Greetings all, i'm Marco, the lead tester of "APM:Copter" and yes,  i decided to buy a Phantom 3 Pro, intrigued by its enormous potential.
Unfortunately every multirotor also has its Achilles heel, and imho the "gimbal roll issue" it's the best know of the PH3.
I sent an email to customer service about this famous issue and received this response:
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Normally in this cases we change the MC. It´s never the sameissue. It sounds always the same from the customers but when we have it hereit´s mostly different.

Best Regards,
Technical Support
DJI GmbH

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I tried three Phantom 3 (two Pro and one Advanced) and all have the same issue "out-of-the-box".
We tried various IMU and gimbal calibrations in a cold location without good results.
Now, why DJI not admit the evidence of possible issues related to the software, or possible mishandling of accel compensation?
It's possible that there're actually many MC faulty around?

Regards, Marco

Hi "Young Selina", 100% agree, this is an "algorithm issue", in my opinion a wrong software compensation.
The gimbal calibration in the air is not allowed with PH3, and imho i think it's the wrong way, all IMU (flight control and gimbal) want calibrated perfectly still.
I hope that DJI propose a definitive solution to this problem, many users are angry about this.
What I wonder is why the official testers were not immediately realized this problem, i think  it's not plausible to think that they have not highlighted to the lead developer.
I've found this issue after only one minute of flight, with all the PH3 tested here.

Hello, I'm the admin of an italian Facebook group about the Phantom 3 ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/1566114093641842/ ). We are more than 520 members so far, and many of us experienced (and are still experiencing) this issue... Someone solved it (totally or partially) with the cold calibration, but many others were not able to fix it in any way...
We are looking forward to reading an official statement from DJI about this "worldwide spread" (and a little annoying...) problem,
thank you,
best regards

Vittorio

Can we just make a simple request for now that will help us cope? THAT would be, simply to facilitate SAVING the roll adjustment from one flight to the next. I - and no doubt many others - have requested this ability from DJI support in a future FW update. Clearly it is not a fix, but it will certainly save a LOT of time, yes? In the zillions of requests DJI surely receives, I wonder if they will notice such a minor request.

What normally happens with me - my routine if you will - is this: Take off normally, using the Pilot app, then gain altitude to get the horizon in the shot; if the horizon is okay, simply yaw gently to the right or left, which results in tilting the horizon as you go (at least, that's how it happens with me). Then, yaw back to the original orientation and the horizon stays tilted. At that point, adjust the roll to straighten things out - usually the same amount each flight. THEN, go fly and have fun.   Next flight, repeat same procedure.

Unfortunately, MANY others and I have tried "everything" ....repeatedly, and while roll adjustment does not really address some of the other "drifting" issues, it certainly helps with the tilted horizon at the outset of a flight and saves editing time (and resulting slight frame size reduction) later on. Ability to save the roll adjustment would be a big help, if only a bandaide.  

Other than this issue, I cannot belive how amazing this camera platform is! Just incredible!

Tahoe_Ed - can you help push that along if you agree?

Thanks aeriallens for reply, i know the "trick" to "multipoint roll adjustment during flight" but does not solve the problem, it means "go around", not face it and solve it.
The $1800 that i paid for my PH3 Pro and other three battery was not defective.
And my experience with this quad did not start well, this is the first one i bought, with defective gimbal, replaced immediately by the dealer.
The first with the defective gimbal, the second, with "roll problem"... and the third?

I think that developers can improve this product, but maybe they are already working on Phantom 4.
This is what i want to read when the next firmware it's released:

- solved the problems of the tilted gimbal roll
- extended the controls to reduce the dual rate/expo commands, especially on the yaw
- inserted the ability to adjust speed, acceleration/deceleration of the gimbal "follow yaw"
- restored the ability of changing control/stream channels (tx/rx side)
- fix the video lag and black screen with ALL the tablet with acceptable cpu speed
- change the "video bitrate control" of video stream (smoother video in the tablet with a slight quality loss)
- implemented "home lock" (in addition to "course lock")
- implemented waypoint navigation with "automatic grid" for fotomapping
- implemented "follow me multipath" mode
- implemented "dynamic orbit" mode
- restored ability to "downgrade the firmware"

Dreams?
No, it's just matter of good will or DJI risk losing customers.

