Warning to all X5 owners

[The Editor]

Snap....today.. <) pun intended. My fault, chasing wakeboarder round a slight corner, tree jumped out. Aircraft fine. Lucky it landed (or crashed into, more precisely) and stayed in the tree and didn't fall to the water below... Yes, my lucky day!!
Interested in replies for UK / Europe fixes.

In the mean time I've ordered new Pro from EpicTV Shop for £2,601, and immediately got 5% credit (£130 cash credit) so got a free TB47 to boot.

Drone Doctor - the guys from First Person View run it and they are DJI authorised repairers (their techs have been trained by DJI in Shenzhen)

 

[pixeldiversity]

Mine is also broken friday 13th. Any suggestions for reliable repair service in Germany?

Thank you.

 

[Roar Edvin]

Mine is also broken friday 13th. Any suggestions for reliable repair service in Germany?

Thank you.

I contacted DJI in the Netherlands, they organized UPS express pick up in Cyprus. Some few days later i received the Invoice. To repair the yaw shaft approx 180 Euro included the shipping cost! Not bad at all I see DJI have service center in Germany. Contact them and I am sure they advise and help you out! I am very happy wiyh the DJI service so far!

 

[AllanM]

I contacted DJI in the Netherlands, they organized UPS express pick up in Cyprus. Some few days later i received the Invoice. To repair the yaw shaft approx 180 Euro included the shipping cost! Not bad at all I see DJI have service center in Germany. Contact them and I am sure they advise and help you out! I am very happy wiyh the DJI service so far!

Same as myself, I should have mine back Tuesday this week, applied for RMA on 17th so 2 weeks exactly if it turns up this week. Payment by papal. Absolutely faultless. TBH, this has restored some faith!

Still cost me another £2500 though, bought a spare PRO in the mean time for EpicTV in France... absolute bargain.

 

[AllanM]

Same as myself, I should have mine back Tuesday this week, applied for RMA on 17th so 2 weeks exactly if it turns up this week. Payment by papal. Absolutely faultless. TBH, this has restored some faith!

Still cost me another £2500 though, bought a spare PRO in the mean time for EpicTV in France... absolute bargain.

Brand new unit returned today.

 

[CMS]

Looked thru this post and decided to give my own experience. Had a friend fly my Pro a few weeks ago. He had one of the first versions of the Inspire with the X3. He has lots of hours and I didn't think twice about letting him fly it. I had adjusted the expo and when he came in he allowed the copter to drift long and it hit some branches on a willow tree. The props got tangled up and the copter slowly fell to the ground from about 2 feet. Wish I had reached out and tried to catch but the spinning props discouraged me. It hit perfectly flat upside down. Broke two props and after inspection I notice the yaw gimble was misaligned. Also broke the gimbal mount at the weakest points. I think the gimbal is very weak at the yaw motor because of the amount of weight associated with the X5. Of course there are many weak points but usually the weakest one breaks first. Not sure if there is anything that can be done short of not crashing. Be nice if someone made a "gimbal saver" like for the P3. Of course if the yaw gimbal motor is saved then something else in the chain will break. Bottom line, these machines aren't made to crash. The gimbal mount coast $100 "B&H" and the gimbal yaw motor had to go back to DJI for repair/replacement. Cost was $315 and that included shipping both ways. Lots of bad press about DJI repair service. I called them about getting the repair service started and so far I"m happy. They sent a pick up ticket for UPS and once they received it I got an email within 24 hours with the repair ticket. Just paid for it so we will now see how long it takes to get it fixed. They tell me 1 to 2 weeks.

 

[damoncooper]

I think the moral of the story is: don't crash with an X5 or X5R

 

[burlbark]

