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Converting my CS gimbal to a brushless gimbal

Discussion in 'Camera Mount Misc' started by Bill Collydas, Apr 14, 2013.

  1. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Dave:
    If I understand you correctly, then the Hole can be clamped to a 25mm CF tube that forms the handlebars using two standard boom clamps. You will need longer than normal M3 bolts just to accommodate the extra thickness of the plate on the hole.

    Andy.
     
  2. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    Andy

    Thanks.

    Anyone with a toad/hole know if there's an easy way to remove the bolts in the hole? It looks to me there's no easy way to do because the heads of the bolts won't clear the flange of the hole. I think the hole would need to be taken apart? The hole doesn't look easy to disassemble.
     
  3. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    I noticed that. I figured you'd have to undo the threaded bolt that's part of the lever clamp, then pry apart the clamp so that it's diameter became larger than the flange, slide it off, and then the threaded bolts would come out. FF must've got them in there somehow! :)

    Andy.
     
  4. Matt Sharp

    Matt Sharp Member

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    It's pretty simple. Once you remove the screw in the cam lever, you can slightly spread the ring by hand to remove it. You then get full access to swap the bolts.

    I was in a similar situation to you with wires running through the landing gear tubes. I did a bit of planning and rearranging so I can switch between aerial and handheld much more easily. I just had to bite the bullet and rebuild/rewire.
     
  5. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    OMG. I was right.
    This time. :)

    Andy.
     
  6. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    Does anyone know what this bolt spacing is? I"m curious to know if its a 4 bolt 25X25 pattern that I could bolt the toad in a hole directly too.

    Img_2021.jpg
     
  7. Urs Clement

    Urs Clement Member

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    25mm boom clamp on both sides, so it is 32x32mm...
     
  8. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    Thanks, I thought it might be a larger bolt pattern. I'll need to make a custom adapter plate.
     
  9. Josh Haywood

    Josh Haywood New Member

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    Hey Guys,

    I have an interesting one here.

    I have the gimbal balanced and tuned running perfectly. However anyone know why this is happening.

    If I plug the gimbal in then plug usb in, connect it to the app then click (Motors on/off) the gimbal powers up perfect and centers its self.

    If I set my mode switch to do this on the remote pos 1 - off, pos 2 - on. As soon as I switch it on the gimbal holds its current angle and will not center. Looking at the app on the computer I can see that the red dot has set its self to the angle it was at when I flicked the switch.

    I'm using SBGC 2.41 b5 (app) firmware is 2.41 b4
     
  10. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    I'm planning on using my existing DYI gimbal with GR85's for my Canon 5D and plan on making a new gimbal for my Red camera.
    Few questions for the brain trust here.
    1. Has anyone tried the 8017's for roll and tilt? or GB10 for pan? I've heard from a few sources that the 8017's have even more torque than the GR85's. Has anyone tried the new GB90's?
    2. Anyone try the pro aluminum roll bar? http://brushlessgimbals.com/p/8772063/pro-aluminum-roll-bar.html
    3. Anyone running the 32 bit Alexmos board? Or a dual IMU sensor setup?
    4. I heard the new software in conjunction with the new board has auto tune. Has anyone run this?
     
  11. Urs Clement

    Urs Clement Member

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    Dear Dave,

    A friend of mine has a Handheld gimbal with 8017 on all 3 axis. He uses it for his Scarlet and it works good (Full-Aluminium Frame, 32bit Controller but with only 1 IMU)
    I've built a Gimbal (similar to the AerialFlex10) with GB85 on Roll&Tilt, and GB100 on Pan. It worked good for my BMPC4k (~2.3kg with lens) but unfortunately my drone crashed due to DJI's "Impossibly precise new FC" -> A2 on V2.2. Unfortunately i was a guinea pig for DJI and my K130, Gimbal and Camera is rubbish now.
    On the mentioned gimbal I used the Pro aluminium roll bar and also the aluminium part between Roll motor and "pan-frame" (i don't know how to call this :) ) It worked perfect for my camera, but I got reminded that the boom clamp on this part - which i don't know how to call it - may be to weak for heavy cameras such as RED. My BMPC4k & lens is lighter than your body only ;) But for shure the roll bar should work for you too, i really loved it, it was much better for balancing and i've got less vibrations. I suggest it to you, what i have experienced is that carbon framed gimbal may work for "lighter" cameras, but if you want to carry a RED with cine prime in my opinion the Carbon tube and boom clamp system doesn't provide the needed stiffness anymore. That's why i suggest you to - whereever its possible - replace all carbon tubes with aluminium parts ;)

    I used the 32bit controller with dual IMU on my aerial gimbal. To be honest i thought there would be a bigger improvement using the frame IMU, but it worked for me. Was a bit of a pain while PID setup, but now with Auto-Tune...? Haven't tried it yet but maybe the new firmware supports the dual IMU setup better.

