Help with a new gimbal

Kilby

Kilby

Active Member
Hey gang. I've got something that I can't seem to figure out and was hoping to get some fresh perspective from the group.

I bought a new gimbal from CopterFrames.com for my NEX. This is the first time I've used one that has incorporated the potentiometer hack. It's a 2 to 1 reduction belt drive set up. The pot is removed from the servo and placed on the pitch axis/axle so it can get a better range of motion. For some reason, the pot seems to get confused every so often and the servo just starts wandering around trying to center itself. At first I thought that a problem with the wookong controlling the gimbal, so I have since removed that from the equation all together and now have the pitch and roll servos hooked directly up to my cam op rx. It still gets confused and just starts searching for center without any input from the cam op radio.

The roll servo that came with the kit never worked from day one, so I replaced that this morning and all seems to be ok with that. The first time I hooked everything up, I had a BEC for just my servos and had the signal wire going to the wookong. It didn't seem to like that at all and I'm wondering if that is maybe the cause of all this?

Can anyone help shed some light on this? I'm going crazy dealing with this for several weeks now, and the company I bought this from are of very little help.


http://www.copterframes.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=70&product_id=52
 


I

i love nachos

Member
I wish I could help. I am looking for answers myself on the same Gimbal. I supplied my own servos and its my first experience with a gimbal so I cant figure out how or what I need to tie into the potentiometer.
 

kloner

kloner

Aerial DP
nacho, if you take the tottom of the servo off and move the pcb back, you'll see three wires going to the pot. you would remove the pot and send the wires that went to it out of the servo and to the ext pot

Kilby, Pots are cheap and notoriously go bad/are bad from the get go. does wiggling wires change anything? what about a light flick? like to make somethng contacting not contact
 


Kilby

Kilby

Active Member
I should have updated this thread, I got it solved a couple weeks ago. kloner hit on the head, the pot was bad. The manufacturer kepting trying to dance around that, but he finally sent me a batch of them in case any went bad again.

I love nachos, if you need a servo for yours, I have an extra. PM me if you are interested. The problem with this gimbal is the pot that he used to make it. It's very hard to find in the US. I had to get the manufacturer send me a few. The specs of the pot aren't unique, it's the size and shape of it. All the ones I found in the US don't fit in the gimbal in order to be installed.
 

T

tstrike

pendejo grande
Kilby when you say the pot doesn't fit, what part? I bought one of these used 6 months ago and just this week I've been getting it rigged to a hex, I haven't even plugged it into the flight controller yet. I'm subscribed to the rcg thread from the manufacturer and have read the public exchanges you've had with ozan. I'm not expecting much out of this gimbal and already have plans to make a quad outta the boom clamps when it breaks. How did you mount it?
 


T

tstrike

pendejo grande
Well here's the latest with my gimbal. It sucks. Plug the servo leads in, get the pitch dialed in, can't get roll to do anything but create a constant side to side bounce, like it's binding. But the biggest problem I'm having is the potentiometer is causing a break between naza and naza assistant. It just sits there going on and off, try and enter numbers and it shuts off naza. I've already pulled apart the potentiometer side and am going to replace both servos with some savox's I've had for another rig I was building. I'm not planning on hacking for the potentiometer, I'll just go for straight belt drive. But my hearts really not into spending a lot of time on it since the market's about to be flooded with brushless motor gimbals.
 

Kilby

Kilby

Active Member
I've ripped mine apart now and plan to use some of the parts to build a brushless gimbal. I already have motors and a controller board on the way. I was able to get it working, but by the time I did I wasn't even interested in it any longer. The bad pot that shipped with the gimbal was in metric sizes, and I couldn't find the exact match so that it would sit in the end of the bottom frame. Once I got a new one, it was ok, but I had lost interest in it by then and bought something else so I can at least take photos. Good luck trying to get any real support out of Ozan.
 

T

tstrike

pendejo grande
Yeah, I'm not gonna look for any more support than his rcg thread. Like I said, I got a pretty good deal on it used, so good that it sat at the back of my bench since August. But now spring has sprung here in the wasatch and I'm looking to put a gimbal on my home made hex to carry a little more then a gopro. I'm really only looking for pitch anyway. The guy I bought it from really horsed down on everything when he put it together, so much so that the bearings wouldn't even turn and everything was skiwampus, you gets what you gets when you buy used on rc forums. I just can't use it with the naza assistant because of the weird way it keeps disconnecting, and like you, I've lost interest.
 

Kilby

Kilby

Active Member
When I did have it hooked up, I was only using it with a 2nd radio that my wife used to frame the shots. I planned to hook up a CopterControl board for stabilization, but just never got to it. Now I've sold the CC board.

I'll post up the results of my brushless gimbal build here as well when it's done. I've got the physical part designed, I'm just waiting for the hardware to come in before I cut anything out.
 

T

tstrike

pendejo grande
Well here's my first attempt at building a gimbal from scratch, sort of...
View attachment 10320
it's big and clunky but I didn't have to buy anything more than a couple of 6mm bolts. As soon as my neighbor brings back my wheelbarrow I'll take it to the kitchen for a weigh in but it feels no heavier then a bottle of beer (cheap beer, not froo froo boutique beer).
Figures, on the eve of the brushless gimbal revolution, I build a servo based gimbal. The basics are there to convert it to a brushless gimbal eventually.
 

Attachments

  • gimbal.jpg
    gimbal.jpg
    138.6 KB · Views: 113

You must log in or register to reply here.
Top