Hi I have a Mavic Mini, love it, use it often, had Mavic Pro before. I do have one, rather annyoing problem. I set the gimbal angle to the position I like, but as soon as I try to fly forward the gimbal angle "drops down". Is that a feature (hate it) or a bug (how do I fix it?)? See the video, it happens 3 times in a row.

Looks like a bug.

Stuck or frozen gimbal... MM doens't like the cold. Jm2c.

Yikes. Never seen that. Yes it does look like a bug.

This is not a bug, it's normal behavior. When you start flying forward, the drone tilts down. To account for that, the gimbal tilts up so it remains in the same position relative to the ground. However, if you're looking with the gimbal all the way up as you were in the video, once you start flying forward and the drone tilts down, there's no more the gimbal can do since it's already at its maximum upward tilt. So the gimbal doesn't actually move at all, you're just seeing the drone tilt down while the gimbal remains stationary.
You can get the exact same effect by tilting the gimbal all the way down and starting to fly backwards.

I've never seen that happening to my MM. But I have seen gimbal shake and jerkiness that I associate with ND-filter usage and high wind. Very sporadic incidents though...

I however have seen a video where MM struggled to cope with cold (under spec) and ended up with a partly frozen gimbal.

m80116 Posted at 3-16 07:50
I've never seen that happening to my MM. But I have seen gimbal shake and jerkiness that I associate with ND-filter usage and high wind. Very sporadic incidents though...

I however have seen a video where MM struggled to cope with cold (under spec) and ended up with a partly frozen gimbal.

You've never seen it because you didn't do these particular scenarios, I'm pretty sure you'll see the same thing if you do what I described above.

Was it happening while allowing the additional 20° upward gimbal movement ?

m80116 Posted at 3-16 09:05
Was it happening while allowing the additional 20° upward gimbal movement ?

Of course, you can see from the video he was looking up, not forward

Hi, thank you for reaching out and we're sorry for the inconvenience caused. Can you please try to perform the gimbal calibration to see if the problem persists? Also, if you have a chance to fly the drone in a different location wherein inside the recommended operating temperature ( 0° to 40°C (32° to 104°F) ) to see if you still experience the same problem. Please keep us posted. Thank you!

what do you think happens to the gimbal when it is 20 deg looking up and you pitch down to move forward which turns the camera down 25 deg? Yeah, it gets turned 5 deg down and it is trying to turn up against the physical limit which is gonna burn out the very very thin gimbal motor coils with too much sustained electrical current. So it had to turn down to relieve that stress before the heat damage.  DJI has told me and other people this is a protective algorithm for the gimbal.

If you really have to do this maneuver, make sure you push pitch stick gently and not to full and no strong headwind. You see this behavior at 90 deg down gimbal position and abrupt full reverse and strong tailwind too. S mode makes this more obvious with max pitch angle.

Guorium Posted at 3-16 16:31
what do you think happens to the gimbal when it is 20 deg looking up and you pitch down to move forward which turns the camera down 25 deg? Yeah, it gets turned 5 deg down and it is trying to turn up against the physical limit which is gonna burn out the very very thin gimbal motor coils with too much sustained electrical current. So it had to turn down to relieve that stress before the heat damage.  DJI has told me and other people this is a protective algorithm for the gimbal.

If you really have to do this maneuver, make sure you push pitch stick gently and not to full and no strong headwind. You see this behavior at 90 deg down gimbal position and abrupt full reverse and strong tailwind too. S mode makes this more obvious with max pitch angle.

Mine does it in Sport Mode no matter how gentle I am on the stick. Try pointing the gimble straight down and then fly forward and come to a stop. No matter how slow I stop at some point it will jump.  Previous threads state this is normal.

DJI Gamora Posted at 3-16 15:54
Hi, thank you for reaching out and we're sorry for the inconvenience caused. Can you please try to perform the gimbal calibration to see if the problem persists? Also, if you have a chance to fly the drone in a different location wherein inside the recommended operating temperature ( 0° to 40°C (32° to 104°F) ) to see if you still experience the same problem. Please keep us posted. Thank you!

Hi,

I will go fly again, I have read all the answers in the thread, but I still tend to think it is a bug. The gimbal drops as soon as I push forward no matter how gently.

Although there are mountains and snow in the video, it was very warm at the time I have been flying. It was +5°C.

Will try to fly again today.

Tzuli Posted at 3-16 22:53
Hi,

I will go fly again, I have read all the answers in the thread, but I still tend to think it is a bug. The gimbal drops as soon as I push forward no matter how gently.

