Anafi gimbal replacement

[misiekthepilot]

Hello pilots,
Recently I crashed my Anafi. Nothing serious despite bent L bracket from gimbal, what caused a camera to stuck while initial calibration. I decided to replace the whole gimbal, ordered good looking after market one from Ebay. A problem is with part itself. It just doesn't work with the rest of the drone. Seems like it's not compatible with my drone piece. Of course it's a used gimbal and the seller doesn't guarantee it to function, but still no even a single move after replacing and turning on the drone.
Is there anybody who has done the gimbal replacement and could relate to this situation?

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

Gimbal electronics and motherboard seem to be paired somehow.
So you should only replace the mechanical part (broken L piece) and use the other parts from your own drone.
Also have a look at this thread:

problem gimbal Anafi

The gimbal is going crazy during a flight without crash. Then, 3 flights later, the automatic or manual gimbal calibration doesn't work. It's like gimbal was disconnected. I tried to reset but it was not the solution. What can I do? It seems to be a regular problem but I don't know how to...

parrotpilots.com

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Ya what he said. The gimbal and board are married to each other. If you only have a gimbal without the board it will not work.

 

[misiekthepilot]

Oh no... disassembling the gimbal itself feels like a one way ticket and still not guaranteed to success. Those ribbon cables glued everywhere

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

Yes, it's hard:

Disassemble camera from gimbal

Dear Community! There are good assemble/disassemble guides from Parrot but unfortunately they don't describe the gimbal+camera part. Is it possible to dismount camera from the gimbal? I have a weird problem - the small flat cable is torn (, need to find some way to approach it! Thank you!

parrotpilots.com

 

[misiekthepilot]

Gimbal electronics and motherboard seem to be paired somehow.
So you should only replace the mechanical part (broken L piece) and use the other parts from your own drone.
Also have a look at this thread:

problem gimbal Anafi

The gimbal is going crazy during a flight without crash. Then, 3 flights later, the automatic or manual gimbal calibration doesn't work. It's like gimbal was disconnected. I tried to reset but it was not the solution. What can I do? It seems to be a regular problem but I don't know how to...

parrotpilots.com

So, should I replace those green boards from gimbal too (they seem irreplaceable) or just swap the ribbon?

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

Those who did it always talked about only changing the ribbons.
Perhaps ask @Sedoj because he did the repair with success.

 

[misiekthepilot]

Bought gimbal seemed to be malfunctioned, but indeed replacing camera, ribbons and camera cable should make it work. Unfortunately tweaking with the camera resulted in something new... do you guys know what the issue behind it?

 

[Waldo Pepper]

If possible, replace the purshased camera with the original camera paired with original motherboard. I think your problem is the recently purchased Camera is not paired with the original motherboard.

But use the ribbons and cameras live feed harness off the purshased camera/Gimbal assembly.

If tilt and stabilitizer are working, then all ribbons are good. If Camera is not working, then problem is the cameras live feed harness. Will post a picture showing of the Cameras live feed harness.

Please keep us posted,
Paul

 

[misiekthepilot]

To clarify few things:
1. I've tried taking live feed cable, ribbons and camera from my gimbal and placing it to the L bracket of bought gimbal, but that haven't worked - no live feed, gimbal was working abnormally (very strange movements, no successful calibration), I believe it was broken piece unfortunatelly.

2. Then I've tried swapping the live feed cable, ribbon cable and camera from the bought gimbal to my bent L bracket, but that haven't worked either - no gimbal movement, no feed from camera in this case.

3. Lastly I've tried to bring back initial state (my gimbal bracket with all the parts from my drone), but now I have new problem with live feed. Gimbal calibrates correctly (without white casing, only bare camera), but the screen is blank as shown in the screenshot. Pity because both gimbal and camera were working fine before all of those operations, but now only gimbal works properly...

Conclusions:
I think that in case of buying working gimbal piece, swapping parts from your drone into it would sort out the issue. Unfortunately I must have bought broken one... Now I don't really know how to deal with current situation - original set doesn't give live feed, so probably live feed cable is broken or rather pins of the cable or pin-out of motherboard got loosen. I just don't know... the only thing coming to my mind is buying another gimbal from ebay, hoping that this time it isn't broken one. I think sending the drone to official service in France (because in Poland there's no official service (sic!)) is not an option too, because it will cost me a pretty penny... Last option is just to say goodbye, sell it for spare parts and buy Mavic Air.

 

[misiekthepilot]

Quick update: today I tried one more time and checked whether I didn't mismatched something and after putting all together and placing battery in, drone TOOK ON FIRE... the pin which you stick ribbon cable in cought fire. I wonder if it's something that warranty covers. Any thought on this?

 

[Liger 1956]

With the amount of dissassembly and assembly that you have been carrying out have you connected something incorrectly which would cause the fault? Which ribbon cable are you refering to? Do you have a photo?

I would not think that the Parrot warranty would cover this unfortunate event as the drone has been opened and taken apart.

