Hi guys, I rented an M5 last week for a job mainly to try out a Movi. I used Jeffrey Scholl's U-Tube video to set up the Futaba SBUS receiver so that I could use one of my Futaba 18 MZ radios to control the gimbal. Everything worked great except for one thing. I set the gimbal up with the limits so that the camera would look up about 20 degrees or so and also exactly straight down. The problem is when you tilt the camera straight down it will stop looking straight down, but when you let go of the transmitter stick the gimbal tilt axis will bounce back about 5 degrees. I am sure that this is a simple fix or at least I hope so as my Alexmos gimbals never do this. Any suggestions? Based on my great experience with the M5 last week I purchased an M5 today from Quadrocopter and I am looking forward to using it a lot. Thanks in advance Wayne Mann www.HeliCamHDmedia.com
Wayne: Could you clarify what you mean by the above, please? I understand the part about bouncing back when you let go of the stick -- you might want to look at the Servo Monitor screen on the transmitter to see if that's what the transmitter is commanding -- or whether it's something that the MōVI is doing on its own. Thanks Andy
Hi Andy, Sorry for the confusion. Once the limits for tilt are set, if you hold the tilt control stick forward on the radio to tilt the camera down the camera will tilt down until it gets to straight down and stop, but as soon as you let go of the tilt control on the radio the camera will "bounce" back about 5 degrees or so. The Movi is doing this on its own. The servo monitor screen on the 18MZ is not showing that this is happening. I hope that helps Wayne Mann www.HeliCamHDmedia.com
Thanks for the clarification, Wayne. Based on what you say, I'd open up a support ticket with Freefly at support@freeflysystems.com -- please post again when this is resolved. Thanks Andy
Hi Andy, That happen on a rental M5 last week. I did not reset everything to defaults before starting my setup procedure. Being a rental I would think that they probably reset each unit when they get them back before sending them out again, but who knows. My M5 will be here on Friday and I will be checking it out to see if it exhibits the same tendency. Thanks Wayne Mann www.HeliCamHDmedia.com
I have an update on my tilt axis issues. I had one issue with tilt axis performance now I have two. On a job this past week I had to do some camera looking straight down shots and it didn't take long to notice that when the camera is looking straight down the tilt axis will jump occasionally with absolutely no input from the transmitter. It did this several times over the course of the day. I tried several different tilt axis limit settings with no difference. The rental M5 that I had the original tilt axis issues with may or may not have had this particular issue as I did not have to do any straight down looking shots. Any ideas. Also Freefly support was unable to provide any help with the first issue and I have not contacted them with the second issue yet. I did receive several private messages indicating that my first issue with the tilt axis bouncing back when letting go of the stick input when the tilt axis limit is set so that the tilt axis stops when the camera gets to a straight down position, is apparently a common thing which is somewhat depressing given my Alexmos gimbals perform perfectly in this regard. Hopefully there is a solution for this that has not been presented to me. But the second issue of random tilt movement from the gimbal are quite a bit more disturbing. Wayne Mann www.HeliCamHDmedia.com
Well I got a chance to do some testing today and as long as I set the tilt axis up so that the camera will tilt quite a ways past looking straight down I don't get the random tilt jumps that I get when the tilt axis is setup to only tilt down to the camera looking straight down position. Very strange. Wayne Mann www.HeliCamHDmedia.com
Just to clarify -- you don't get the "twitch back" if you deliberately set the limit to beyond straight down? Sounds almost like a limit value that causes some "correction" in the reverse direction, doesn't it? Andy.
Hi Andy, That is correct. I will try to get ahold of the top dog over there and see if I can get them to have their programmer to fix this issue so that you can set a limit for camera to tilt down to looking straight down and stop when it gets there with no funny business. That is the way my Alexmos gimbals work and it is the way all gimbals should work. Have a great day Wayne Mann www.HeliCamHDmedia.com