My brushless gimbal result

RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
maybe someone can make a short video.. this is getting confusing.

It's actually very easy. Do a calibration with the camera platform flat and level, use a bubble level to make sure it's absolutely level side to side and front to back before clicking on the calibrate button in the GUI. Now swing the camera platform forward or backward so that it is 90 degrees from flat and level, basically the camera would be facing either straight up or straight down depending on which way you swing the platform, for calibration purposes it doesn't matter which way you go after doing the basic calibration. With the platform in the 90 degree position click the calibration button again and wait a few seconds.

Now swing the platform so it's exactly opposite where you just did the calibration and once you have it there and at 90 degrees do the calibration again. Return the camera platform to flat and level. Now you need to swing the platform right or left until it is again at 90 degrees to horizontal, in other words tilted sideways so the bottom of the camera would be vertical. To get to 90 degrees on the sideways or roll axis you need to do what Gotheli describes in post #275, or you can just lift one side of the multi once you have maxxed out the rotation of the platform on the roll axis, either way get it to 90 degrees from horizontal to either right or left and do the calibration again, then swing it all the way to the opposite side, get it to a full 90 degrees, and calibrate in that position.

Last, turn it back to flat and level and then go 180 degrees around so the camera platform is completely upside down, make sure it's level in that position and do the final calibration, you have now done a full accelerometer calibration and can bring the platform back to its normal position.

After doing that Friday evening I went out and flew at few different locations Saturday morning recording video at each. It was the usual gusty wind blowing and at each location the there was a large enough open area for the wind to be in 8 to 10 mph range, enough that the frame was visibly bouncing around but the video stayed amazingly steady. Still had a bit of an issue with horizon drift but I had changed some settings Friday evening and apparently missed the setup.

Today I tweaked the settings back towards where they were originally, made a few changes to wiring, and setup the HDMI downlink again after modifying the cable to work with the gimbal. Biggest difference is the power to the gimbal is now a constant 12 volts supplied by a CC BEC Pro connected to the power distribution board so the power level stays constant through an entire flight(s).

Just charged a battery and did a test flight out front and the horizon drift is gone! Quick turns, flying sideways, anything I tried didn't cause the tiny level of drift I saw yesterday so I'd have to say the full accelerometer calibration, tweaking the PID motor power settings slightly, and providing a regulated supply of clean power were the last pieces of the puzzle, it's rock solid Zenmuse like performance now.

Time to do a full tuneup on the Cinestar itself and then get out in the field and record some video. I finally have a setup I like and can use without worry about video quality after over 2 years of trying most everything under the sun and not getting the results I wanted :)

Ken
 

RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
Here's this morning's test flight, I'd say this one is fully dialed in now. Still have a little work to do on the Cinestar itself, that slight yaw motion has to go but it's nice to know it's not the gimbal doing it. Need to fine tune the isolation mounts for this gimbal as well but overall just a couple minor things to take care of and the results so far are just amazing...

 
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tombrown1

Member
Here's this morning's test flight, I'd say this one is fully dialed in now. Still have a little work to do on the Cinestar itself, that slight yaw motion has to go but it's nice to know it's not the gimbal doing it. Need to fine tune the isolation mounts for this gimbal as well but overall just a couple minor things to take care of and the results so far are just amazing...


Looks great Ken! Glad to see you up and flying again.

I'm thinking about throwing the gimbal you are testing onto one of these for camera operator pan control:

http://www.rctimer.com/index.php?gOo=goods_details.dwt&goodsid=868&productname=

What do you think?

Best,

Tom
 
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Boltzman

Member
Hi Ken? Nice results.
Which bird are you using?
please let men know of all your settings, can you send a print screen?
i get very similar results in this strong wind but i have quick descend issues with jitter, how does your setup act in quick descends?

Br


Bartek


Here's this morning's test flight, I'd say this one is fully dialed in now. Still have a little work to do on the Cinestar itself, that slight yaw motion has to go but it's nice to know it's not the gimbal doing it. Need to fine tune the isolation mounts for this gimbal as well but overall just a couple minor things to take care of and the results so far are just amazing...

 
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RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
Hi Ken? Nice results.
Which bird are you using?
please let men know of all your settings, can you send a print screen?
i get very similar results in this strong wind but i have quick descend issues with jitter, how does your setup act in quick descends?

Br


Bartek

The gimbal is attached to a Cinestar 6 frame with a Wookong-M flight controller, AXI 2814-22 motors, and HK Blue series 30 amp ESCs with SimonK firmware. I know it doesn't show in the video but in some scenes you can see the wind blowing flags on nearby houses and occasionally the bare tree branches, the Cinestar was getting bounced around pretty good at times and all you can notice of that in the video is an occasional twitchy yaw movement, the gimbal filters out all of the rest of the motion the frame is doing in flight. I suspect if this gimbal controller had pan capability you wouldn't see the yaw movement either, its that good.

The settings I'm using are almost exactly the way they were as delivered. I think I reduced the P gain on pitch and the motor power on roll, everything else is back to where it was when I got it. I don't usually do quick descents with the Cinestar as it can take a lot of power to stop all that weight if it's coming down fast, I plan the flight out to avoid having to do that so I really can't say how it would react in that case. So far I haven't found much that does bother it other than improper setup, once its dialed in its as steady as you can possibly hope for on a multirotor especially considering the price which I consider an absolute bargain for the results I'm seeing.


