Photohigher skyline rsgs
- Thread starter 1001 Copters
- Start date
nicwilke
Active Member
Hi Wayne, it fixes the jitter, and sets the skyline up to work with dummy pots and new harness configuration.
photohigher-b
Brendon
Is there any particular axis that is responsible?
Here's some things to try:
Adjusting the center tune values can make a big difference here is how I would go about tuning the roll center tune value.
1. Turn the roll velocity and integral gains to zero.
2. While the gimbal is on remember what position the roll is at. Slowly turn down the roll position gain, if it moves away from it's start position adjust the roll center tune to bring it back.
3. Turn the roll gain down to zero if the roll is moving adjust the roll center tune to make it stop. It doesn't matter what position it is in as long as it's not moving.
4. Now increase the center tune until the roll starts moving. Record this number.
5. Decrease the center tune until the roll moves in the opposite direction. Record this number.
6. Set your gains back to normal.
7. Adjust the roll center tune between the two recorded values until the gimbal behaves ideally.
Make sure your speed gains aren't too high. Above 100 they seem to add some vibration.
Brendon
photohigher-b
Brendon
This software is just 2.2 with firmware 1.2.2. The zip files seem to have a way of renaming themselves.
The mismatch between the software numbers is my fault, all these number are getting away on me. The next version I'll make sure all the version numbers match.
Brian Courtice
Member
I still need some help figuring out how to supply power to my Skyline. I will NOT be using a 2nd rx for the gimbal. I will be using a Castle 10A BEC to supply 6V to my skyline. My rx will be powered by my Naza, so my Skyline will not be powered through the rx.
Since I will not be using pan, I have three extra leads coming out of my Skyline. (Pan Input, Pan Servo, and Roll Pot.) I'd like to connect my BEC to one of these leads. Does it make any difference which one I use? The Roll Pot lead seems to make the most sense, since it has already been modified as a two wire lead for use as a pan on/off switch.
Some of you guys must be flying with a single rx. How are you providing power to your Skyline? Thanks in advance!
Since I will not be using pan, I have three extra leads coming out of my Skyline. (Pan Input, Pan Servo, and Roll Pot.) I'd like to connect my BEC to one of these leads. Does it make any difference which one I use? The Roll Pot lead seems to make the most sense, since it has already been modified as a two wire lead for use as a pan on/off switch.
Some of you guys must be flying with a single rx. How are you providing power to your Skyline? Thanks in advance!
Brian Courtice
Member
Another solution to my power issue has occured to me!
Could I feed the skyline with power from my receiver (which has 5v power coming from my Naza), and feed the servos with the 6v from my Castle BEC. I'd make a loom to feed power only (with no signal) to the two servos , and then send signal only (with no power) from the Skyline to the servos.
All of my electronics are coming from a common ground provided by my power distribution board.
This should be a better solution, because now I could even up the voltage feeding into the servos, and not worry about over powering the Skyline.
Could I feed the skyline with power from my receiver (which has 5v power coming from my Naza), and feed the servos with the 6v from my Castle BEC. I'd make a loom to feed power only (with no signal) to the two servos , and then send signal only (with no power) from the Skyline to the servos.
All of my electronics are coming from a common ground provided by my power distribution board.
This should be a better solution, because now I could even up the voltage feeding into the servos, and not worry about over powering the Skyline.
nicwilke
Active Member
This is the best way, and what I've done. I use 2x uBEC's on the 2 spare contacts on my droidworx PDB, and one powers the Rx, the other powers the skyline and servos. I have a switch soldered in for quick reset of the skyline (in case it trips over like it has a few times on start up) and it works fine. This has eliminated the use of 2x 6v batteries and contributes to a leaner AUW. Because I have a gimbal quickmount, Ive got a servo plug mid way to yank off when removing. Works great, thats what you should do with the Naza Brian, its a good idea you have.
photohigher-b
Brendon
The best solution is to power the skyline and servos from your Castle BEC through the Pan Servo lead. The aux(roll pot) and pan input can't be used for power.
Disconnect the red center wire from the Roll and Tilt Input leads. Remove the pin fold it back and put some heatshrink over it to keep it safe.
In general you should never power non-essential equipment from the flight controller.
Brian Courtice
Member
Thanks "b" ! I've been staring at my machine for days trying to decide what to do.
Nicwilke; In my case, my rx gets regulated power from the Naza, which gets its power from my PDB. The Naza essentially has it's own built in BEC, so I think another one might be redundant? I am not a wiz when it comes to electrical circuits, I'm trying to figure this stuff out as I go along.
I'll go with b's recommendation, since it comes straight from photohigher. Just so I understand, why might it be a bad idea to put the Skyline downline from my FC? Might the Skyline somehow interfere with the FC?
Nicwilke; In my case, my rx gets regulated power from the Naza, which gets its power from my PDB. The Naza essentially has it's own built in BEC, so I think another one might be redundant? I am not a wiz when it comes to electrical circuits, I'm trying to figure this stuff out as I go along.
