Hello Fellow Yuneec Pilot!
Join our free Yuneec community and remove this annoying banner!
Sign up

CGO 3+ Loud Beep (Long) Erratic Gimbal Spin, Limp Camera

Joined
Jan 13, 2019
Messages
69
Reaction score
19
Age
57
Location
Winder , Georgia
Hello all!

CGO 3+ was working fine. (Typhoon H)
No crash, no firmware changes.
The Typhoon H starts up as usual.
The camera screams, one long (beeeeeeeeep), rotates wildly (at least two full rounds) then the gimbal goes limp.
The gimbal does not respond to the yaw control from the ST16. (ST16 Fully Calibrated)

I do have a good, clear image.
No gimbal control, at all.
If I touch the gimbal, the long (Beeeeep) returns for a moment and then stops.

The contact pins of the mounting plate are in good shape.
At this time, I can see no damaged wires.
Light on the front of the camera is red on start up and then turns green as normal.

I have searched through previous post and have found some information, just not my exact problem.
Has anyone else experienced this issue and if so, how was the issue corrected?

Thank you guys !!
 
Problems with the gimbal can begin when the magnet still looks normal but has lost some of its magnetism. The problem advances to a little bit of chrome flaking off, then it begins to crumble, eventually becoming a pile of fuzz.
The Yaw spin you mentioned is most often associated with the roll encoder magnet. Pitch magnets are the next most often. And sometimes it is the Yaw magnet itself. There are other possible causes, but degraded magnets are pretty common and fairly easy to check.

Some examples of degraded magnets. Most of these are in an advanced stage of degradation.Examples.jpg
 
Problems with the gimbal can begin when the magnet still looks normal but has lost some of its magnetism. The problem advances to a little bit of chrome flaking off, then it begins to crumble, eventually becoming a pile of fuzz.
The Yaw spin you mentioned is most often associated with the roll encoder magnet. Pitch magnets are the next most often. And sometimes it is the Yaw magnet itself. There are other possible causes, but degraded magnets are pretty common and fairly easy to check.

Some examples of degraded magnets. Most of these are in an advanced stage of degradation.
View attachment 28054
Thank you for the detailed information!
I have inspected the yaw magnet.
At this time the magnet looks good to the eye.
I will check the pitch and roll magnets.

Any tips on testing the yaw encoder, roll encoder and pitch encoder would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You !!
 
If some encoder gives no signal there is an error code beep. To test it you should have some kind of data longer or a good oscilloscope. But this is not necessary. Encoders are good in 99 percent of the cases.

The magnet can be displaced too and the symptom will be the same.
 
I will check the pitch and roll magnets.

Any tips on testing the yaw encoder, roll encoder and pitch encoder would be greatly appreciated.
The best tip I can offer is a general observation. Movement or alignment problems on any of the three axis is not necessarily a problem with the axis that is showing the problem. The Roll and Yaw are the most common that interact. An actual Roll problem often shows up as bad behavior on Yaw. An actual Yaw problem often shows up as a problem on the roll axis. The pitch axis sometimes gets involved, but much less often than the other two.
The two smaller magnets are the most common to fail. I assume just because they are smaller. Sometimes you can tell the magnet is weak just by touching it with your screwdriver. Sometimes you can replace the magnet without calibration at all. Sometimes you can move the new magnet around a little at a time and find a position that will work. And sometimes you have to send it for calibration.
If you find no problems with the magnets or wiring/connector issues, the next most likely culprit becomes the IMU. That one pretty much always requires sending for calibration.
 
The best tip I can offer is a general observation. Movement or alignment problems on any of the three axis is not necessarily a problem with the axis that is showing the problem. The Roll and Yaw are the most common that interact. An actual Roll problem often shows up as bad behavior on Yaw. An actual Yaw problem often shows up as a problem on the roll axis. The pitch axis sometimes gets involved, but much less often than the other two.
The two smaller magnets are the most common to fail. I assume just because they are smaller. Sometimes you can tell the magnet is weak just by touching it with your screwdriver. Sometimes you can replace the magnet without calibration at all. Sometimes you can move the new magnet around a little at a time and find a position that will work. And sometimes you have to send it for calibration.
If you find no problems with the magnets or wiring/connector issues, the next most likely culprit becomes the IMU. That one pretty much always requires sending for calibration.
Thank You !!
 
If some encoder gives no signal there is an error code beep. To test it you should have some kind of data longer or a good oscilloscope. But this is not necessary. Encoders are good in 99 percent of the cases.

The magnet can be displaced too and the symptom will be the same.
Thank You !!
 
I realized that I have not provided enough information.
Here is a link to a short video of what this gimbal is doing.

Apologies for not posting this at the beginning of this thread.
 
I realized that I have not provided enough information.
Here is a link to a short video of what this gimbal is doing.

