In flight camera stuck

[gtp1500]

Had a pretty scary thing happen today, I was flying around 200ft high and less than a half mile from home.
While I rotated my camera to look straight down, all of a sudden it looked liked I was in a tree sideways.
I had no idea what happened, there's no such a thing as a 200' tree anywhere here so I thought perhaps my altitude was indicating wrong.
I drove over to the area it happened and could hear the phantom humming along, looked up and was hovering like nothing had happened. I brought it down and noticed the camera was in an odd position maybe over centered backwards?
I powered down and up, cam went through its startup and worked fine.

When I arrived where it was hovering there was a hawk flying around our barn, I'm wondering if possibly it was hit and made the camera go wonky?
Concerned about flying now, scared it may happen again whatever it was.

Thanks...

 

[luke14321]

Had a pretty scary thing happen today, I was flying around 200ft high and less than a half mile from home.
While I rotated my camera to look straight down, all of a sudden it looked liked I was in a tree sideways.
I had no idea what happened, there's no such a thing as a 200' tree anywhere here so I thought perhaps my altitude was indicating wrong.
I drove over to the area it happened and could hear the phantom humming along, looked up and was hovering like nothing had happened. I brought it down and noticed the camera was in an odd position maybe over centered backwards?
I powered down and up, cam went through its startup and worked fine.

When I arrived where it was hovering there was a hawk flying around our barn, I'm wondering if possibly it was hit and made the camera go wonky?
Concerned about flying now, scared it may happen again whatever it was.

Thanks...

Probably just the bird hit it, made it go wonky but managed to recover before plummeting! I find seagulls go for mine the most, I think they are doing it a lot at the moment because they are nesting so they are very protective! I tend not to stay in one place for to long!

 

[AWD]

I've had that happen a few times on the P4 where the camera just kind of goes nuts and it looks like you've crashed although the drone is still flying quite nicely.

I bring it back and finish the flight. On the next start up, the camera does its warm up cycle and it's all back to normal.

Probably seen this a half dozen times now in the last 100 hours.

AD

 

[luke14321]

I've had that happen a few times on the P4 where the camera just kind of goes nuts and it looks like you've crashed although the drone is still flying quite nicely.

I bring it back and finish the flight. On the next start up, the camera does its warm up cycle and it's all back to normal.

Probably seen this a half dozen times now in the last 100 hours.

AD

The only thing that I have had happen to mine is where I turn it on and the gimbal fails to do anything, a restart or 2 fixes it!

 

[gtp1500]

I may do a few short and close flights and see if it happens again, I've got probably 40ish flights and this was a first.

 

[OldManInWva]

Must be something in the air.... My P4 did the same thing today (for the first time) scared the crap out of me since I've already lost one P4 this year. Thought it was tumbling down as I was looking at the screen in FPV at that moment it happened.

 

[gtp1500]

Must be something in the air.... My P4 did the same thing today (for the first time) scared the crap out of me since I've already lost one P4 this year. Thought it was tumbling down as I was looking at the screen in FPV at that moment it happened.

I hate that terrible feeling I had at the pit of my stomach when I thought it was a goner, if I'd crashed my fun time would be over.
My wife was standing waiting for me when I got back....

 

[rene van der meer]

You may praise yourself lucky.
It sounds you survived a close encounter with another bird
It is a pity you didn't record it on video.

 

[alokbhargava]

I believe it's a software glitch as you are not the only one to see this issue.

 

[Brockrock]

Camera Gimble went limp during a flight...

Here is another thread on this matter that may be worth reading. It offers a possible reason for why this error may occur. Always initialize properly before every flight. 1) Turn on Remote; 2) Turn on Copter; 3) Open Flight App.

I'm not saying that failure to do so in this order is the only reason for this error, but the only times it has happened to me have been when I departed from this procedure.

 

[rene van der meer]

Camera Gimble went limp during a flight...

Here is another thread on this matter that may be worth reading. It offers a possible reason for why this error may occur. Always initialize properly before every flight. 1) Turn on Remote; 2) Turn on Copter; 3) Open Flight App.

I'm not saying that failure to do so in this order is the only reason for this error, but the only times it has happened to me have been when I departed from this procedure.

That doesn't prove anything it is very unlikely that the startup order influences this if it is a bug.

 

[Brockrock]

That doesn't prove anything it is very unlikely that the startup order influences this if it is a bug.

Respectfully, of course..

 

[rene van der meer]

That doesn't prove anything it is very unlikely that the startup order influences this if it is a bug.

Brockrock you are right, maybe my statement was a bit to harsh, but I think some evidence is needed before we regard something as a new rule. Nevertheless your power up is regarded as the best, because it prevents locking the AC to anything else but your RC.
Sorry, if I have offended you.

 

[gtp1500]

Here's a short clip that I recorded when the camera went limp.
After watching Im doubting it was a bird, especially after reading this happening to so many others.

 

[RémyHeli]

Do you remember if just before you switched between video recording and photo.

 

[gtp1500]

Do you remember if just before you switched between video recording and photo.

Hit record when I took off, never took a photo, just panned can down and then it hapened.

 

[P4 Phlyer]

Also happened to me, flying along and suddenly camera turned up and stayed there. No
bird that I could see, hit RTH and it came back.
Restarted and all OK. 20 flights later nothing
has gone wrong. Suspect bug in program.

 

[RémyHeli]

Sounds like related to gimbal shutdown feature in case of motors overload, useful ie if the craft is powered on while plastic gimbal holder not removed.

It seems there is no error message displayed or logged so it's difficult to understand what triggered shutdown. We have already seen "Gimbal Motor Overload" warning to appear in GO app so per sure there are controls in place, but this one is maybe a rare situation such as transient peak overload causing unexpected 'false error' and triggering gimbal shutdown. Only speculation here of course and to say certainly not pilot error on my views.

Note existence of gimbal limp issue 'variant' caused by damaged ribbon cable so live video feed also interrupted - but that one is probably another more hardware related issue.