Thanks for the tips, Andy. I´ll try to do a lot of tests over the weekend. Hopefully the weather will be OK. And yes, I hear you about the confusion. I always think that I can memorise things (being too lazy to write things down) which usually doesn´t work at all. I´ll start with every radian as a single unit - don´t know if that works though.
I know Jeff sometimes uses only one radian, on roll I think; http://vimeo.com/gravityshots This one /Janne
Hi Janne, thanks a lot - I did some roll only tests today and went to 130 without problems in little wind. Very smooth video. I´ll continue tomorrow with tilt and pan.
Thanks Philipp, but there must be a substantial weight differense between the lightweight kitlens and a Zeiss compact prime. Are you using the same settings, with smooth results for both of them??
Wow, today was a perfect day. Beautiful sun and no wind way past noon which is very unusual here. I did around 4 hours of testing and finally achieved a result that I really like. My settings are now 60/130/150 and they work for Sony CX730 and Sony NEX5N without wind. I´ve also tried the 5DMkII but I guess I have to do some more tweaking for this cam. I started with every radian as a single unit. Sometimes it´s hard to figure out which is the direction that shakes the footage (roll or tilt), so you can´t really say if the adjustment you´re making is getting better or not. However - the biggest problem for me stays pan. The CX730 filters out the pan-shake really well, but the NEX works way better, leaving pan totally "unradiated". CX730 footage now looks almost as shot from a tripod. I didn´t have time yet to exchange some of the radians or servos to see if it would get better panwise.
I was thinking about replacing the tilt servo to see if that fixes anything but now I may just try adjusting one radian at a time and if that doesnt work probably go to a new servo. I have no issues with pan and very little with roll. Seems my tilt is just terrible. Ill try switching radians for the pan and see what happens.
Hey Tabb, Why is the difference between the servos with the gold colored casing and the all black? I have gold on the tilt and roll but black on yaw. Got a new one on the way to test on my tilt axis..
Tabb, Andy.. I believe I fixed some of my issues. I found a little bit of vertical play in the main shaft connection to the copter. I had about 1mm of play there which after investigating, found that when all 8 bolts are tightened down on top of the gimbal mounting plate (4 to the shaft, 4 to the yaw/pan gear) a gap was created. I noticed the top of the shaft was not flush with the top of the gear. I added 4 washers between the mounting plate and the pan gear. Gap is gone... Test flew with the 7D again and now tilt is much better, Roll still has a little action but it doesnt look like vibration.. but something I can fix with gains. I have no idea why the shaft and top gear are not lining up.
Hi Brad, there should be an o-ring on the pan assembly to take up any slop, was yours installed? With this 1mm play were you actually able to make the gimbal move up and down? Reason I ask is the pan shaft is such a precision fit in the bearings I can't imagine it moving up and down even if there was 1mm gap? Glad you are getting things dialed! Tabb
The O ring was installed. With the O ring, the carbon bushing, and the pan pulley on the shaft, the shaft was extending higher than the top of the pulley. So basically those 3 items were floating around the shaft with what seemed to be a little less than 1mm. When you tightened everything down and the copter was on the ground, the gap would be at the bottom of the shaft just above the flange. I added nylon washers directly on top of the pulley and that did the trick.
Ha.. I couldnt even see them when I installed them. If you remove the 360 gimbal from the vibration isolators you'll see the 8 bolts that hold the plate to the mount. The inner 4 hold the plate to the shaft and the outer 4 hold the plate to the pan pulley. I put the washers just under the plate, between it and the pan pulley. Does your mount also have play in it?