DJI Osmo Mobile 3, Repair/Fix

My DJI Osmo Mobile 3 smartphone gimbal suddenly started behaving strangely. One axis would aggressively swing all the way to one side or the other instead of stabilizing properly. At first, I was convinced it had to be an electronics issue — maybe a sensor failure, encoder issue, or some firmware-related fault.

So naturally, I opened it up.

And that was an adventure on its own.

The Osmo Mobile 3 is not designed to be service-friendly. Opening it leaves permanent marks. But curiosity won.

Once inside, everything looked normal. No burnt components, no broken flex cables, no obvious signs of damage.

DJI osmo mobile 3 disassembly

But after closer inspection, I finally spotted the real issue:

The permanent magnet inside the BLDC motor for the Z-axis had come loose.

DJI OM3 z axis

Honestly, it was one of those faults that is very esasy to overlook and disregard

Finding the problem was only half the challenge. Fixing it became even trickier because I had to remove the encoder magnet during the repair… and I forgot to mark its original orientation 😅

That meant a lot of trial and error:

• Reassembling
• Testing motion range
• Disassembling again
• Adjusting magnet position
• Repeating the process until the motor response and stabilization felt correct

Eventually, after several attempts, it finally worked perfectly again.

Looking back, this repair taught me something important: You can learn a lot by opening up devices like this and admire its engineering and take inspirations from it.

Feel free to reach out to me by email or through my website and share your ideas, experiences, I am always happy to collaorate with similar minded people.

Email: contact@afnanyusuf.com Website: afnanyusuf.com