It is all about the angle of the body which is determined by how fast wind is moving around the mini. If you insist it is a bug, why not try testing it indoor where there is no wind? If you push or release the stick slowly in S mode indoor with the gimbal at +20 or -90 deg respectively and the gimbal still kicks, then sure you might have a bug.

for me it's the other way round, when i let it hover, and then til the gimbal to 90 deg, then when i fly forward, the gimbal will kick back to 70 deg like that...
so far i just trying to live with it.. since i seldom fly MM with 90 deg

Guorium Posted at 3-16 16:31
what do you think happens to the gimbal when it is 20 deg looking up and you pitch down to move forward which turns the camera down 25 deg? Yeah, it gets turned 5 deg down and it is trying to turn up against the physical limit which is gonna burn out the very very thin gimbal motor coils with too much sustained electrical current. So it had to turn down to relieve that stress before the heat damage.  DJI has told me and other people this is a protective algorithm for the gimbal.

If you really have to do this maneuver, make sure you push pitch stick gently and not to full and no strong headwind. You see this behavior at 90 deg down gimbal position and abrupt full reverse and strong tailwind too. S mode makes this more obvious with max pitch angle.

i'm sorry but that's just... silly. The gimbal motors are not going to mindlessly keep pushing beyond the physical limit, wth? It will just push the gimbal to the max position (+20deg I believe in this case) and stop there. And if you were already at that limit, there's no more to go so the gimbal will tilt down together with thee drone. I honestly don't understand why this is so hard to grasp, and now even the moderator jumps in with that ridiculous advice......

Ice_2k Posted at 3-17 02:20
i'm sorry but that's just... silly. The gimbal motors are not going to mindlessly keep pushing beyond the physical limit, wth? It will just push the gimbal to the max position (+20deg I believe in this case) and stop there. And if you were already at that limit, there's no more to go so the gimbal will tilt down together with thee drone. I honestly don't understand why this is so hard to grasp, and now even the moderator jumps in with that ridiculous advice......

Force is still being applied when the gimbal is at the limit. As long as the force is applied and the gimbal cannot move past the limit there is an increased electric current that may burn out the wires.

The force is needed to hold the gimbal there at the limit just like how the motor constantly applies force to keep the gimbal at any other angles within its range of operation. It just cannot move further under force at the limit and the motor wire gets burnt if the high force (current) is sustained.
I suggest you go turn on your mini, set gimbal angle to -90 deg and watch the gimbal as you pitch it up to an extreme angle (+90 deg) before throwing "ridiculous" around. After tilting up with the body for a bit, it will suddenly kick up I guarantee you. Things look ridiculous for one of 2 reasons. 1st, it really is ridiculous. 2nd, you are ignorant. I bet we got the latter here.

the code will require the gimbal to be at a certain angle. That angle is capped at the limits of the gimbal, it will not require an angle bigger than what the gimbal is physically capable of. There is no difference in this and simply tilting it all the way yup and keeping it there while filming around.

Guorium Posted at 3-17 02:56
Force is still being applied when the gimbal is at the limit. As long as the force is applied and the gimbal cannot move past the limit there is an increased electric current that may burn out the wires.

The force is needed to hold the gimbal there at the limit just like how the motor constantly applies force to keep the gimbal at any other angles within its range of operation. It just cannot move further under force at the limit and the motor wire gets burnt if the high force (current) is sustained.

I went and test everything I said and it's 90% exactly how I said:
- the behavior shown by the OP in the video is not a bug and is normal behavior. Tilting the gimbal all the way up (+20deg) and then flying forward will cause the image to jump down as the gimbal has no more travel available to go up in order to compensate for the drone tilting forward. I am trully amazed DJI Gamora did not know that and just gave the standard "try again" response.
- the behavior is less visible when flying backwards with the gimbal at -90 deg (this is why I said I was right only 90%, because I initially said flying backwards with the gimbal at -90deg would be identical to flying forward with the gimbal at +20deg). The reason is that the gimbal has more travel (about -110deg I would say, ballpark) than is allowed from the app so it can compensate for the extra -20deg when the drone tilts backward. You can still get the jump effect in S mode as the drone tilt is more aggressive.
- I am assuming that is exactly why looking up with the gimbal is disabled by default, to avoid this behavior from confusing users.
- I am also assuming the reason why the gimbal is limited to +20deg while it's allowing it to go all the way down to -110deg when compensating is because going higher than +20deg would be useless as the props would get in the shot. Going to -110deg however is not useless as it's allowing the drone to look directly down at -90deg while flying backwards.
- when tilting at these max levels, the gimbal goes there and stays there. I kept it like that for ~5s and it did not "suddenly kick up".