There are times I wished I lived in Boston...Ken I'd pester you to hell & back to get my gimbal setup ;)

In this case it wouldn't do you any good unless you had a brushless gimbal! ;)

I've pretty much given up on traditional servo driven gimbals, I have NEVER been able to get results like this from one and I'm tired of trying, not to mention the time and $ wasted along the way on things that simply didn't do the job...

Ken

P.S. I have a GoPro sized version arriving later this week that will likely find a home under my MK Hexa V1 with a Hero 3 Black. If the weight turns out to be bit much for the Hexa it will go under the Droidworx AD6 that has much bigger motors and lifting capacity
 
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Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Nice video Ken. Is that the AlexMos controller you're using? I've got one on my desk at home, just haven't had a chance to build the new gimbal around it yet.

Don't blink! Everything's changing so fast!
 

RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
Nice video Ken. Is that the AlexMos controller you're using? I've got one on my desk at home, just haven't had a chance to build the new gimbal around it yet.

Don't blink! Everything's changing so fast!

Yes, Alexmos controller with iPower motors and gimbal by GotheliRC.

Ken
 


Hello,
whilst waiting for my board i have a question for the people already using them (both alexmos and martinez): is it possible to calibrate if the gimbal does not allows full 360 degrees of roll?
Thanks in advance,
Claudio
 

Trnquill

Member
is it possible to calibrate if the gimbal does not allows full 360 degrees of roll?
Yes, absolutely! Just rotate the whole gimbal to make camera/sensor facing different ways. My gimbal does only +/- ~30 degrees on roll so I have to tilt the entire gimbal about 60 degrees (+ max out the roll) during calibration to make the sensor point side up (in other words 90 degrees from vertical).
 


jfro

Aerial Fun
Deleted. Got the gui working with my new gimble. Going to try to calibrate with GH1 or GH2. Fits, but not going to get full pitch motion if I balance camera on pitch.
 
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araines2750

Hexa Crazy
jfro,
Can you please provide a explaination of what you did to get the GUI working.
Several of us have had similar issues with the 64 bit GUI not running on a 64 bit windows machine. We are using the 32 bit version.
Can you please share your experiences & solutions?
Obviously updating the firmware on the board to match the GUI was required.
Can you also provide a "screenshot" of you GUI with your setting that are working?
Andrew
 


RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
I had no luck with the 64 bit version. But it works ok on my 64 bit laptop with the 32 bit version.

Same here. I've never been successful getting the 64 bit version to work on anything I've tried it on, not really a problem as the 32 bit version works fine and there isn't any difference in functionality between the two.

I do recall reading something in the Multiwii forums about DLL registration issues and Java version compatibility in getting the 64 bit version to run. IMO it's just easier to use the 32 bit rather than bang my head against the brick wall of Microsoft OS application compatibility trying to get a 64 bit version to work.

Ken
 

jcmonty

Member
Same here. I've never been successful getting the 64 bit version to work on anything I've tried it on, not really a problem as the 32 bit version works fine and there isn't any difference in functionality between the two.

I do recall reading something in the Multiwii forums about DLL registration issues and Java version compatibility in getting the 64 bit version to run. IMO it's just easier to use the 32 bit rather than bang my head against the brick wall of Microsoft OS application compatibility trying to get a 64 bit version to work.

Ken

Same here.

With the two boards that I have tried, I have not been able to get the Xloader or AVRDude to upload firmware to my board. Is there something I am missing? I have the GUI working and interacting with the board, so I know it's not that board at least.
 

jfro

Aerial Fun
I have only been able to get the 32 bit version running also.

Had a goofy issue in that one of my workstations wouldn't / won't run the alexmos gui, any version. Get an error about not finding javaw.exe.

So I used the hex downloader to make sure I had the 1.31 firmware. It appeared to upload the 1.31 hex file, but then after about 45-60 seconds, got some error message.

I then went to another computer, and a 3rd computer and both those run the 1.31 gui.

Now, back at it again. When you do the calibration as RTRyder suggested, can you just run from your computer USB or do you have to have 10-12 volts of power running to the gimble also?

I did it without the power, but not sure if it was saved.

Now I'm sure I've messed up everything, so am going to start over, but before I do, I would like to know if the cube method of calibrating can be done with or without 9-12v power?
When done, does it just keep those settings or do you have to save or write them?
What does read or write do?

Just momentarily lost.

By taking off one of the strap holding loops off gh1/gh2, it fits. However there is going to be limited pitch up and down plus I wasn't able to get it balanced with a neutral density filter on my widest and lightest lens.
At this point, I'm not sure how realistic this gimble is going to be for the gh1/gh2, but I'm going to give it a try as the limited pitch shouldn't be a major issue unless fly with a lot of pitch. ND filter may be an issue, but I'll deal with that later.

Anybody want to swap a nex5 for gh1?
 

rwskier

Multi Rotor Video
Here is the GotHeliRC.com gimbal at work from last weekend.

 
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