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C300 mounting

Discussion in 'Radian' started by Colin, Dec 18, 2012.

  1. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Hi Gary. Thanks for the advice. Yeah it does take a lot of testing! I'll try doing the same series of flights tomorrow isolating different elements like you suggest. I'll get back to you tomorrow with the results for your opinions!
     
  2. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Hi Colin. Yeah I got Mercalli a couple of months ago. Well worth the money! Be interested to hear how it goes with the 15x6's. You probably have your own methods already but I just started using lead tape (the kind people use to balance golf clubs) to balance the hubs. Works great and a lot quicker than building up layers of nail varnish like I was doing before!
     
  3. Howard Dapp

    Howard Dapp Active Member

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    Wow, the most amazing statement I've read yet. Just reading through this thread and couldn't help but stop and comment on that. I would also suggest not use any aids such as AH or GPS when flying, especially for video...they're not needed, unnecessary and sometimes cause more problems than any good...from my experience at least. I feel more secure trusting my own flying abilities than an inconsistent and unreliable autopilot system.

    I hope that by the time I'm done reading through this thread these problems have been solved.
     
  4. Brad McGiveron

    Brad McGiveron Active Member

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    hehe Howard... I was being a little dramatic there but it is kind of true. It ( racing ) parallels very closely as far as technology advancement goes and a constant strive for improvements.
    By mid next year a good lot of us will be using direct drive gimbals or conversions of some sort. And to think when autopilot gets good enough to use in a motion control application on set with a little noise cancellation technology into the props...lookout.
    Goodbye cranes/jibs/dollies.

    good luck with turnkey and that amount of tech.
     
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  5. Howard Dapp

    Howard Dapp Active Member

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    Welp...Sorry to see that they have not.

    Those shakes look a lot like bad tuning being amplified by the gimbal. Another test to try is recording from a hard mounted GoPro on the center hub of the heli or somewhere near the hub...the heli should be fully loaded with 5D etc. This way you'll see what's really going on as far as vibrations and shakes without influence from any frame to gimbal gel/foam/o-ring dampening solution. If you have really bad motor/frame vibrations affecting your flight controller the GoPro will record it.

    Oh and try to record on the narrowest FOV.
     
  6. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Ok so I just got back from doing a couple more flight tests. Some interesting results. When flying without any power to the gimbal the footage is about 80% smoother. Can still see a small amount of vibrations but nothing much considering their was also a bit of wind. After seeing that I flew with the Radian gains at the standard amount i've been using for a while. I then put them all about 30% lower then all about 30% higher to see if anything made a difference. It's all pretty standard across the board with the same amount of shake. When the Radian gains were at their highest is was probably the worst as you'd expect. I'm a little bit stumped now though. Most of the shake is obviously coming from the gimbal but lowering or upping the gains doesn't seem to make much difference at the moment. It obviously must be something to do with how the gimbal reacts from a small amount of heli shake as its much better with the gimbal off. Any ideas on how to move forward would be great. One main change on the horizon is changing the adapter plate to the Allied Drones 'Echo' which should hopefully help a bit but obviously my settings need tweaking too. At my current Radian settings all seems smooth on the ground and in pan/tilt/roll movements in the air but it is obviously also amplifying some vibrations as I get a lot of shake. My current settings are Pan 100%, Roll 95%, Tilt 100%.
     
  7. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Here's a video to illustrate!

     
  8. Howard Dapp

    Howard Dapp Active Member

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    Actually Brad, my reply to your statement should have been "the most realistic statement I've read" It was not dramatic at the slightest and very very true.
     
  9. Howard Dapp

    Howard Dapp Active Member

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    With stabilization off you would have had almost perfect performance, minus out of level horizon, if there were little to no wind. Can't figure out why the radians are reacting to so little frame disturbance, even after adjusting gains to upper and lower levels.
     
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  10. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Me neither! But thats the one thing i've gotta try and figure out!
     
  11. Brad McGiveron

    Brad McGiveron Active Member

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    Ya Ben that pretty much shows what I thought after seeing your footage from yesterday... the adapter between the heli and the gimbal isn't doing the job. It must be amplifying the Radians into oscillations.
    One thing is I would try to keep the Pan gain lower than the rest. I run roll 150 tilt 120 pan 80 and if I raise the pan much I get some shakes. Before you get the new adapter you should try 60 50 30 or something like that which is real low ( or did you already try ity that low). Just curious at what level the oscillations will stop.

