I'm done. Hope my confidence and skill set match my ambitions!

For all the time spent on this, I might have been better off buying a new Zenmuse from B&H as suggested by Jason. But the challenge was there along with my resources, unlike the $200+ that it takes to buy a new one.

 

[jason]

Beginning to see some daylight in the Zenmuse gimbal repair. The moment that I dreaded for fear of breaking the bent vertical leg of the Zenmuse H43D has come and gone. I was able to clamp the bent leg to my workbench and surprisingly easily bend it back into the roughly correct shape using some HDMW plastic scraps as a means to protect the leg from gouging or scratching from my array of Vise Grips. No breakage or cracks, and the metal yielded quite easily.

Now the remaining trick is to reassemble the gimbal and hope that everything works as it originally did! Not a job for the faint of heart, or those without the confidence, tools, and skill set to work on something this delicate. For all the time speI'll update when I'm done. Hope my confidence and skill set match my ambitions!

For all the time spent on this, I might have been better off buying a new Zenmuse from B&H as suggested by Jason. But the challenge was there along with my resources, unlike the $200+ that it takes to buy a new one.

View attachment 40390

So how's it going?

 

[iowahill]

So how's it going?

Well, kinda mixed! Everything went together well and worked as hoped for, but found that I needed to do some more adjustment because the camera mount was hitting the upper base mount at a couple of positions. That was easily enough remedied, but I also had somehow managed to lose one of the 3mm .5 set screws for the yaw arm mount. Must have gone into another dimension because I checked my entire bench, magnetic tools, clothing, chair, the concrete floor, even sweeping first with a fine brush, and again with a very strong magnet. I went over to our local Home Depot and bought a metric tap and die set that included the 3 mm .5 die with hopes of cutting down a larger sae set screw. But the set screw I tried was stainless steel and not hardened enough to take rethreading. I ordered up a metric set screw assortment from Amazon (about $12) that should be here on Monday, so I should be able to finally get this episode behind me with some semblance of accomplishment and satisfaction.