I broke my DJI Pocket 3 camera. I'm not sure how it happened, but suddenly, the gimbal stopped flipping up and would stay stuck in a weird, floppy portrait mode. After trying everything, I thought it was dead. But I found a simple, brute-force fix that brought it back to life. I'll show you the exact problem, the crucial moment where I fixed it by bending the gimbal back into place, and why you should probably always use a protective case. This video is an honest look at a frustrating camera problem and a completely unprofessional solution that worked.
How I BROKE then FIXED my DJI Pocket 3 GIMBAL
TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Didn't know we we he had it. What? It's Oh, no. Hello. Welcome back to the channel. This is a quick story about how I broke my DJI Pocket 3 camera and then fixed it again. And I just wanted to share this with you just in case you have a similar problem with your DJI Osmo Pocket 3 camera. And the problem was really simple. Usually when you start the Pocket 3, if you've got one, you know this. When you turn it on, the gimbal flips up and points in the direction you've set it to. So either if you've got the setting to set it in the last position that you had it in or if you prefer it to point forward or point towards you, that's what it does when you start it up. Except mine very suddenly stopped doing that. I think I have some footage here. It's just when you turn it on, it just stays in portrait mode and says initializing gimbal. Gimbal protection on. Oh dear, I think it's lost. When you turn the camera on, the camera part, the top of the gimbal, instead of flipping into position, it would just kind of it would either be floppy and point in a diagonal direction or it would point in a portrait orientation like this, which is no good because I've I've actually set the camera to shoot landscape only. So, I didn't know why it was doing that. And also when I went to turn off the camera, it wouldn't lock that gimbal back into position. So if I turn it off, I'm hoping it will now properly shut it down. Oh no, it's not.
I think it's damaged. I think I've damaged it. Sorry. Doesn't work. It does, but some for some reason it's not snapping back into when it goes into shutdown mode. It doesn't just close all the way. It just kind of almost made it there, but not quite. What it should look like is this. You turn it off and clunk clunk. It just folds neatly into itself.
I bent my wookie!
I bent my gimbal. It was either because I didn't keep it in its lovely protective case that it comes with. I have a frame that does actually play nicely with the DJI case. So, it sits snugly and it stays clear of the case, which is a really lovely touch by DJI to have that. So, thank you. But I just I just go uh stick it in my bag, stick it in my pockets, you know, like the name implies. That not a good idea, I know, but uh I did it. It might have been that or it might have been this this shot that I'm getting here. Let's wait for it. Cue the fool. I I've never seen this before. I didn't know we we he had it. It's Oh, no. Well, that's irony, isn't it? Yeah. The magnetic stand wasn't quite as magnetic as I hoped it would be. So, it did take quite a fall. And but this started I think this had not been working great before that incident as well. So it could have been one or the other. Now I have form with delicate DJI pocket cameras. I have tested them in the rain. This was the pocket one that I was testing in the rain and it survived. It It was a lot more rugged than I thought it would be. I even dropped it on a train station platform and made a video about how I put it back together again because the whole housing just fell apart and I managed to push that together again and rescued it. I just didn't know if I if this was a goner. I didn't know if I could fix this thing. I just thought, well, that's it. I've just I've got a microphone now, which is great, the DJI Mic 2, which I absolutely love. And I just thought, well, maybe I'll just write off the camera. Um, that's just how it is. That's just how gimbal cameras are. I don't know what made me think of this, but I just wanted to try one last time. And I actually did this on camera. I was at this point completely convinced this Pocket 3 was dead, unless I sent it off for repairs, and I'm sure the price of that would not be as compelling as just waiting for another brand new camera. So, I had a look at it, and I got a a toothbrush at first to try and clean out the mechanism of the gimbal. That didn't really do anything. But by doing that, it meant that I looked really super closely at the the gimbal. So, it goes all the way around, it's really free and easy. And then, but on this way round, there's some resistance there. Like, it jams when it's here. In this position, you have to really push it hard. So, it can't move freely into that position. Just something there. That's with the magnet. It's like the magnet is maybe out of alignment. It looks like it might be bent. So maybe this, you can see the scrape mark here. Maybe it's just ever so slightly out of alignment. I noticed that there was a kind of a scratch and it was as if the gimbal head couldn't make it past a certain point to fold itself up, which would mean that that would probably this be the same reason why it wasn't clicking into place when I started the camera up. So then I got the idea of well it just doesn't look like it's it's going past a particular point. So what if I just try and force it by brute force actually bend the head that turns this section here. What if I were to push it upwards so that this part would actually clear the arm? That's what seemed to be the problem. So I I bent it. I started bending it. I started really forcing it to bend it back the right way, which could have gone all kinds of shades of wrong, but luckily I think I've got it on footage here. So, I'm actually applying pressure to see if I can bend it the other way. So, that's clear. I did actually manage to bend it back the right way. Obviously, don't take any of this as advice, but if you have the problem where your Pocket 3 isn't starting up properly and it's just staying in portrait orientation and it's not going past a certain point, it might be that it's been bent ever so slightly crucially past the point where the head can clear the arm. Let's try that. So, I fold it up. See what happens now. Oh, that works. So, it's just brute force, right? What happens if I turn it off?
Will it fold up, right?
It's back.
Okay. So, just it was just bent ever so slightly. It might have been where it was in my pocket. So, if I turn it on again, that's it. Oh my goodness. So, it was as simple as that. Yeah, it folds up. Now, the problem was This was bent ever so slightly like less than a millimetre, less than half a millimetre the wrong way. So yeah, brute force. That's my that's my tip for the DJI Pocket 3. It's brought my camera back from the grave. So grateful. Obviously, from now on, I'm I'm probably not going to use the the magnetism quite so much. And uh I'm going to use my case all the time. And I'm probably going to buy the DJI Osmo Nano camera. And I'll probably be talking about that a lot on this channel. So if I do, I'll put that down in the description because at least you can stick it on things magnetically. And if it does fall down, I think it's a bit more robust than this thing, which I love, but it's so delicate. It's so delicate. I wouldn't be able to shoot this video if it were raining, for instance. Anyway, let me know if you've had this problem with your DJI Pocket 3. Uh, say hi down in the comments below. It' be lovely to hear from you. And good luck with rescuing your DJI Pocket 3. Here are all my other DJI Pocket 3 videos. And something else that YouTube knows that you want to be watching
ON A BIKE! DJI POCKET 3 test run with backpack clip and Mic 2...
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