A day out flying with the Hexa's

[RTRyder]

The rain finally stopped and conditions were the best they've been for a couple weeks this past weekend so it was time for a trip out to the flying field to see if I still remember how to fly! One of the main goals for the day was to get some video with both Hexa's now that the Droidworx AD-6 has the Avertical View mount and the stock MK Hexa has the old AD-6 landing gear with Photohigher AV130 mount.

I got three flights in with the AD-6, mainly trying to get one of the heli guys doing practice flights for his competition routine, unfortunately I badly misjudged the FOV on the modified GoPro and wasn't able to get everything from the position I was recording at. I'll post that video once I cut and splice the three to get rid of the boring parts with nothing in view. Next time I'll go all the way back to the end of the field before I park the AD-6 in P/H and A/H at altitude.

While I was there I decided to give the stock Hexa a test flight with the newly installed on antivibration mounting AV130 gimbal. This is the flight as seen through my stock GoPro hard mounted to the camera platform, the new mounting seems to be doing the job...

Also got some stick time on the little 12 inch Kindjal framed quads, put the Hoverfly Sport powered one in the dirt twice, once when it threw a prop blade in a high G turn and again when I managed to lose orientation and couldn't figure out where the front was quick enough, easy to do with the little frame in a big field!

Ken

 

[peabody124]

Wow that's awesomely smooth. Could you post some closeup photos of the mount?

 

[RTRyder]

Wow that's awesomely smooth. Could you post some closeup photos of the mount?

It's a Pro Mount mini AV 130 as seen here... http://www.droidworx.com.au/promount.html

This is the one I have...

Here it is when it was on my Droidworx AD-6 before I rebuilt it as a heavy lifter...

Now it's mounted under a stock MK Hexa, this one actually, that I've since sold the mkTR mount seen in this pic...

 

[Mactadpole]

Hey Ken,

That is super smooth! Did you do some sort of anti-vibration mounting modification of the AV130 beyond their rubber grommets and rubber sheet between LG mounting?

Shawn

 

[RTRyder]

Hey Ken,

That is super smooth! Did you do some sort of anti-vibration mounting modification of the AV130 beyond their rubber grommets and rubber sheet between LG mounting?

Shawn

Yes, I did. The short answer is changed the material between the frame and gear rail mount and moved the rubber sheet to the bottom side of the gear rail bracket where its now sandwiched between the C/F plate and bracket to fully isolate the upper and lower sections from each other. The test was hard mounting a GoPro case on it's "foot" to the platform and going for a flight to see if there would be any jello effect, only saw a tiny bit on the descent which is darn near impossible to eliminate no matter what you do, so I consider it a successful test.

The vibration mount has no bearing on the degree of smoothness , TX & flight controller tuning as well as the way its being flown are more responsible, or in other words, 3 flight modes set with varying amounts of expo on the TX, lots of gyro stability and dynamic stability trial and error, and very small deliberate stick movements while flying.

I'm editing the video from the AD-6 now, its even better, no jello...

Ken

 

[Mactadpole]

Yes, I did. The short answer is changed the material between the frame and gear rail mount and moved the rubber sheet to the bottom side of the gear rail bracket where its now sandwiched between the C/F plate and bracket to fully isolate the upper and lower sections from each other. The test was hard mounting a GoPro case on it's "foot" to the platform and going for a flight to see if there would be any jello effect, only saw a tiny bit on the descent which is darn near impossible to eliminate no matter what you do, so I consider it a successful test.

The vibration mount has no bearing on the degree of smoothness , TX & flight controller tuning as well as the way its being flown are more responsible, or in other words, 3 flight modes set with varying amounts of expo on the TX, lots of gyro stability and dynamic stability trial and error, and very small deliberate stick movements while flying.

I'm editing the video from the AD-6 now, its even better, no jello...

Ken

I understand what you say about moving the rubber sheet but I don't know that I understand what you meant by "changed the material between the frame and gear rail mount". Were you referring to the rubber sheet in both statements?

And when you say mounted the GoPro case on it's "foot" exactly how do you do that? Are you using the tripod mount for it?

Sorry so many questions! Had tried to get good footage from GoPro on my AV130 and never got rid of jello entirely. Of course I did not have the smoothest flying copter at the time with the HFP board!

Shawn

 

[Stacky]

Nice video Ken, shows what can be done.

