Phobotic Centerpiece Brushless Gimbal Controller

Cameraj

Member
How do you setup the tilt on the cp board, thanks so much, I have know idea how to plug that in or how people are setting it up
 


Av8Chuck

Member
When I first looked at the footage, I was pretty happy with the horizon. After horizontal peeping with lines drawn, I was a little less happy. Then I though about "horizontal peeping", how picky should we be? What does the Movi do? So spent 30 minutes this morning going through vimeo Movi showreels and footage, grabbing frames and drawing lines.

Found a few that had great horizon throughout, however, found many videos where horizon is out abit here and there. Some of the showreels may or may not have edited out bad horizon shots. I don't know any one with a Movi, so can't ask them.

Anyway, I saw enough horizons being off on parts of their clips on the Movi m5 and m10 clips. (prob about 80% were off, best guess, of which many were hand held which I think is a little less stressful on the gimbal). Movi isn't spot on all the time either.

While not perfect, I feel like I'm making good progress with the Centerpiece after just 3 days. Maybe some extra tuning will tighten the horizon up a bit. See no reason at this point to put my old controller back up. Definitely a step up.


Obviously we want as level a horizon as possible but that's not the only, or even the best measure of how well a gimbal performs. The lens you use can have a significant effect on how the horizon is perceived. I see a lot of people complaining about the horizon and they're using a GoPro. The gimbal might be perfectly level to the horizon but any change in the tilt will have an effect on the perception of how level the horizon is.

There were times I loved my AMOS controller and times I hated it, not because of how level it kept the horizon but because how inconsistent it was. If a gimbal is easy and quick to deploy, has smooth transitions, easy to change lenses and move from aerial to handheld and above all consistent I can figure out how to use it successfully even if the horizon isn't always perfect.

The key for me is can I take five of these, set them up and have them working consistently in a day? The answer I came away with for the AMOS board was no. I have yet to setup my first CP board so I can't begin to answer that question yet.
 

eirlink

Member
Ive a short video here which i made to show you all how the CP gimbal controller performs during a torture test i put it through...
the footage speaks for itself. this is straight from the SD card.
enjoy !

Gimbal is a Walkera G3-3D, with gopro 3 black fitted. I threw away the stock walkera controller and fitted the CP.
To put things in perspective i mounted a keychain cam on the frame .

 
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Motopreserve

Drone Enthusiast
Ive a short video here which i made to show you all how the CP gimbal controller performs during a torture test i put it through...
the footage speaks for itself. this is straight from the SD card.
enjoy !


This test is worthless because you decided to adhere to universal physics, obviously not confident enough to put the quad/gimbal/controller through the Star Trek transporter to see if the horizon would drift upon cellular reorganization on the other end. How are we supposed to know how this controller works in deep space if every video is only showing how it handles "tweaked, above and beyond" style flight characteristics, and not how it handles super-duper tweaked, above and beyond flight characteristics???.....


oh wait, wrong forum :)
 

Av8Chuck

Member
This test is worthless because you decided to adhere to universal physics, obviously not confident enough to put the quad/gimbal/controller through the Star Trek transporter to see if the horizon would drift upon cellular reorganization on the other end. How are we supposed to know how this controller works in deep space if every video is only showing how it handles "tweaked, above and beyond" style flight characteristics, and not how it handles super-duper tweaked, above and beyond flight characteristics???.....


oh wait, wrong forum :)


Maybe not the wrong forum. I think the test was beamed aboard 'cause I can't find it...
 


WayneMann

Member
If you want to test a gimbal board to see how well it handles horizon issues there are two things that you can do that will tell you everything that you need to know. First off you need the camera pointing at something with a flat horizon, not hovering behind a big bushy tree in a hilly countryside setting. With the camera looking straight ahead while hovering at twenty feet off the ground take off flying sideways, camera sideways, at a fast pace. The horizon is most likely going to roll off quite a bit in the beginning during the hard acceleration. The second test is to fly, the camera, straight ahead at 20 to 25 mph and then start climbing and turning the multirotor in a banked turn type of turn and when you start the banked turn start panning the camera in the same direction. Those two tests will tell you exactly how bad your controller is at maintaining a level horizon during typical filming maneuvers. I can tell you that my Ronin sucks in these two tests. My Alexmos Boards are very good in these tests, but they still have more horizon issues than I would like. But if it makes you feel any better the $650,000 Cineflex V14 sucks at these tests as well and if they have issues with this given the fact that they are using military spec gyros and accelerometers, then we have no chance with the technology that we have available to us.


Wayne Mann
www.HeliCamHDmedia.com
 

jfro

Aerial Fun
I hesitate to post this, but it's only 60 seconds. Pretty boring. I was going to fly my GH3 at my sisters lake cottage. Not much land and a large bluff behind her. Pretty windy, but I thought I'd give it a try on the little yard she has, but more hesitant over water. Took MR up and let it hoover and fly a little back and forth (hard to tell on water). Air is usually more turbulent on shore, so I thought I'd glide to the front and side of her lake lot. Gust got me and decided it wasn't worth it so I landed.

It's 60 seconds of my MR bouncing around just a tad in the beginning and pretty crazy at the end. Not much in the way of flying, just gliding and hanging in the wind. Video is pretty enough for me!