Looked thru this post and decided to give my own experience. Had a friend fly my Pro a few weeks ago. He had one of the first versions of the Inspire with the X3. He has lots of hours and I didn't think twice about letting him fly it. I had adjusted the expo and when he came in he allowed the copter to drift long and it hit some branches on a willow tree. The props got tangled up and the copter slowly fell to the ground from about 2 feet. Wish I had reached out and tried to catch but the spinning props discouraged me. It hit perfectly flat upside down. Broke two props and after inspection I notice the yaw gimble was misaligned. Also broke the gimbal mount at the weakest points. I think the gimbal is very weak at the yaw motor because of the amount of weight associated with the X5. Of course there are many weak points but usually the weakest one breaks first. Not sure if there is anything that can be done short of not crashing. Be nice if someone made a "gimbal saver" like for the P3. Of course if the yaw gimbal motor is saved then something else in the chain will break. Bottom line, these machines aren't made to crash. The gimbal mount coast $100 "B&H" and the gimbal yaw motor had to go back to DJI for repair/replacement. Cost was $315 and that included shipping both ways. Lots of bad press about DJI repair service. I called them about getting the repair service started and so far I"m happy. They sent a pick up ticket for UPS and once they received it I got an email within 24 hours with the repair ticket. Just paid for it so we will now see how long it takes to get it fixed. They tell me 1 to 2 weeks.

Your lucky they helped you out. I have one being sent to me with the broken yaw mount and they said no more repairs to the owner.

 

[CMS]

Obviously I'm new to this forum so I know there are a lot of people out there with more history to pull from. I think that DJI would be making a serious mistake by not offering to fix a gimbal motor that cost a fraction in parts and instead make everyone spend $1700 on a new gimbal/camera. Makes no business sense at all. I could see a redesign of the mounts and connectors based on the amount of breakage. The X5 is fairly new compared to the X3 and I'm sure by now DJI has a pretty good handle on the amount of repairs based on the number sold. They might be working on a redesign now. After all, the Inspire has gone thru many upgrades during it's life span. But it's only a guess on my part. You say that you have one being sent to you. Do you repair gimbals? Maybe I'm miss reading your post. Thanks

 

[CMS]

Looked thru this post and decided to give my own experience. Had a friend fly my Pro a few weeks ago. He had one of the first versions of the Inspire with the X3. He has lots of hours and I didn't think twice about letting him fly it. I had adjusted the expo and when he came in he allowed the copter to drift long and it hit some branches on a willow tree. The props got tangled up and the copter slowly fell to the ground from about 2 feet. Wish I had reached out and tried to catch but the spinning props discouraged me. It hit perfectly flat upside down. Broke two props and after inspection I notice the yaw gimble was misaligned. Also broke the gimbal mount at the weakest points. I think the gimbal is very weak at the yaw motor because of the amount of weight associated with the X5. Of course there are many weak points but usually the weakest one breaks first. Not sure if there is anything that can be done short of not crashing. Be nice if someone made a "gimbal saver" like for the P3. Of course if the yaw gimbal motor is saved then something else in the chain will break. Bottom line, these machines aren't made to crash. The gimbal mount coast $100 "B&H" and the gimbal yaw motor had to go back to DJI for repair/replacement. Cost was $315 and that included shipping both ways. Lots of bad press about DJI repair service. I called them about getting the repair service started and so far I"m happy. They sent a pick up ticket for UPS and once they received it I got an email within 24 hours with the repair ticket. Just paid for it so we will now see how long it takes to get it fixed. They tell me 1 to 2 weeks.

Just wanted everyone to know that DJI has repaired the gimbal and UPS has it now. That only took three working days to get it fixed. That's great repair service in anyone's book.

 

[Brandon Rowe]

I've noticed you posting this analysis on other forums and wonder what you hope to achieve.

I would disagree with your statement that 'I don't need to be a mechanical engineer' - surely that is exactly what you would need to be to make any valid comments about the materials DJI have used in the X5. And again '. . .my qualifications bear no significance whatsoever' - of course they do, if you are not qualified your findings have zero substance.

This is just scaremongering with no scientific backup apart from a few calculations you've made on the back of a coaster.

Having experienced a crash with the X5 and seeing other incidents online, this is almost always the point where the X5 removes itself from the craft. It is definitely due to the very thin amount of material that is supporting that amount of weight.

 

[Bossman]

Brand new X5. I noticed the camera wasn't spinning normally on initializing. Closer inspection I noticed what appeared to be rubbing. I took apart only what you see in hopes that something just came loose and stopped where you see. I small washer seemed to be disintegrated. I'm dead in the water and have a job soon. any suggestions? Is this a warranty item? No I did not "hard land"

 

[Ruckusman]

how new and purchased directly from DJI?