 

[Emowillcox]

HI Ken
Nice footage. I am trying to do some research to figure out what would be the best mount to get for video. Your stuff looks very smooth. I noticed you mentioned modified gopro.. what did you do switch the lens to sunex?. I have been looking at both Avertical View and Photohigher mounts. I wondered if
you have a preference and if you were going to buy a mount tomorrow which one you would get? Thanks for the input.

 

[RTRyder]

I understand what you say about moving the rubber sheet but I don't know that I understand what you meant by "changed the material between the frame and gear rail mount". Were you referring to the rubber sheet in both statements?

And when you say mounted the GoPro case on it's "foot" exactly how do you do that? Are you using the tripod mount for it?

Sorry so many questions! Had tried to get good footage from GoPro on my AV130 and never got rid of jello entirely. Of course I did not have the smoothest flying copter at the time with the HFP board!

Shawn

I removed the standard rubber pad for use under the mounting bracket and made a replacement out of 1/8 inch sorbothane. The stack is now the MK frame, a 1/8 inch layer of sorbothane, the gear rail mounting bracket, the original rubber pad, the carbon fiber plate.

I do have a tripod mount for the GoPro case but its in use on the AD-6 with the modified GoPro. What I did was take a standard flat stick-on mount with the sticky removed, drilled a hole through it to mount it to the camera platform, then modified the foot that slides into the mount to clear the head of the bolt. End result wasn't quite what I expected, a bit wobbly requiring shimming to steady it, but it was good enough for testing purposes. If I'm going to continue to use a GoPro on each mount during the same outing I'll get another tripod foot so I have one for each.

I was able to get similar results using a Hoverfly Pro board on a MK quad frame I built from leftover parts and using a Hisight II mount but it involved a lot of expo in the TX and some very careful flying to achieve the result. Too much work to get consistant results with that setup though I still have it sitting on the shelf in case they ever get the firmware fully sorted.

HI Ken
Nice footage. I am trying to do some research to figure out what would be the best mount to get for video. Your stuff looks very smooth. I noticed you mentioned modified gopro.. what did you do switch the lens to sunex?. I have been looking at both Avertical View and Photohigher mounts. I wondered if
you have a preference and if you were going to buy a mount tomorrow which one you would get? Thanks for the input.

I am using the Sunex lens on one of the GoPro I have but it wasn't the one I used for this video, this was done with a standard HD Hero.

I have to say I think the Avertical mount has more potential to be smooth and steady but it's not a fully developed kit, you will need to do some modification and tweaking to get the best from it. I'm still working things out with mine, haven't quite got the mounting setup the way it needs to be yet.

Some of the mods I did, bearings on both axles of the camera platform instead of just on the drive side. I machined a couple pieces of Delrin to mount the roll servo to so I could keep the belt tensioned well enough to avoid slop in the roll axis. Replaced the servos that came with it, installed Hitec HS 485 on both axis, more power and more precision. The stock servos worked OK but had a tiny amount of slop in the geartrain that translated to significant movement at the platform, not good for producing steady video. If I were to buy another I'd get it without the servos and buy a set of the Hitec, they're $17 each.

As for the Pro Mini, I have to be honest here and say I've gotten very poor support from the manufacturer on it and based on that I wouldn't buy another of their products especially if I was relying on it for business use. I think the mount works fairly well but not $800 worth of well. Better than other mounts I've used but it doesn't live up to its marketing hype.

If I were to be in the market for a new mount I'd take a close look at the new Photoship One mkTR Professional, looks like they worked out a lot of the issues the first version had and I think it has potential, especially at the new reduced price.

Ken

 

[Mactadpole]

Hey Ken,

Thanks so much for the detailed responses to my questions. Very much appreciated. I assume you shot this in R3 mode (720p 60fps), it would be interesting to try 1080p on the GoPro with your current setup.

Best,

Shawn

 

[RTRyder]

Hey Ken,

Thanks so much for the detailed responses to my questions. Very much appreciated. I assume you shot this in R3 mode (720p 60fps), it would be interesting to try 1080p on the GoPro with your current setup.

Best,

Shawn

Yes, 720P 60FPS, I'd use 1080 if the GoPro had a 60 FPS progressive setting for it. It's not so much the resolution as it is the FPS that makes the difference IMO and the combination of GoPro, 1080, and 30 FPS makes for crappy video. The GoPro is challenged to begin with when it comes to exposure and changing light conditions, shooting in 1080 only makes things worse unless you really don't care all that much about the quality of the end product. I'd love to be flying a camera that does 1080P 60FPS but the selection is limited and the ones I've seen are all $1000 and up, more than I want to spend at the moment.

Next time out I'll try 1080 and see what comes out on the backend.

Ken