Repair Shop for Gimbals?

bboyfasteddie

bboyfasteddie

Active member
I've been using this site to rent out my gear when it's not in use: https://www.cameralends.com/

It's a great resource and fully protected. I've made a decent amount of change on the side when I'm not shooting with my personal gear. However, this morning my Came-single gimbal that I rented out came back with the lock for the quick release plate not unlocking. It appears that the spring on the lock was damaged. I brought this up to the renter as well as the website, and they asked me to get a quote for a repair. I contacted Came-TV, but they've been slow to get back to me and due to their facilities being in China and their customer support not very proficient in English, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes me a while to get this situation straightened out.

In the meantime, is there such a thing as a repair house for gimbals based in the US? Somewhere that would take any brand of gimbal, not just their own? To be honest, it seems like it would be an easy fix (probably just installing a single replacement part), I just don't know where to get the parts myself. If anyone knows of a gimbal repair shop in California please let me know. Thanks.
 
I just bought a cinemilled plate for my ronin and the spring seems to foul the locking mechanism.

I dont know if the lock is similar.

Im sure I can sort it out by buyin a smaller spring and maybe a kipp lever, such things come in standard sizes.

Im sure that anyone with basic mechanical knowledge could sort your problems out, either camera shop or a RC hobby shop of a light engineer... or you.

S
 
hmmm, i'll try hitting up samy's camera this weekend. i think just getting a replacement spring will do the trick.
 
Got some pictures? In short I'm certain I can fix it, but not set up for that kind of business. But with appropriate pictures I can probably give suggestions on how you can fix it. Replacing the QR plate would be the first choice if possible.

One question would be how big was this spring? Many use something about the size of a ball point retractable pen. If not you can buy springs from McMaster-Carr in fixed length or bulk length to cut.
 
Greg_E said:
Got some pictures? In short I'm certain I can fix it, but not set up for that kind of business. But with appropriate pictures I can probably give suggestions on how you can fix it. Replacing the QR plate would be the first choice if possible.

One question would be how big was this spring? Many use something about the size of a ball point retractable pen. If not you can buy springs from McMaster-Carr in fixed length or bulk length to cut.
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I would unscrew the locking lever and get the gold piece out of the QR plate. I'm willing to bet you find a small dent or burr that is hanging things up and it might be in the black aluminum. Probably can be fixed with a metal file. I'm sure I can fix it, but you'd be without for the time it takes to ship it to and from, plus whatever time it takes to make the actual fix. And it will probably leave a spot that isn't anodized black.

Now if this isn't something you want to do, I would find a place that can sell you a new QR plate and charge them for a new plate. The manufacturer kind of did "us" a disservice with the design because a standard QR plate won't work very well.

Still no response from Came-TV? The exact thing you need is mentioned in their faq:

http://cametvblog.com/category/faq/

I was surprised that I didn't see something like this listed for purchase on the website, pretty common part among all their products.
 
Actually since then i have heard back from came-tv. They asked me to send some additional info as well as create that video. I just sent that video to them last night and awaiting a response. I'm actually almost positive there was no dent in the gold piece, but i'd have to check it again and it's not on me at the moment.

Edit: oh wait, read that wrong. A dent or a burr in the black aluminum, seems likely. I'll have to check again when i get home
 
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From what I can see, the gold piece is steel and the body of the QR is aluminum. A very small dent in the edge of the aluminum where that gold piece is supposed to move could hold everything in place. If the tolerance is tight, the dent could be very, very small.
 
Greg, thanks to your input i inspected the unit further and figured out that rather than a damaged part, the lock was simply improperly put back together by the renter when he originally took it apart. Rather than the spring going in between the gold lock and the black frame, the spring was put back between the black frame and the red latch, which meant it wasn't doing anything. After putting it back together with the spring in the proper location, the lock is locking and unlocking perfectly. It appears i won't need a replacement part after all. I feel a little silly that i didn't have enough technical common sense to figure that out sooner, i assumed that the guy had put the spring back where it's supposed to go but after looking for the dent i realized that in its current position it wasn't hitting the gold piece and causing it to move up in any way. What probably happnened was the guy loosed the lock too much causing the entire thing to pop off, and didn't know where to properly put back each piece. Anway, it's working fine now which is a big relief, thanks so much for your input.
 