Feel free to do your own tests and come back with arguments against anything I said. Or, you know, just call me ignorant again and move on.

It’s not a fault and is almost a feature now with dji Mavic drones, something first seen in Mavic air, gimbal will initiate a position when controller pushes right stick forward (mode 2) this is the position that is the most stabilizing for flying fast forward, in old Mavic pro or phantoms this would not occur and sometimes into wind gimbal and camera would move about.
This is also how M2P and M2Z work when flying fast forward. I can’t remember if there is a re Centre button on mini but they’re is on MA and M2’s.

Only yours seems to be jumping quickly not sure if your giving full right stick forward.

Ice_2k Posted at 3-17 04:11
I went and test everything I said and it's 90% exactly how I said:
- the behavior shown by the OP in the video is not a bug and is normal behavior. Tilting the gimbal all the way up (+20deg) and then flying forward will cause the image to jump down as the gimbal has no more travel available to go up in order to compensate for the drone tilting forward. I am trully amazed DJI Gamora did not know that and just gave the standard "try again" response.
- the behavior is less visible when flying backwards with the gimbal at -90 deg (this is why I said I was right only 90%, because I initially said flying backwards with the gimbal at -90deg would be identical to flying forward with the gimbal at +20deg). The reason is that the gimbal has more travel (about -110deg I would say, ballpark) than is allowed from the app so it can compensate for the extra -20deg when the drone tilts backward. You can still get the jump effect in S mode as the drone tilt is more aggressive.

video

It does not stay there.

The gimbal physically cannot hold that upright gimbal position while moving. You have it above 90 degrees and when you take off the drone leans forward forcing the gimbal downwards. The gimbal cannot go any higher to compensate for the drone angle required to fly,

Guorium Posted at 3-17 13:35
video

It does not stay there.

In your video it’s just resetting to level position because of the ridiculous angles, it realizes it’s not the drone’s real movement. Hold the drone level with the gimbal all the way up and then pitch the drone forward ~20deg as it would in reality. Then hold it like that. The gimbal will remain in its max position. Alternatively just fly the drone. Gimbal all the way up and then full stick forward. After the initial jump explained above, the gimbal won’t move, no matter how long you continue flying forward at full speed. In your video you’re seeing the firmware give up on trying to stabilise position because it obviously can’t do that when rotating the drone 90deg forward and you’re confusing this for “gimbal protection”.

Ice_2k Posted at 2020-3-16 06:44
This is not a bug, it's normal behavior. When you start flying forward, the drone tilts down. To account for that, the gimbal tilts up so it remains in the same position relative to the ground. However, if you're looking with the gimbal all the way up as you were in the video, once you start flying forward and the drone tilts down, there's no more the gimbal can do since it's already at its maximum upward tilt. So the gimbal doesn't actually move at all, you're just seeing the drone tilt down while the gimbal remains stationary.
You can get the exact same effect by tilting the gimbal all the way down and starting to fly backwards.

You obviously have no clue what your talking about

Mike Burns Posted at 4-13 08:03
You obviously have no clue what your talking about

can't argue with that kind of... logic?... argument?...
P.S. *you're

It would be nice if there was a setting allowing us to disable the way the gimbal jumps like this.  It's not a bug.  It's a perfectly normal feature designed to protect the gimbal motors.

DJI deliberately designed the gimbal to jump 10 degrees away from resting against the limit stops of its mechanical range of motion. The gimbal can mechanically rotate only so far. If you tilt the Mini further than those mechanical limits, nose up or nose down, the gimbal motors would struggle trying to force the gimbal to rotate further than it is mechanically able to. Maybe that it is harmful to the gimbal motors?

So when the gimbal senses it has come up against the bump stops limiting it from rotating any further, it automatically jumps 10 degrees away from that limit stop so that the camera can be freely stabilized in that new position.

Any sudden stop from forward flight, or any sudden rearward acceleration, pitches the Mini nose high. When the camera is aimed straight down, that abrupt nose up attitude can cause the gimbal to hit the limit of its downward mechanical range of motion. Obviously, the camera will then be knocked away from its vertical downward orientation. But why can't the camera then automatically resume its 90° straight down orientation once the Mini resumes level flight? Why does it need to jump 10° away from hitting its bump stop and stick there?

I made a short video demonstrating that the gimbal actually is capable of operating in two different modes.  


- When the Mini is powered up but the motors are not running, the gimbal will resume its 90° straight down position even after being mechanically forced away from vertical.
- When the motors are running, the gimbal always automatically jumps 10° away from touching the limits of its mechanical range of motion.

The video shows this happening when the gimbal is pointing straight down.  The same thing applies when the gimbal is rotated fully up.