    What i want to say to you too is: my gimbal inclusive quick release, SDI-Hdmi/Hdmi-AV converter, controllers, bec, gimbal lipo, arduino-LANC etc. was about 2500-3000$ in raw material costs and the weight at the end inclusive the camera (2.3kg) was just slightly below 6kg! It was heavy. Not a problem for my (crashed) K130, but for this money and with this weight today i would simply pre-order a DJI Ronin (especially for handheld). I know many here (especially Movi-Owners) are Ronin-Haters because of the weight, but in my opinion for a 8kg camera Rig I'm happy to have a 4kg, massive, perfect stiff gimbal which can REALLY carry a RED with lots of equipment without going crazy because the carbon tubes vibrate while running... And in my opinion, they're just hating the Ronin because they paid 5x as much ;)
    But even for a aerial gimbal it wouldn't have been (much) heavier than my own build. And for the price of a M10 I could buy a Ronin and even two K130's with a U7 motor setup etc.... ;)

    But that's just my opinion, maybe you should listen to some others too ;)
    I'm sorry i can't even give you some footages of my crashed gimbal, but i hope this infos help you in some ways.

    Cheers
     
  12. Ryan McCrae

    Ryan McCrae Member

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    Hi Dave, I recenlty upgradeed to the alloy roll bar, from famous hobby. I had to make an adapter plate because I'm running the 5108 motors. Its only for a GH3. I also upgraded to the 32bit with dual IMU.
    The roll bar makes balancing so much easier.
    I had always struggled with wobbles on my horizon and couldn't get rid of them with the old set up. Did my first test flight today, in gusty 30km winds. My footage was better than i managed to get on a dead calm day with the 8 bit board.
    I also found the 32bit easier to tune.
     
  13. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    Thanks URS and Ryan.
     
  14. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    Question for all you Alexmos users. How do you have the follow settings setup? I want the camera gimbal to follow the copters exact moves. I have been using follow yaw but there seems to be a slight delay in how it follows it and it seems like its a soft transition as well. With the old Cinestar 3 axis radian gimbal the camera would follow the exact movement like it was bolted directly to the copter if it was a 2 axis gimbal. Does anyone use anything different than follow yaw? Or if you use follow yaw is there a way to improve the response? I am using a very large pan motor that has tons of torque so I know the issue isn't the motor and its not loosing grip.
     
  15. Gary McCready

    Gary McCready Active Member

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    Dave: I increased the Yaw follow speed to about 30, but it is still "soft".

    I've been following this thread for quite awhile, so thought I'd try to contribute with my "discount gimbal" build video.
    FYI: RCTimer Legacy 3-axis gimbal with Alexmos 32-bit ($590 w controller)> build and wiring. Compared to Cinestar 2-axis gimbal, mounting a Canon t2i

    Used the latest firmware (2.42b6) with Autotune and got alot higher PID values than the ones I came up with fiddling all afternoon. I ran Autotune 3 times and it came up with very similar values. Have not flown it yet, need to extend my landing gear about 9 cm.

    The PID and actual Cinestar mounting starts at about 23.50 min.
     
  16. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    Gary I think I figured it out. In the follow settings is a dead band setting. Mine is set to 5 degrees. SO the gimbal is not rotating or "following" the frame with any frame movements of up to 5 degrees. I think this is a feature for hand held users.
     
  17. Ryan McCrae

    Ryan McCrae Member

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    Are PIDs different for the follow mode?
     
  18. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    I don't see any where in the software that changes the PID in follow mode.
     
  19. Ryan McCrae

    Ryan McCrae Member

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    I was just meaning since you assign it to a profile, maybe changes are needed other than setting it to follow mode.
    I tried it along time ago and didn't have any luck but my pids were probably way off back then. Il give it another go in the next few weeks.
     
  20. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    OK I tested the gimbal and dropping the deadband down to 0 solved the problem. No change in PID was needed for my gimbal.
     

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