 

[misiekthepilot]

I wonder how much would cost sending the drone in the current state to Parrot for repair...

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I wonder how much would cost sending the drone in the current state to Parrot for repair...

Parrot does not do repairs, they only do exchanges. They have no tech people for repair.

 

[misiekthepilot]

I found one OEM Battery Motor Hardware WiFi Connector Board to buy, but knowing already approach this board is also married with the rest of the parts. I'm not going to risk this time... Anafi, or rather remaining parts, is going for sale, unfortunately ?

 

[Waldo Pepper]

Hello misiekthepilot,

I’ve had success replacing a replacement motor board connected onto another motherboard, it works auctually still on my Anafi.

The only part paired with the motherboard are the Camera. Everything else (camera feed harness/camera tilt/stabilitizer ribbons/SD-ribbon assembly/vertical ribbon assembly) are inchangable.

From your pictures, couldn’t open the motor board picture to see if it’s damaged, but could see the tilt/stabilitizer ribbon is fried.

I’m sorry to see this happen, Anafi is so sensitive I even damaged two ribbons. Once replacing then all was well again, hope you get this going.

I have a spare parts Anafi going to post on the classifies soon, everthing is there except the SD-ribbon assembly. Pulled it out for my Anafi, but this parts Anafi has a damaged board and camera housing is cracked.

About the only parts savagable are the motors, couple of legs, motor board, camera live feed harness and all Tilt/Stabilitizer ribbons, Vertical ribbon assembly and it’s minus the SD-ribbon assembly. No battery, I’ll probably let it go for a low price in the future.

Like I mentioned, I only took out the SD-ribbon assembly.

All the best,
Paul

 

[misiekthepilot]

Thanks Waldo for your reply.

I’ve had success replacing a replacement motor board connected onto another motherboard, it works auctually still on my Anafi.

Did I understand you correctly? You did successful connector/motor board (this green perpendicular to the motherboard) replacement?

The only part paired with the motherboard are the Camera. Everything else (camera feed harness/camera tilt/stabilitizer ribbons/SD-ribbon assembly/vertical ribbon assembly) are inchangable.

From my experience, I tried many different scenarios, swapping cables from original camera to bought one and the other way around. When I placed either ribbons or live feed cable or both at the same time to original camera/gimble, it stopped working. Are you sure that live feed cable, ribbons are interchangeable?

 

[Waldo Pepper]

Thanks Waldo for your reply.



Did I understand you correctly? You did successful connector/motor board (this green perpendicular to the motherboard) replacement?



From my experience, I tried many different scenarios, swapping cables from original camera to bought one and the other way around. When I placed either ribbons or live feed cable or both at the same time to original camera/gimble, it stopped working. Are you sure that live feed cable, ribbons are interchangeable?

Hello misiekthepilot,

I pretty sure all ribbons and camera harness are interchangeable, I’ve replaced the camera harness and vertical SD-ribbon assembly with no issues. Looking at the other ribbons I see no reason they can’t be moved to another Anafi. The motor board is interchangeable, I switched out mine with another and Anafi flies great. I’ll post a pic of the motor board below, just want to make sure we are discussing the same part.

I’m on break, please continue with questions if you’re needing more information I’ll try and help if I can. We are all in this together, we need to help when we can many have helped me numerous times.

All the best,
Paul

 

[Waldo Pepper]

Thanks Waldo for your reply.



Did I understand you correctly? You did successful connector/motor board (this green perpendicular to the motherboard) replacement?



From my experience, I tried many different scenarios, swapping cables from original camera to bought one and the other way around. When I placed either ribbons or live feed cable or both at the same time to original camera/gimble, it stopped working. Are you sure that live feed cable, ribbons are interchangeable?

It could be the Camera feed harness was damaged when you removed it or when mounting it back in, I damaged my camera feed harness and was very careful. So I had to find one from a Forum member, he sold me a defective Camera Gimbal assembly for a steal but it had all the ribbons and camera feed harness. With this, I used his camera feed harness and now my camera is working again.

What do you need, maybe I have spare parts. I do have a spare working motor board and all tilt/stabilitizer ribbons.

All the best,
Paul

 

[Jaya]

Hello, I have the exact same problem as misiekthepilot desribed in this post, but I cannot afford to buy another gimball (at least for now) and of course, I need the anafi to be working asap (by the end of the week actually, to take picture and film of an house I have to sell) and will have to mend it myself .. or at least try to.

I found your thread, read your posts, that are very intersesting (thank you for them), but, it's unclear to me if the gimbal can be removed from the Anafi without having to disassemble the whole drone (or most of it). For instance, I don't see the point to remove the legs (as shown in the Parrot's youtube video)..
Could you tell me (I would like to disassemble as less thing as possible to avoid creating new problem with the drone)?

Ps: the camera works fine, the motors too, but the camera housing hit its support when the drone initialize because of the bent L bracket