    Anyways... clearly the adapter isn't up to code with you or Colin
     
  12. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    I'll try that out then Brad. At the lowest had the gains at 60,65,65. Didn't seem to help much at that level but i'll try going lower on the pan. Can't believe how much the radian is reacting to slight shakes though. Was pretty shocked when i saw the footage with no stabilisation on and it was so much better. Really hope the new adapter plate does its job well!
     
  13. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    Ben let's try to break it down further. I would try a flight with the Tilt turned off (pull the servo wire out of the Radian) testing just roll. Then do the same for your Roll Radian, only running tilt. From your video it almost looks like more of a Tilt jitter.

    But through the process of elimination we can help you narrow it down. Once we get a bit closer you may hear a suggestion of swapping the servos around to help eliminate a potential bad servo.

    Think of yourself as an investigator, like Inspector Jacques Clouseau :)
     
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  14. Brad McGiveron

    Brad McGiveron Active Member

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    hehe what Gary said!

    Looking again at the footage from today with the Radians on it looks like the tilt is what is having the issues. For kicks it might be worth doing another test with the radians on and removing each axis.
    I did this to find out which was problematic on one of my setups. First with all three, then roll and pan and finally just pan.

    btw... again what lens are you using here ? and you are using Freefly servos and not Savox correct?
     
  15. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Its a 16-35 canon. Fairly chunky. Was set at 28mm on these shoots. They're all freefly servo's yeah. It's raining today but i'll try and get out for a flight tomorrow, testing each axis individually and let you guys know the results. Really appreciate all the help. Been stuck without it so cheers!
     
  16. Brad McGiveron

    Brad McGiveron Active Member

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    Ya the 16-35 is making the tilt work twice as hard. If you can try a smaller prime that keeps the weight of the camera more centralized it might also yield some better results as far as the jitters. I use a 16-35 once and a while and it causes more shakes if there are any.
     
  17. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Yeah its a bit of a beast. Had pretty good results before with a borrowed 24-105 IS lens. Gonna stop using the 16-35. Gonna try a completely different camera too. Maybe an FS100. Was looking at the current adapter plate today and there is a bit of movement on it in the same direction as the tilt where it sits on some foam. Must be helping to cause the tilt judder too. Will have the new adapter plate in 2-3 days. Will try that with a different lens or camera and also isolating the different axis. Looks like rain for the next 1-2 days though so going to have to wait.
     
  18. Brad Meier

    Brad Meier Active Member
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    Ben,

    I'm not familiar with foam on the mounting plate. Are you using a Freefly gimbal? Can you post a photo of the copter/gimbal/mount? That may help us help you diagnose the vibration better.
     
  19. Ben Platts

    Ben Platts Active Member

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    Hi Brad. Yeah I've got the normal cinestar gimbal. I originally had the AV200 when I first got my heli but wasn't happy with its performance and adjustability. When I changed over to the Cinestar on my Skyjib the company doing it for me told me the only adapter you could get was this one: http://www.kopterworx.com/Mounts-Accessories/Skyjib-/-Cinestar-gimbal-adapter
    Very bad design in my opinion. The lower half of the adapter literally just floats on the gel pads. It did eliminate vibrations but it just swung around all over the place like a pendulum under the heli creating crazy wobble and making the radians go into crazy oscillations with the smallest movements. I swapped out the gel pads for some high density foam in the hope of making it better. It definitely made it better but there is still some movement in it which must be contributing to the shake. It wasn't till I found someone talking about Allied Drones on here a couple weeks ago that I actually found out there were other, better adapters on the market. Ordered mine a week or so ago and should have it in the next couple days. Hoping that will solve a lot of the issue.
     
  20. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    Ben, it has been recommended in the past on other threads that you should have any gel/foam between the camera and the CS gimbal. I think the reason is that the Radian is trying to balance the roll/tilt and the foam/gel gets the mass of the camera moving, not solidly anchored to the gimbal, which in turn induces its own set of problems. So i would suggest removing all of that stuff and doing your tests without it. With the little bit of vibration that you are still getting that might remove it.

    Even the AD stuff is between the gimbal and the frame, not between the gimbal and the camera.
     

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