this has been bugging me for a while. my RS3 will be perfectly balanced and calibrated on the ground, i do all the motor calibration stuff, auto-tune, everything looks good. then maybe 10 minutes into a shoot it just starts drifting like 8-10 degrees to the left on the roll axis and just sits there. doesnt correct itself. if i power cycle the gimbal it goes back to center for a while then does it again.

camera is a sony a7c with a 35mm 1.8 so its not a super heavy setup, well within spec. ive checked the balance like 3 times. tried a full firmware reset last week. the motors dont feel hot or anything so i dont think its thermal throttling. im shooting a wedding in like 10 days and im genuinely stressed about it.

anyone seen this or have any idea what im looking at here. is it possible one of the roll motors is just going bad

yeah i had something similar on my RS2, ended up being that the axis lock wasnt fully releasing on the roll arm. like mechanically it felt unlocked but there was just enough resistance that the motor was fighting itself trying to hold position and eventually losing. try this - with the gimbal powered on, very gently push the roll axis by hand and see if it feels like theres any stiffness that shouldnt be there compared to the other axes. mine had this almost imperceptible drag that i completely missed until someone pointed it out.

could also just be the auto-tune not being great for that specific camera lens combo. the 35 1.8 has kind of an awkward weight distribution depending on which version you have. i know youve rebalanced it but have you tried running the auto-tune specifically at the temperature you'll be shooting at? sounds dumb but ive had gimbals tune differently when its cold versus warm out and then drift once they heat up a bit during use. probably not the main issue but worth a shot before the wedding.