Cleaning the camera gimbal

[sthoward]

Hi all, my camera has been acting strangely lately. It will work fine for a while during a flight, and then it appears to get stuck and cannot move. I think I got some sand or dirt in the gimbal from a small crash landing on the beach a couple of weeks ago.

Before I start taking this thing apart, does anyone have any advice on how to fix this problem? Any special tools I need? Is this a problem someone else has already dealt with, whom I could learn from?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Krusty Geeza]

Have you tried compressed air at all? If it has a long nozzle like this it might be enough to blow out anything without having to dismantle or force anything.

 

[Island Xpress]

Had a similar problem. Using the Drone often at a very dusty ground.
When inspecting the gimble I noticed from time to time some resistance at one point, but the next second it was gone and all OK again.
I used a small 12 V compressor for the car tires. So far it seems that it is fixed.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

If you are going to use compressed air it should be from one of those cans that they used to clean computer parts and keyboards with. You don't want to use anything that is going to shot out liquid or dirt.

 

[sthoward]

Had a similar problem. Using the Drone often at a very dusty ground.
When inspecting the gimble I noticed from time to time some resistance at one point, but the next second it was gone and all OK again.

Yes that’s exactly what I am seeing as well. The camera sometimes won’t rotate smoothly when I turn it by hand

 

[sthoward]

If you are going to use compressed air it should be from one of those cans that they used to clean computer parts and keyboards with. You don't want to use anything that is going to shot out liquid or dirt.

Yeah good idea, I probably shouldn’t use the 18 gallon compressor in my garage lol

 

[sthoward]

Thanks everyone for the feedback! Hopefully I can get this working properly without taking it all apart.

 

[sthoward]

So, I got a can of compressed air and gave it a good blast. Did a few up/down cycles on the gimbal and it didn’t get stuck. Did a test flight and no more jumping in the video. So I think I’ve got it beat. Thanks all for your help on this!

 

[Krusty Geeza]

So, I got a can of compressed air and gave it a good blast. Did a few up/down cycles on the gimbal and it didn’t get stuck. Did a test flight and no more jumping in the video. So I think I’ve got it beat. Thanks all for your help on this!

Love it when a fix is as simple as that!