okay so ive been having this really annoying problem with my RS3 and I cant figure out if its a hardware thing or a firmware thing. basically im in the middle of a shot, everything is smooth, and then the tilt axis just slams down like its lost its mind. full tilt, just drops. then if i move the joystick it comes back and works normal again for a while.

it doesnt do it on the bench when im just testing it, only when its actually mounted and flying on my mavic 3. which makes me think maybe its vibration related or something with how its mounted but i honestly dont know. the cage i use is pretty solid, been using it for months.

already tried calibrating the gimbal three times and updated to the latest firmware. DJI support was useless, just told me to do the same stuff i already did. anyone seen this?

I had something similar with an older ronin and it turned out to be the motor on the tilt axis was starting to go. You can usually tell by holding the gimbal still and then manually pushing the tilt with your finger ? if theres any grinding or the resistance feels inconsistent in one direction, thats a sign the motor or the encoder inside is getting flaky. Vibration in flight can make a marginal motor behave way worse than it would sitting on your desk.

Also worth checking if the axis balance is still good. If your camera has shifted even a tiny bit from being knocked around the balance can be off enough that the motor is working harder than it should and then has these moments where it kinda gives up briefly.

not exactly the same thing but i had the RS3 doing something weird after a firmware update where the follow settings had changed and it was doing these sudden corrections that looked like drops. went back into the app and the tilt follow speed had gotten set to like max sensitivity. probably not your issue if its a full drop but worth a look before you assume its hardware