If you've got flight logs which show you've never used it, or that it's never been crashed - you may have a defensible position for warranty repair, but that will consume valuable time getting that past DJI.

Only conceivable reason I can tender for it being like that is if you had it in a landing mode case with the X5 attached and the case took some sort of impact.

I'd say get in touch with them and organise a paid repair ASAP because realistically any other course of action will be very time consuming, time which you do't have unfortunately.
These gimbals are just too fragile

 

[Bossman]

how new and purchased directly from DJI?

If you've got flight logs which show you've never used it, or that it's never been crashed - you may have a defensible position for warranty repair, but that will consume valuable time getting that past DJI.

Only conceivable reason I can tender for it being like that is if you had it in a landing mode case with the X5 attached and the case took some sort of impact.

I'd say get in touch with them and organise a paid repair ASAP because realistically any other course of action will be very time consuming, time which you do't have unfortunately.
These gimbals are just too fragile

Thank you for this post. I bought my Inspire 1 Pro 2 weeks ago and noticed the gimbal rubbing during initialization. Again no hard landings or travel with the camera attached. In short I just dropped it off at Unique Photo the originating retailer for Warranty Repair. Nobody challenged me at the store, but I was as adamant that this is a 2 week old drone that first sipped with a bad battery. I had to buy a new battery because I couldn't wait die to a trip. Now I just purchased an X3 for another impending trip and as a backup camera. Only positive here is that I will eventually have a great OSMO setup. Do yo suggest that I call DJI direct anyway?

 

[Ruckusman]

OK so from the sounds of it, the gimbal at least may have been recycled and re-sold as new, where that occurred is impossible to say and just speculation.

I'd be happy the retailer has accepted it back for warranty repair and leave it at that, however when I was working at a store it wasn't uncommon for warranty repair items to come back with an invoice for the the repairs and then the battle began.

 

[Zac]

Hi All,

We've just had a customer bring back an X5 for inspection after an emergency landing from approximately 70 centimetres up.
He had to throttle down quickly as nesting birds were about to attack the drone.

Anyway as result of the landing he inspected the gimbal and noticed the components on the yaw axis motor weren't parallel.

Now keep in mind that this wasn't a crash, it was an emergency landing, still operating under power.

I disassembled the yaw axis motor assembly to determine the cause of the misalignment - suspected bent motor shaft initially...

I was astonished to discover the ridiculously small amount of material used to support the entire assembly below the yaw axis motor attachment point to the bayonet assembly plate.

The pictures tell the whole story, but here's the measured numbers for reference.


The weight of the X3 camera is 215 Grams
The weight of the X5 camera is 532 Grams
The weight increase from the X3 to the X5 is 317 Grams or 247% heavier.

The plate which forms the upper part of the motor shaft assembly on the X3 camera is 1.4mm thick - this is cast magnesium, not renowned for it's strength, but used appropriately it should be fit for purpose.

Astonishingly the thickness of the material on the X5 camera gimbal yaw axis motor is 1.1mm

That's a reduction of 30% in actual material thickness - that is supposed to carry an increased load of 247%.
You don't need to be an engineer or qualified in material science to know that the arithmetic just doesn't compute.

Now if the owner hadn't noticed the misalignment, which was very slight indeed, and kept flying this unit, there's every chance that the entire gimbal below the yaw axis plate could have detached in flight.

That's a 500 Gram rock coming down from altitude.

My take on the design of this component of the gimbal makes this unit completely unfit for purpose.

Such a serious design flaw should never have been put into production, in fact it should not have made it past the first prototype.

From DJI's own site: Zenmuse X5 | DJI

BUILT TO LAST

The Zenmuse X5 is precisely manufactured with high-grade magnesium alloys and aluminium alloys, enabling it to withstand heavy field use.
Compact and lightweight to allow easy transportation and long flight times, the Zenmuse X5 is built to last.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and the above is tantamount to false and misleading advertising.

I'm also sending this to [email protected], however I have received no responses to any support requests for customer units for several weeks.

I don't anticipate a response from them on this matter.

DJI can ignore this at their peril, because if one of these units falls from the sky as a result of this design flaw and goes through a vehicle windscreen or strikes a person, there will be casualties or even fatalities.