MarcoR - I am certain that we ALL agree 100%.
Well stated.

The P3 is an incredible and amazing aircraft and camera platform, but it is beyond curious that the now-established and $$$ vested and current customer is pretty much kept in the dark. One can only hope the folks at DJI have a loyalty toward us as we have a loyalty toward them.  When someone says to me, "Hey, I want one of those!" I am on the verge of replying, "Hold off a bit there, Partner."

In my opinion i think that it is enough just to solve these things, we hope that DJI not sleep now...

Hello to everybody,
I would like to give my contribution, also my Phantom 3 Advanced has the same problem of MarcoR.
Recording video starts correctly, with the horizon straight, but then begins to tilt one side.

This is my video affected by this issue:

with mine the gimball roll is also slightly off, adjusting only is for the actual flight you're doing: i would be nice if this setting would be saved for future flights

dewulf.harry Posted at 2015-7-17 21:37
with mine the gimball roll is also slightly off, adjusting only is for the actual flight you're doin ...

We hope that the DJI takes into account, although it's relatively empirical.

MarcoR Posted at 2015-7-17 21:55
We hope that the DJI takes into account, although it's relatively empirical.

I am reading discussion about this issue and it makes me crazy. I bought this product 3 days ago with the same issue and I have only 7 days time to return it. Reading your letter stating that each time you  return faulty product to supplier you received for exchange faulty one,  which makes me crazy.  DJI supplied to the market not tested faulty product and this case might be a subject to the court case. It is a shame for this company. There are thousands of clients with the same problem and they should consolidate together and ask for recall that model from the market.

Hi all
Unfortunately, same issue here.

Phantom 3 Professional Firmware v1.3.20 has been released yesterday. Has anyone already tested this? If yes, is Firmware v1.3.20 solving the issue?

The gimbal drift seems sorted from what I can see in my tests.. Definitely not bad like it was previously any way..

I tested v1.3.20 on various flights, but it did not solve the problem for me...
Before: Gimbal drifted to one side, during a flight
After: It seems that gimbal drifts around a center angle.

martinhaemmerli Posted at 2015-8-5 22:01
I tested v1.3.20 on various flights, but it did not solve the problem for me...
Before: Gimbal drif ...

provide video/logs and report it to DJI. I'm sure they would like to look at this further as the general  consensus is that the issue is more or less gone

scanna Posted at 2015-7-17 16:46
Hello to everybody,
I would like to give my contribution, also my Phantom 3 Advanced has the same pr ...

Hi o meglio ciao....
I'm from Cesano Maderno,where did you fly you Phantom?may we can meet to fly togheter,i'm actually fly at Lipu oasi in Cesano Maderno wich is a quiete place to fly,but quite annoying me fly always in the same place..due to lack of not populated area in wich fly safe.
Ciaoa presto

starfighters Posted at 2015-8-6 20:37
Hi o meglio ciao....
I'm from Cesano Maderno,where did you fly you Phantom?may we can meet to fly  ...

I'm getting a bit confused here.
We have DJI arguing about shells cracking and the only thing we can do, is to lose our P3s for 8 weeks or more.
Yet this guy gets 3 Phantoms to try for a gimbal which is slightly crooked, and for which DJI provides a user adjustment in its software.
Could i suggest you take off, and if the horizon is not horizontal then adjust the gimbal roll using the tool provided just for the situation before you take a picture or video?

Any luck with 1.3.20? That improved my gimbal "shuddering"/overload messages, and the roll issue a bit I think - but it's still there.

So my 1 week old P3P has been having this issue right out of the box. The camera also is pointed slightly to the left which makes the left leg occasionally show up in the shot even when just hovering.

I was holding off on updating the firmware because of all the reported range issues. I finally bit the bullet and updated. It not only didn't fix the gimbal issues but my range has now been cut to 1/3 of what it was before