Time flies so darn FAST!!! I’ve been so busy, I completely forgot our blog . Well, let’s see if I can remedy that in 2019! No, it’s not a resolution for the new year, we all know what happens to those, right?

Well, I unfortunately start this post with sad news. This past September we lost our beloved Ranger, a husky we rescued. He was found hurt (he had been shot in the rear left leg, probably got mistaken for a coyote by someone) in November of 2010. We took him to the veterinarian and had his leg fixed. He had no collar and no microchip. We posted ads all around as well as kept an eye out for people looking for their lost dog. We didn’t see anything and no one called to claim him. So he became a member of our family. I’m a cat person, but Ranger stole my heart. He was such a sweetheart, so intelligent, and a very quick learner, eager to please. I miss him so much… 

On to happier things. After staying at the helm of the shooting club’s websites for another 4 years, I’m finally hanging up the webmaster title and moving on to other adventures. I’ll be meeting with the new webmaster in a couple of weeks to transfer the accounts’ information. This will definitely help me spend more time working on my business.

And speaking of business, products are going to stock up the shelves in 2019! Woohoo! Well, that’s the goal anyway. Hopefully, things won’t keep going south like they’ve been in the previous years. I’m tired of not getting anywhere

Which brings me to a little stressful event I just went through. In order to up my game in the photography/video domain, I’m purchasing a handheld gimbal for my camera. So I’m selling my bigger gimbal, a Ronin-M. Well, before putting it up for sale, I put it together to make sure everything is still working properly. That’s when the fun began.

I check the battery level and three of the four lights come on, meaning there’s about 75% of charge left. Wow! I charged those batteries about a year ago and haven’t used them since because of various life circumstances (nothing severe, don’t worry, just got too busy). So I set up the gimbal, balance the camera, and turn the gimbal’s power on. The power light comes on steady on the battery, but the gimbal’s motors don’t start up. Nothing, not even a slight humming. What the …? I spent hours online trying to fix it and that’s when things became a bit more stressful. There are so many stories of people having the same problem and of not being able to find a solution. Also found stories of people contacting DJI for support and not getting an answer for weeks, if any. Things really didn’t look good.

Last Saturday, I sent a message to DJI, not really expecting a reply, but it couldn’t hurt, right? The following day went by, we spent some time with close friends and I forgot about the whole thing. Then on Monday, I remembered I have a third battery I never used (the gimbal comes with two batteries and I had bought a third one as an extra). I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it, right? So I opened the box and what do I find, a small manual giving information about the battery, information not found in the Ronin-M’s manual. The gimbal does come with a battery manual as well, but given the battery “showed” it still had a charge, I never thought of looking at that manual. Well, I discovered that when the Ronin-M’s intelligent batteries are not used for a long period of time, they go into hibernation mode. The manual explains how to make the batteries come out of hibernation. So I set out to test this with my original batteries and low and behold, when I plugged the first battery in the charger, the battery level indicator now showed one white light instead of three. What? So in short, the batteries went in hibernation, but for some reason were showing me that they still had a charge and were ready to go to work. So I left the battery to fully charge and then connected it to the gimbal. Pressed the power button and … *drum roll* … the gimbal came to life! Woohoo!

I tried the same procedure with the other battery and I got the same result. Both batteries work and the gimbal works. I still have to apply the same procedure to the extra battery, but I’m not concerned about it now.

That being said, I mentioned earlier that I wrote to DJI’s support without really expecting a response from them. I sent my message on Saturday and got a response from them the following Monday, in the evening. That was quick! I don’t know if they used to be slow and picked up speed after customer complaints or if the people complaining about not getting replies just simply couldn’t send their request properly, but my experience is way different from theirs and I’m happy about that. The only thing I would recommend is that DJI make the battery hibernation thing more prominent. It should probably be included in the main manual where they talk about how to charge the batteries. I mean, if I hadn’t bought that extra battery, I wouldn’t have thought of checking the battery manual and I wouldn’t have found out about the hibernation state. DJI does need to make things a bit easier to find. That’s another thing I read a lot of complaints about online, having trouble finding the appropriate information.

So in conclusion, I’m not making any promises, but I’ll do my very best to update the blog more often, starting this month. Happy New Year everyone!