so i came in a little hot a few weeks back and the gimbal took a small hit when it bounced on the ground. nothing looked broken, no cracked arms or anything obvious. but ever since then the horizon drifts to the right slowly during flight, like maybe 3-4 degrees over the course of a minute. if i let it go long enough the gimbal hits its limit and then kind of snaps back. really annoying in footage.

ive done the auto calibration in the DJI app probably four times now. it goes through the whole process, says successful, and then i get out and fly and same issue. im wondering if something physical got bent slightly or if theres a chance this is a ribbon cable issue from the impact. not sure if its worth trying to repair myself or just sending it in. the drone is out of warranty and DJI wants like 200 bucks just to look at it.

the ribbon cable thing is actually pretty plausible. those flat flex cables in gimbal assemblies are fragile and a bounce can stress them even if there's no visible damage. a partial connection on one of the motor feedback lines would explain drift that calibration cant fix since the controller thinks it knows where the gimbal is but the actual position data its getting is slightly off. if youre comfortable taking the gimbal apart theres a bunch of teardown vids on youtube for the Mavic series and the ribbons are usually accessible without too much trouble. replacement cables are like 8 bucks.

honestly 200 for DJI to look at it seems steep but ive heard of people paying that and then getting it back fully sorted with new parts included. depends how much you value your time i guess. i tried to DIY a gimbal repair on my old Phantom and ended up making it worse, those things are fiddly as hell. if you do open it up just be really careful with the ribbon connectors, the ZIF sockets on those are easy to crack if you lift the wrong part.