I'll go with b's recommendation, since it comes straight from photohigher. Just so I understand, why might it be a bad idea to put the Skyline downline from my FC? Might the Skyline somehow interfere with the FC?
Last edited by a moderator:
nicwilke
Active Member
Just to clarify, I was only saying what I'd done. Some people power their servos from the same source as their Rx and FC, and when the servos suck up some amps, it can cause a brown out. You're on the money with powering the Rx with the naza, just dont power the servos with it. The Skyline isnt big on thirst either, so should be safe to power it also from the Naza, but since you've got the Castle BEC, may as well use that.
Brian Courtice
Member
Thanks Nicwilke. I do like the idea of powering the Skyline through the FC, mostly so that I'd have the option of feeding higher voltage to the servos. I played it safe, and fed the Skyline and the servos through the Castle BEC, using the Skyline pan servo lead as Photohigher-b reccomended. It's working well.
Brian Courtice
Member
Av-130 with Skyline RSGS video test.
My camera focused on the box in the foreground when I turned the camera on. The result was slightly blurry video, but you can see that my Skyline appears to be working well!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z781ykmEKw8&feature=youtu.be
My camera focused on the box in the foreground when I turned the camera on. The result was slightly blurry video, but you can see that my Skyline appears to be working well!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z781ykmEKw8&feature=youtu.be
Brian Courtice
Member
A note about my experiences setting up my Skyline:
At first I tried to setup my Skyline by removing the servo belt and roll gear, and attempted to adjust the servo centering manually. I got the servos to stop turning, but the tilt servo was reversed. After reversing the servo, I couldn't seem to get the tilt servo to stop spinning. I adjusted the value up to +/- 1500, with no effect on the servo spinning.
Frustrated, I re-attached the servos to the tilt belt and gears, and decided to try an auto tune. I followed the manual, and set my xy and z settings, and then started the auto tune. At first this didn't work, because my landing gear is too short to allow the camera tray to rotate backwards 90 degrees.
I used some books to raise my copter off of the table with the gimbal hanging between the books. (I did carefully measure to make sure my frame was level after raising it.) I re-set the xy and z settings, and clicked on auto tune again. Success! The auto tune ran perfectly, and the gimbal is running great.
So far, I haven't adjusted the gains away from the stock values. (150 for tilt and roll, and 100 for velocity.) The servos seem to stop and start nicely, and the gimbal operation is nice and smooth.
The real test will be an airborne video. I should have my machine flying in the next day or two.
At first I tried to setup my Skyline by removing the servo belt and roll gear, and attempted to adjust the servo centering manually. I got the servos to stop turning, but the tilt servo was reversed. After reversing the servo, I couldn't seem to get the tilt servo to stop spinning. I adjusted the value up to +/- 1500, with no effect on the servo spinning.
Frustrated, I re-attached the servos to the tilt belt and gears, and decided to try an auto tune. I followed the manual, and set my xy and z settings, and then started the auto tune. At first this didn't work, because my landing gear is too short to allow the camera tray to rotate backwards 90 degrees.
I used some books to raise my copter off of the table with the gimbal hanging between the books. (I did carefully measure to make sure my frame was level after raising it.) I re-set the xy and z settings, and clicked on auto tune again. Success! The auto tune ran perfectly, and the gimbal is running great.
So far, I haven't adjusted the gains away from the stock values. (150 for tilt and roll, and 100 for velocity.) The servos seem to stop and start nicely, and the gimbal operation is nice and smooth.
The real test will be an airborne video. I should have my machine flying in the next day or two.
Here's a good illustration of the RSGS working. This was a test flight I did with the new GoPro Hero3 in 1440/48fps mode on my Cinestar 6 with AV130 and RSGS. The wide view of the Hero3 puts a large part of the frame in view so you can really see how much the frame is moving vs. the camera platform. I made no changes to the RSGS setup swapping from the Sony Nex 5N to the GoPro and I was really surprised that it doesn't seem to care about the weight difference, looks to me like it maybe works even a little better with the lighter camera mounted.
Here's the 1440 res video...
At the same time I did a flight with he exact same setup only this time using 1080p 60fps setting on the Hero 3 and medium view setting, very smooth pans but not quite as stunning as the 1440 when viewing the original file on a 22 inch monitor, still blows away the older GoPro in resolution, color management, and light metering. One thing you can see at the start of this vid is the servos are twitching with it sitting on the ground, something this gimbal has always done RSGS or not, have yet to figure out why that is. Before the RSGS being added it was a traditional setup with external pots stabilized via the Wookong-M controller with power provided by a CC BEC Pro. Power still comes from the same CC BEC but now the stabilization is through the RSGS and it still has that servo wandering when sitting still, doesn't seem to effect anything once in the air or maybe the active stabilization masks it?. Maybe a problem with noise from the CC BEC? Anyway it's a little annoying but I don't think it's causing any problems in flight, still would like to get to the root of it and make it go away.