I'd recommend all owners inspect their gimbals as a matter of urgency and contact DJI to demand a strengthened assembly be supplied as soon as humanly possible.

Please feel free to copy and paste this message anywhere that you feel is appropriate

peace out

GlennView attachment 4946 View attachment 4947 View attachment 4948View attachment 4949 View attachment 4950

Hi All,

We've just had a customer bring back an X5 for inspection after an emergency landing from approximately 70 centimetres up.
He had to throttle down quickly as nesting birds were about to attack the drone.

Anyway as result of the landing he inspected the gimbal and noticed the components on the yaw axis motor weren't parallel.

Now keep in mind that this wasn't a crash, it was an emergency landing, still operating under power.

I disassembled the yaw axis motor assembly to determine the cause of the misalignment - suspected bent motor shaft initially...

I was astonished to discover the ridiculously small amount of material used to support the entire assembly below the yaw axis motor attachment point to the bayonet assembly plate.

The pictures tell the whole story, but here's the measured numbers for reference.


The weight of the X3 camera is 215 Grams
The weight of the X5 camera is 532 Grams
The weight increase from the X3 to the X5 is 317 Grams or 247% heavier.

The plate which forms the upper part of the motor shaft assembly on the X3 camera is 1.4mm thick - this is cast magnesium, not renowned for it's strength, but used appropriately it should be fit for purpose.

Astonishingly the thickness of the material on the X5 camera gimbal yaw axis motor is 1.1mm

That's a reduction of 30% in actual material thickness - that is supposed to carry an increased load of 247%.
You don't need to be an engineer or qualified in material science to know that the arithmetic just doesn't compute.

Now if the owner hadn't noticed the misalignment, which was very slight indeed, and kept flying this unit, there's every chance that the entire gimbal below the yaw axis plate could have detached in flight.

That's a 500 Gram rock coming down from altitude.

My take on the design of this component of the gimbal makes this unit completely unfit for purpose.

Such a serious design flaw should never have been put into production, in fact it should not have made it past the first prototype.

From DJI's own site: Zenmuse X5 | DJI

BUILT TO LAST

The Zenmuse X5 is precisely manufactured with high-grade magnesium alloys and aluminium alloys, enabling it to withstand heavy field use.
Compact and lightweight to allow easy transportation and long flight times, the Zenmuse X5 is built to last.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and the above is tantamount to false and misleading advertising.

I'm also sending this to [email protected], however I have received no responses to any support requests for customer units for several weeks.

I don't anticipate a response from them on this matter.

DJI can ignore this at their peril, because if one of these units falls from the sky as a result of this design flaw and goes through a vehicle windscreen or strikes a person, there will be casualties or even fatalities.

I'd recommend all owners inspect their gimbals as a matter of urgency and contact DJI to demand a strengthened assembly be supplied as soon as humanly possible.

Please feel free to copy and paste this message anywhere that you feel is appropriate

peace out

GlennView attachment 4946 View attachment 4947 View attachment 4948View attachment 4949 View attachment 4950

I have just had a catastrophic failure with my X5 gimbal. I have had no accidents while flying the Inspire One or heavy landings. What happened in my case was after a firmware upgrade and on rebooting the Inspire I had a judder occur in the Gimbal.

After going through a number of steps to downgrade firmware and reapply the latest firmware and all the while the juddering occurring, to my horror and surprise a small metal fragment dropped out of the motor assembly. My assumption rightly or wrongly is that the juddering has cause some degree of metal fatigue. I contacted DJI China as I am in the Oceania Region for support (Australia), but have yet to hear back from them. Given the problem appears to be structural I am not sure how the support staff will treat this problem. I am hopeful they will simply replace the defective item with a complete new one.

 

[Area21]

I had a situation with my Inspire 1 pro V2 whilst flying inside an old Lime Kiln and momentarily lost radio signal control. The aircraft slowly struck a wall with the props and dropped to the ground which was about 1 m. The UC was up so it fell on to the gimbal. Yes you guessed it - it broke the upper gimbal motor cast allow mounting plate. When I picked it up the X5 was hanging lose. Stripped it down and the thin cast alloy was able to be be repaired with Molecular Metal and all was looking good. However the ribon cable was torn. So put my hand in my pocket and purchased a new X5 at £1400. I will keep the 3 week older X5 until I can find a replacement ribbon cable. Lessen learnt which is the Inspire needs to be looked after carefully because it will not take any form of punishment with my F550 and other aircraft take. I suspect the constant fitting and removal with the X5 weakened the cast alloy mounting plate and strongly recommend if you have difficulty in removing the X5 just use the supplied screw driver to prise the X5 away and DONT pull on the whole gimbal.

