Nex 5N flys on WKM

[RTRyder]

Late this afternoon the weather cleared up enough to get a quick test flight of the Sony Nex 5N on my Wookong-M hex. This is the first time I've put the camera in the air and only the second time I've actually used it after it being delivered around 6:30 PM yesterday.

The 1080P 60FPS looks really nice on the computer screen but it does chew up disk space, I'm seeing roughly 200MB/minute so the 6 minutes or so of video I recorded came out to about 1.2GB. I ran that through Avid and crunched it down to a bit more reasonable WMV format @ 720P 60 FPS which came out around 237MB, a bit easier to upload. No post processing other than changing formats, I can see I still have some tuning to do on the gain for the camera mount, it's a little twitchy on the roll axis. I pretty much knew I'd have to do some adjusting, the Nex weighs a fair bit more than the GoPros I've been flying. Have to check the programming of both the servos too, the tilt has a little jitter in it, probably have to tweak the deadband to fix that.

Otherwise I'm really pleased with the result, the WKM is getting really close on its gain settings and the old AV130 with Hyperion servos I have hanging under it is producing the best results I've ever gotten from it. I'm a bit torn between trying to get it working 100% vs. buying another new one for this frame. The other option is to swap the newer one from the Droidworx AD6 to the WKM and use the Mk with this old mount as a backup, never thought I'd be considering doing that a month ago!

Another day or two of fine tuning and I think I'll have it where I want it, or at least as good as its ever going to get with this particular mount, here's the video from the first flight...

Ken

 

[Borneoben]

Looking good Ken

Are you happy with the wookoong in the wind yet?

Cheers
Ben

 

[Droider]

Ken did you fix the aperture or fly it in auto looking I am guessing just Auto. Looking good buddy.. I need to learn more about servos! Guess you scrapped the Y6 then idea then?
Dave

 

[Macsgrafs]

That would look great when its run through deshaker, could easily convert it down to 1280x720 after. Nicely done Ken.

Ross

 

[Gunter]

Ken, that does look good. Did you have the camera servos plugged into the WKM for roll compensation?

 

[RTRyder]

Looking good Ken

Are you happy with the wookoong in the wind yet?

Cheers
Ben

Not yet but getting there. In a way its almost like doing PID tuning on an MK only its called gain settings and they're no where near as complex and non-intuitive as the MK setup is.

Ken did you fix the aperture or fly it in auto looking I am guessing just Auto. Looking good buddy.. I need to learn more about servos! Guess you scrapped the Y6 then idea then?
Dave

For that vid I pretty much took the 5N out of the box, charged the batt, put a mem card in, and bolted it to the mount. Yes, auto mode with the 18-55mm lens, I have a 16mm wide angle as well. Its so humid here I had to let the WKM sit on the ground for a few minutes while the lens acclimated outside and stopped fogging up. The servos on the old AV130 are programmable and when the roll servo let the magic smoke out I bought two new servos along with the programmer so I have a bit more control over how they operate. Funny that settings that work really well for the GoPro don't work for the 5N and what works for the 5N doesn't quite work for the GoPro. It even makes a difference with the lens I'm using on the 5N! I'm thinking life might be easier if I just swap back to the new AV130 on the WKM, it isn't nearly as touchy to setup as the old one is.

Haven't completely given up on the Y6 yet, need to fully understand the tuning of the WKM before adding the complexity of coaxial motors to the mix. It did fly well, the flat hex was mainly to see the difference, if any, between the two. The flat hex seems a bit steadier and a little less sensitive to parameter changes, otherwise not a lot of difference. I do like the way the Y6 looks, different and more exotic than a standard multi, at some point I will probably convert it back.

Ken, that does look good. Did you have the camera servos plugged into the WKM for roll compensation?

Yes, I did replace the roll servo and both were working for the 5N vid. Have, or had I should say, the gain setting for the gimbal roll axis too high and it got real twitchy once off the ground, lowering the gain slows the response down and gets rid of a lot of the side to side motion. I need to experiment with all the cams I'll be flying on it and note what settings work best with each, I'm finding the weight of the camera makes a big difference in the settings needed to keep the platform still.

Ken