Hi folks, first post here. Thank you in advance for any guidance.

Inspire 1 Pro X5 bought used. Logged 14+ hours almost trouble-free. "Gimbal disconnected" No spinning on power up. No picture in app. Worked fine yesterday and every other time. Happened out of nowhere, zero explanation.

I tried cleaning the contacts and disconnecting/reconnecting the gimbal, power cycling everything.

I tried a different microSD card, and tried powering up without the card. The camera light blinks green several times and then stays dim green. Without an SD card the light is red.

When it happened I did see the X5 swivel around for a moment, but it never completed the usual spins. It just went limp. In subsequent powerups, the gimbal doesn't move at all.

Possible symptom? The gimbal has had a pretty universal -1.7 degree tilt in my 14 hours of flight with her. Using the manual gimbal roll in the app didn't work properly, the camera would jump and jerk seemingly at random and did not roll correctly.

Maybe another clue, I cannot get the aircraft to go into travel mode, either thru the app or the switch on the remote. I have used a GPC landing mode case since a couple weeks after I bought it 2 months ago. It did go into travel mode to fit the original DJI case when I bought it.

Also possibly related? The auto-landing gear has not worked properly since I updated the firmwarm to the newest. I did disconnect the vibration dampening plate and screw the worm drive in order to make the landing gear flat, thinking the aircraft might be confused and/or the downward positioning sensor had issues. After powering up and testing landing + flight mode (without flying), it again won't go back into travel mode. Using the app, the popup says to disconnect the camera and the aircraft will enter travel mode automatically. (of course it was already disconnected)

I am going to make a facebook post on the drone facebook groups looking for someone nearby with the same rig. It seems like the first step is testing my X5 on another bird, and another X5 on my bird.

Any help would me most appreciated!! DJI wants me to send the entire aircraft + camera in for repair.

Hi!
Have you checked the cable that connects the gimbal-port to the aircraft? Try to clean these contacts, too, and release and reconnect it a few times. If that does not work, the cable might be cracked internally. That seems to happen from time to time and would fit to all your problems.

Hello there. We apologize for the inconvenience you're having. May I know what firmware version you currently have in your aircraft, camera, remote and app? May I know what mobile device are you using?

martinfueloep Posted at 2018-7-5 22:31
Hi!
Have you checked the cable that connects the gimbal-port to the aircraft? Try to clean these contacts, too, and release and reconnect it a few times. If that does not work, the cable might be cracked internally. That seems to happen from time to time and would fit to all your problems.

Thank you for your help.

These cables look like I expected but its my first time peeking inside this aircraft. Nothing is noticeably broken. I will try cleaning the little clips and reassemble.

DJI Wanda Posted at 2018-7-6 00:45
Hello there. We apologize for the inconvenience you're having. May I know what firmware version you currently have in your aircraft, camera, remote and app? May I know what mobile device are you using?

Thank you. The firmware is all the newest versions. The device is a 10.5" iPad Pro.

NearEarthOrbit Posted at 2018-7-6 08:39
Thank you. The firmware is all the newest versions. The device is a 10.5" iPad Pro.

Did you do some calibration?

DJI Wanda Posted at 2018-7-9 04:13
Did you do some calibration?

Yeah... tried that.

NearEarthOrbit Posted at 2018-7-9 08:05
Yeah... tried that.

If that's the case, we highly suggest to send the unit to our repair center to have it by our engineers. you may contact our support: +1 (818) 235 0789 Mon-Fri 7:00AM - 5:00PM (PST) to start up a case or create them online at: https://repair.dji.com/repair/index

DJI Wanda Posted at 2018-7-9 08:25
If that's the case, we highly suggest to send the unit to our repair center to have it by our engineers. you may contact our support: +1 (818) 235 0789 Mon-Fri 7:00AM - 5:00PM (PST) to start up a case or create them online at: https://repair.dji.com/repair/index

I called DJI "tech support". He asked the same exact questions as you. He wanted me to ship the entire aircraft and camera for repair, couldn't quote me a price, couldn't offer any time frame for the repair, or offer any possibilities of what part might have failed.

I ordered the camera gimbal cables off Amazon and will report back if they fix the issue. Thank you @martinfueloep for the suggestion.

NearEarthOrbit Posted at 2018-7-9 09:17
I called DJI "tech support". He asked the same exact questions as you. He wanted me to ship the entire aircraft and camera for repair, couldn't quote me a price, couldn't offer any time frame for the repair, or offer any possibilities of what part might have failed.

I ordered the camera gimbal cables off Amazon and will report back if they fix the issue. Thank you @martinfueloep for the suggestion.

Well, for the timeframe, it will be approximately 6 - 8 business days process upon receiving the unit. Which means, the shipping days are not yet included. In terms of the price or details on which will be repaired or which part is defective, we cannot really identify if which is which since we don't have the unit personally so it would really depend to our engineers based on their damage assessment.

I just finished installing a new pair of ribbon cables for the camera gimbal. The X5 is still not doing the calibration dance at startup.
It also still refuses to go into travel mode.