Potential damage from crash?

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So this weekend I had a very, very minor crash with my phantom. It clipped a tiny twig and fell two feet into deep snow. Nothing was damaged. However, when it fell, the gimbal got knocked out of its rubber dampeners holding it (I removed the security pins since they were restricting the range of motion, and I would rather have the gimbal knocked off as opposed to taking the full force of the blow. I do have one ziptie holding it to the frame though, so it won't completely fall off.

When it was in the snow for a few seconds before I turned it off, I noticed that the gimbal was trying to stabilize even though it wasn't attached to the frame anymore. Does this kind of forcing of the motor damage it long-term?

Like I said, it was a minor "crash", nothing was damaged except for one prop which was chipped (due to -30°c weather) and everything works just fine, no strange noises, perfect balancing. I'm just curious because people keep saying that having the gimbal running without a GoPro attached will break it, perhaps having it working when it's not attached to the body of the phantom would cause similar damage?
 
A few seconds of restricted gimbal movement should not be a problem. You do need to safety the gimbal through the rubber mounts because if it separates from the Phantom it will tear the cables requiring replacement. I use plastic ty-wraps looped loosely through the mounts.
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Replace the chipped prop. It will set up vibrations that could lead to other failures later.
The gimbal without a GoPro is running continuously looking for a balance, which it can't because it doesn't have the weight of the GoPro. That will eventually break the Gimbal.
 
Yep, like I mentioned, I have one ziptie attaching the gimbal to the frame, so that it won't completely go loose. And I would never fly with a chipped propeller, it has already been replaced. I just wanted to know if there was perhaps some kind of long-term damage that could have occured, thanks for clearing that up!
 
Prophecies said:
Yep, like I mentioned, I have one ziptie attaching the gimbal to the frame, so that it won't completely go loose. And I would never fly with a chipped propeller, it has already been replaced. I just wanted to know if there was perhaps some kind of long-term damage that could have occured, thanks for clearing that up!
Use two zip ties else the bimbal will just pivot and still tear out the cables.
 

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