 

[Puck Quentin]

Also had a small crash with I1 v2.0 and X5 gimbal and it cracked the YAW motor mount.
Yaw motor was crooked, but i managed to straighten it and then added some epoxy glue to strengthen the area around cracks.
Couple of photos of cracks and after epoxy glue - https://goo.gl/photos/69JVzv8xzJ9RLT6g7
Seems to hold for 5 flights now.

But i have a problem, after reassembly of the yaw motor, X5 will boot up 45 degrees to the left from center.
See video -

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[Area21]

Also had a small crash with I1 v2.0 and X5 gimbal and it cracked the YAW motor mount.
Yaw motor was crooked, but i managed to straighten it and then added some epoxy glue to strengthen the area around cracks.
Couple of photos of cracks and after epoxy glue - https://goo.gl/photos/69JVzv8xzJ9RLT6g7
Seems to hold for 5 flights now.

But i have a problem, after reassembly of the yaw motor, X5 will boot up 45 degrees to the left from center.
See video -

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Dont have the solution other than fly camera in free mode. It's only FPV mode that's affected.

 

[Zac]

I had a situation with my Inspire 1 pro V2 whilst flying inside an old Lime Kiln and momentarily lost radio signal control. The aircraft slowly struck a wall with the props and dropped to the ground which was about 1 m. The UC was up so it fell on to the gimbal. Yes you guessed it - it broke the upper gimbal motor cast allow mounting plate. When I picked it up the X5 was hanging lose. Stripped it down and the thin cast alloy was able to be be repaired with Molecular Metal and all was looking good. However the ribon cable was torn. So put my hand in my pocket and purchased a new X5 at £1400. I will keep the 3 week older X5 until I can find a replacement ribbon cable. Lessen learnt which is the Inspire needs to be looked after carefully because it will not take any form of punishment with my F550 and other aircraft take. I suspect the constant fitting and removal with the X5 weakened the cast alloy mounting plate and strongly recommend if you have difficulty in removing the X5 just use the supplied screw driver to prise the X5 away and DONT pull on the whole gimbal.

Hmmmmm....... I wonder if these broken/damaged X3/X5/X5R gimbals are coming from bad piloting skills or people using that stupid auto land feature?
I own two Inspires and have had no reason ever to land at anything other than a gentle touchdown even in very windy conditions.
I have also NEVER used the auto take off or auto land gimmick nor do I ever intend to.
As stated by @seanmclean - gimbals are and always have been very delicate pieces of equipment.
Would people be bleating if they had a $5,000 gimbal and an Alexa with a $30,000 prime stuck on the front hanging from the bottom of their aircraft that didn't fair well in a crash/heavy landing? (Well they would probably be crying at the $$$ involved)
Guys, if you are using the daft auto land or landing at anything more than a very gentle controlled touchdown you are doing it wrong and you can expect some damage.

I think your assumptions about poor piloting skills are responsible for damaged X5 gimbals are ill founded.
I believe there is now enough information within this forum alone to suggest the build quality or the materials (the alloys) they use are not fit for purpose or built as robust as it should be.

My experience has been quite different in so far as I have had no impacts of any sort, but my gimbal went into a juddering fit after a firmware upgrade. As a consequent of that I believe that metal fatigue has occurred as a small shard of metal dropped out of the X Axis motor assembly. Of course it could be the other way around. That is the metal broke away first causing the gimbal to judder, but either way something appears not to be quite right with the structural quality of the X5 gimbal. Eventually the whole motor assembly became loose so the gimbal has been returned to DJI via my supplier. I have been in awe of DJI's technology and product range, but I feel the X5 gimbal is showing signs of weakness and DJI should have a closer inspection and evaluation of build quality of what is otherwise a great piece of design and engineering that needs to be rebuilt in a more robust package.