Apologies for not posting this at the beginning of this thread.
Something is drawing a lot of amps and shutting down the gimbal board on thermal. It tries to restart after a few seconds as it cools down. The board itself could be bad, the motor could be bad, or there could be a short in the wires. The next thing to check would be the connector/wiring associated with the Yaw motor.
 
Something is drawing a lot of amps and shutting down the gimbal board on thermal. It tries to restart after a few seconds as it cools down. The board itself could be bad, the motor could be bad, or there could be a short in the wires. The next thing to check would be the connector/wiring associated with the Yaw motor.
Thank you for the quick reply.

Will start checking for a dead short now.
Will touch base soon with an update.

Thank You!
 
Finished with the inspection and found no bare wires of faulty connections.
I did find that the roll magnet was covered with iron ore and the surrounding frame was covered with sand.
Also found iron ore very close to the roll motor, covering the copper wires that extend out from the resistor.

Cleaned the iron ore off with clean, dry que tips.
Used QD Electronic cleaner to remove the sand and iron ore from the resistor wires.

After testing the gymbal, I am now receiving (beeeep beeeeep......beep beep) from the gimbal.
The pitch motor attempts to hold and face forward now.
Knowing what I have found on the roll magnet, I am leaning towards the issue being a faulty roll encoder.

The yaw and pitch magnet were clean and had no sand or iron ore on them.
 
Last edited:
After testing the gimbal, I am now receiving (beeeep beeeeep......beep beep) from the gimbal.
The pitch motor attmpts to ohld and face forward now.
Knowing what I have found on the roll magnet, I am leaning towards the issue being a faulty roll encoder.
The code is "Roll Encoder Error" (two long, two short). I'll attach a drawing below that has the other codes in case you need it later.
The "fuzz" from degrading magnets looks a lot like the "iron ore" that comes out of the sand around here. Did the magnet appear smooth and undamaged? Did you check to see if it would hold a screwdriver a little bit? Degrading magnets can essentially have distorted fields that causes an error code even on a good encoder. And a dead or missing magnet has no field at all, also causing an error code.
A test would be remove both the pitch and roll coders from their current mounts. Swap them so the roll encoder is on the pitch and plugged into the pitch connector, and pitch encoder is mounted on the roll motor and connected to the roll motor connector. You can leave the wires outside the frame during the test. If the error code stays the same (two long, two short), the problem is the magnet. If the code changes to pitch error (two long, one short) then the problem is with the encoder itself.

cgo3+ Gimbal Board Connections.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: DoomMeister
The code is "Roll Encoder Error" (two long, two short). I'll attach a drawing below that has the other codes in case you need it later.
The "fuzz" from degrading magnets looks a lot like the "iron ore" that comes out of the sand around here. Did the magnet appear smooth and undamaged? Did you check to see if it would hold a screwdriver a little bit? Degrading magnets can essentially have distorted fields that causes an error code even on a good encoder. And a dead or missing magnet has no field at all, also causing an error code.
A test would be remove both the pitch and roll coders from their current mounts. Swap them so the roll encoder is on the pitch and plugged into the pitch connector, and pitch encoder is mounted on the roll motor and connected to the roll motor connector. You can leave the wires outside the frame during the test. If the error code stays the same (two long, two short), the problem is the magnet. If the code changes to pitch error (two long, one short) then the problem is with the encoder itself.

View attachment 28067
Awesome!
Thank you for the info.
Just downloaded it.

Here are some images of the roll magnet after cleaning.
A small screwdriver will stick to it.
img 0972, you can see brown discoloring at the left solder pad of the encoder.
Do not know if that is normal, just noticed it and thought that it looked odd.
 

Attachments

  • IMG_0969[1].JPG
    IMG_0969[1].JPG
    1.4 MB · Views: 24
  • IMG_0970[1].JPG
    IMG_0970[1].JPG
    1.3 MB · Views: 22
  • IMG_0971[1].JPG
    IMG_0971[1].JPG
    1.4 MB · Views: 22
  • IMG_0972[2].JPG
    IMG_0972[2].JPG
    1.3 MB · Views: 23
you can see brown discoloring at the left solder pad of the encoder.
Do not know if that is normal, just noticed it and thought that it looked odd.
It's not really supposed to be there, but it's pretty common from the flux used at the factory. But it could also get there from having a problem. Do you have a multimeter available to check for continuity or shorts on all three wires?
 
There is no problem with the soldering joint.

If you are planning to repair the camera yourself, don't move other magnets at all. If you have displaced only one magnet (roll or pitch) you can change the defective magnet and with some patience bring the camera back to life.

Where to get magnets are still a mystery. You can ask someone with a smashed camera to lend one, but to buy a new one is almost impossible. China, which is the last place, where the sintered magnets are produced, has no sizes in stock. Should order at least a few kilograms. This is not profitable for no one.
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
20,952
Messages
241,579
Members
27,284
Latest member
csandoval