 
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If you want to test a gimbal board to see how well it handles horizon issues there are two things that you can do that will tell you everything that you need to know. First off you need the camera pointing at something with a flat horizon, not hovering behind a big bushy tree in a hilly countryside setting. With the camera looking straight ahead while hovering at twenty feet off the ground take off flying sideways, camera sideways, at a fast pace. The horizon is most likely going to roll off quite a bit in the beginning during the hard acceleration. The second test is to fly, the camera, straight ahead at 20 to 25 mph and then start climbing and turning the multirotor in a banked turn type of turn and when you start the banked turn start panning the camera in the same direction. Those two tests will tell you exactly how bad your controller is at maintaining a level horizon during typical filming maneuvers. I can tell you that my Ronin sucks in these two tests. My Alexmos Boards are very good in these tests, but they still have more horizon issues than I would like. But if it makes you feel any better the $650,000 Cineflex V14 sucks at these tests as well and if they have issues with this given the fact that they are using military spec gyros and accelerometers, then we have no chance with the technology that we have available to us.


Wayne Mann
www.HeliCamHDmedia.com

Agreed with Wayne. These are the only indicative tests, preferably around a body of water. We can, and will, tune the IMU far more aggressively to hold horizon, we just need to see how it does for everyone first.
Also, any horizon problems we had so far were static, meaning the IMU installation was crooked, the calibration bad or any other bug preventing the roll (mainly) from fully leveling. These were not a result of gyro drift.
 
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I hesitate to post this, but it's only 60 seconds. Pretty boring. I was going to fly my GH3 at my sisters lake cottage. Not much land and a large bluff behind her. Pretty windy, but I thought I'd give it a try on the little yard she has, but more hesitant over water. Took MR up and let it hoover and fly a little back and forth (hard to tell on water). Air is usually more turbulent on shore, so I thought I'd glide to the front and side of her lake lot. Gust got me and decided it wasn't worth it so I landed.

It's 60 seconds of my MR bouncing around just a tad in the beginning and pretty crazy at the end. Not much in the way of flying, just gliding and hanging in the wind. Video is pretty enough for me!


Jim, what the hell did you just post here? ;) Unless I'm not looking straight, this video seems pixel perfect under these conditions? Did I miss anything? I honestly thought the MR was resting on the ground up until you yawed.
Nice :)
 
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jfro

Aerial Fun
Look forward to firmware updates. Yesterday, I did the motor_calib and threw my settings off as I'd spent alot of time in follow mode tweaking. You suggested I do motor calib but I didn't know how to do it till yesterday.

Anyway, it messed up my settings, so today, I redid the auto tune and got 1 quick flight in. Didn't touch anything. Got one flight in, my pitch worked & everything looked good even though it was a bit dark out. Excited about getting some flying time in later in the week.

The 60 seconds I posted wasn't much flying but some bouncing around in the wind which I thought peeps might like to see some stability in the video. Just didn't feel like being over the water and there is no land to fly where I was. I sort of posted it for the ending plus the plane crossing over.

I'm really liking your controller. Keep the firmware updates coming.
 

SamaraMedia

Active Member
That's pretty friggin' sweet! Nice work jfro and SamurAchzar! Looking forward to getting one for myself once I get a mid-sized gimbal for my hex...
 

jdennings

Member
Jim, what the hell did you just post here? ;) Unless I'm not looking straight, this video seems pixel perfect under these conditions? Did I miss anything? I honestly thought the MR was resting on the ground up until you yawed.
Nice :)

There's some horizon shifting at 0:37 ...
(And AM, Zenmuse and Movi would have never done that.)

Oh but wait ... wrong forum! :)

Impressive!
Cheers
 
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jfro

Aerial Fun
There's some horizon shifting at 0:37 ...
(And AM, Zenmuse and Movi would have never done that.)

Oh but wait ... wrong forum! :)

Impressive!
Cheers

Yes, there is some horizon shifting. However, I'm happy with it so far as it's solid IMO. Yesterday, I spent 40 minutes on Vimeo checking out Movi m5 and m10 horizons. Just looked at footage with a full horizon at waters edge. Lots of handheld and some aerial. Guess what, they are not always straight either.

Not sure if there is anything out there that is perfect. Pixel peeping and now horizon peeping is for the 1%. I'm not looking for perfection, just looking for damn good and so far, this fits the bill for me. I've 3- 8 bit alexmos boards and 2-32bit boards. If it means anything to you, this is on my #1 rig with my best cameras and it's staying. I most certainly will be doing more flying and less tuning going forward. All that's left is to see if this is consistent in winter and summer and can stand a little abuse. I've no doubt that firmware upgrades with more features will be coming soon, but in the meantime, I'm good to go right now for the basics.

Can't image the abuse I'd take on the other forum. They are still at it.
 

jfro

Aerial Fun
Hi guys,
I'm on the road but had the chance to sit down with Roee from Phobotic this afternoon. We chatted for almost forty minutes and GOT THE WHOLE EXCHANGE ON VIDEO! I'll post it tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon after I've had a chance to upload it to youtube. We had a nice chat and covered a lot of ground. I think you'll find it both interesting and reassuring. I did a quick look at the footage and there's some scenery in there that we didn't exactly plan for!
Bart

Did you post yet?
 

Old Man

Active Member
That was a solid 20-25mph worth of wind, with larger gusts. If one watches the wind wave directions change they can gauge the movement of the copter.
 

Cameraj

Member
Can anyone share on how to plug in the tilt to a knob from my futaba radio , I'm using a one radio setup,
Can't find a wiring diagram,
Thanks
 

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