No problem, glad it turned out to be cheap. Think I might still buy a second QR if it didn't cost too much.
 
Also would like to say that Came-TV was very helpful throughout this process, they offered to send me a replacement spring for free and only charge $6 for shipping. I declined as my gimbal is working perfectly fine now.
 
If anyone else finds a shop that does gimbal repairs I'd like to know too. I bought a CAME 7000 nearly two years ago and the top motor has been non-functional for the past year. Out of warranty and didn't work with my current setup so its just sitting as a pile of junk now. I'd like to get it repaired so I feel good about selling it or sell it to someone that can fix it themselves. CAME hasn't given me any responses about an out of warranty repair. That's why I went with Letus on the new setup...
 
Any idea if it is the motor or the controller that is bad? If the motor is bad, it probably needs to be rewound with new magnet wire (not a simple fix). I think the biggest issue you are running into with it is that they have discontinued the model so they don't have parts for it. Where are you located? If you are at the throw it away point, I'd probably pay shipping to see if I could make it work. If the motor is gone, probably looking at between $500 and $150 just for the single motor (depends how big it is and how it is wound). If the control board is damaged, then it may never work again, depending on the design.

Does the DVX "collective" think this is a burgeoning business opportunity, or does it only apply to the "cheap" direct from China gear? I have a feeling that they can't be fixed for 50% of new price and often that leads to the item being junk. Bench electronic rates are now in the $100 to $150 per hour range and I bet most repairs would be at or more than 2 hours.
 
Greg_E said:
Any idea if it is the motor or the controller that is bad? If the motor is bad, it probably needs to be rewound with new magnet wire (not a simple fix). I think the biggest issue you are running into with it is that they have discontinued the model so they don't have parts for it. Where are you located? If you are at the throw it away point, I'd probably pay shipping to see if I could make it work. If the motor is gone, probably looking at between $500 and $150 just for the single motor (depends how big it is and how it is wound). If the control board is damaged, then it may never work again, depending on the design.

Does the DVX "collective" think this is a burgeoning business opportunity, or does it only apply to the "cheap" direct from China gear? I have a feeling that they can't be fixed for 50% of new price and often that leads to the item being junk. Bench electronic rates are now in the $100 to $150 per hour range and I bet most repairs would be at or more than 2 hours.
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I'm pretty sure its the motor as I have two controllers and it acts the same regardless. I'll let you know if I get all the way to the junk faze. Was hoping to sell it for couple hundred bucks as is because if I was going to scrap it I'll at least take the carbon fiber rods for other rigs.
 
Greg_E said:
Does the DVX "collective" think this is a burgeoning business opportunity, or does it only apply to the "cheap" direct from China gear? I have a feeling that they can't be fixed for 50% of new price and often that leads to the item being junk. Bench electronic rates are now in the $100 to $150 per hour range and I bet most repairs would be at or more than 2 hours.
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There are only a few motor vendors that make the motors for these gimbals. Any one can buy the motors. Initially, most used the same controller. But they may be doing their own designs now to differentiate themselves. But the parts on them are easy to get. The things that will fail are going to be the motor driver chip and the motor. So fixes should be pretty standard. Someone with a boxfull of driver chips and motors should be able to fix most failures. The bearings should last forever as the load is light compared to the capacity.
 
Except for the designs that are building part of the motor housing into the gimbal arms. But yes I assume that HobbyKing is selling the exact same motors with the same number of turns as these cheap gimbals are using. But I wouldn't risk real money on that guess to buy a broken gimbal without first knowing exactly what I needed to do to fix it.

Other repairs would be broken wires and broken connectors which are again pretty easy.
 
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