Ken
Here's the 1440 res video...
At the same time I did a flight with he exact same setup only this time using 1080p 60fps setting on the Hero 3 and medium view setting, very smooth pans but not quite as stunning as the 1440 when viewing the original file on a 22 inch monitor, still blows away the older GoPro in resolution, color management, and light metering. One thing you can see at the start of this vid is the servos are twitching with it sitting on the ground, something this gimbal has always done RSGS or not, have yet to figure out why that is. Before the RSGS being added it was a traditional setup with external pots stabilized via the Wookong-M controller with power provided by a CC BEC Pro. Power still comes from the same CC BEC but now the stabilization is through the RSGS and it still has that servo wandering when sitting still, doesn't seem to effect anything once in the air or maybe the active stabilization masks it?. Maybe a problem with noise from the CC BEC? Anyway it's a little annoying but I don't think it's causing any problems in flight, still would like to get to the root of it and make it go away.
Ken
Last edited by a moderator:
Brian Courtice
Member
Very nice! If my setup is that stable in the air, I'll be a happy customer.
Having watched quite a few aerial videos, I've noticed a few things. When watching forward flight, one feels a sense of speed and exhilaration. Panning (and I mean turning while horizontal, not moving laterally) will make you feel an almost nauseating vertigo, unless it happens very slowly. The sense of vertigo tends to increase the closer you are to the ground.
Is your tilt on a switch? I noticed the camera was tilting very quickly. Slow and gradual tilt would look a lot better. Maybe slew mode for tilt would help.
Having watched quite a few aerial videos, I've noticed a few things. When watching forward flight, one feels a sense of speed and exhilaration. Panning (and I mean turning while horizontal, not moving laterally) will make you feel an almost nauseating vertigo, unless it happens very slowly. The sense of vertigo tends to increase the closer you are to the ground.
Is your tilt on a switch? I noticed the camera was tilting very quickly. Slow and gradual tilt would look a lot better. Maybe slew mode for tilt would help.
Oh I would soooo love to be able to use slew mode, but we cannot use it without a second camera operator.
If you put Tilt on a slider or a pot it will constantly move from one position to the end of the other.
for example, the operator cannot have tilt on a slider and and tilt to 45 degrees and stop. It will continue to slowly move to the 90 degree end point.
quite frustrating all in all , hopefully the next software version can address this as slew mode makes for some nice moves but needs a second radio to
use it. Of course it will do level to straight down if that is what one wants or 90 to level but nothing in between.
Maybe one day??? who knows. Of course maybe I am not setting up right but this is what I found in my tests.
If you put Tilt on a slider or a pot it will constantly move from one position to the end of the other.
for example, the operator cannot have tilt on a slider and and tilt to 45 degrees and stop. It will continue to slowly move to the 90 degree end point.
quite frustrating all in all , hopefully the next software version can address this as slew mode makes for some nice moves but needs a second radio to
use it. Of course it will do level to straight down if that is what one wants or 90 to level but nothing in between.
Maybe one day??? who knows. Of course maybe I am not setting up right but this is what I found in my tests.
Brian Courtice
Member
That's not good news for me. I plan to do a lot of still photos, and will need to tilt the camera to frame my shots. I was planning to put the camera tilt on a slider. I haven't hooked it up or tried it yet.
I have the tilt setup on a slider. In this case I wanted to get a straight down view and then go back to forward facing, I can stop it anywhere in between. The reason its so fast is I have the setup dialed in for a Nex 5N with the 18 - 55 kit lens, the GoPro Hero3 even with the plastic case is considerably lighter. After looking at the video I was a little surprised to see how fast it went from one position to the other, it doesn't move that fast with the Nex on it!
At some point when I have nothing better to do I'll try tuning the RSGS for a GoPro setup so it's not quite so crazy fast on tilt. It would be nice if the RSGS software had an option to save a setup configuration so once you get a particular combo dialed in you can save it for future reference rather than having to write down the settings and re-enter them if you change over to another camera and change the setup. Even better would to be able to store more than one config in the Skyline and be able to toggle between the saved configs with a TX switch...
Ken
You can hook it up on a slider for tilt, take it out of slew mode and it will hold position BUT!!!!!!!!
be very careful when you power up. You need to make sure your radio is on, power your Copter/or really the receiver ( that you are operating tilt with)on the copter BEFORE you power up the skyline.
What happens is if you power the skyline before the receiver ( or your radio is off) it will go to the halfway point (45 degree angle/ NON Slew mode) and bang your lens into the ground.
Hang the copter when you are setting things up to avoid damage.
with mine it still sometimes will go to the 45 degree angle when first powered until I move the slider back and forth than all is good after that so I always make sure i have space under the camera just in case. Pretty annoying all in all but that's how mine works...
Last edited by a moderator: