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great machine!! isolator question

Discussion in 'ALTA' started by Rolf Ableiter, Sep 25, 2015.

  1. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

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    I'm flying a GH4 and a light lens (Olympus 12/2.0) on my ALTA with a MōVI M5, not the M10. I wonder if the GH4 is too light for the M10? Have you considered adding some weight and seeing if that helps (after you rebalance and retune the M10)?

    You also might want to mount a GoPro on the ALTA first, then on the MōVI to see if you can determine where the vibrations are coming from. Do you have any dings or issues with your props? One prop with a problem could conceivably cause this kind of problem in my experience.
     
  2. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    i had perfect footage with my cinestar 8 and the M10 with GH4 and even the 12-35 lens (wich is much lighter than speedbooster and tokina 11-16).
    the props are okay and i checked them before flying.

    The vibrations are coming from the ALTA. That's for sure. So i think this could be a problem with the vertical stiffness of ALTA forcing the frame to vibrate. it will check this.

    i don't use something special. ALTA with default settings, a freefly M10 with a supported camera for this Gimbal. Perfectly balanced and tuned while hanging under the frame.

    M10 with camera is 3,45kg = 7,61lbs
    what is your weight? (M5 is a bit more heavy than the M10) i think we should be in the same range...
    did you change anything (settings, gains)? what isolators do you use?
     
  3. georgemcnabb

    georgemcnabb Member

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    If anyone could post their advice flying their light setup in that would be really appreciated! I too am getting a little bit of vibrations, nothing major but not as good as it can be. Mine is a7s & M5
     
  4. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    i still have the vibrations...
    meanwhile i tried to use the teal isolators again and set the "vertical stiffness" from 12 down to 8.
    When there is no wind, the footage is - lt say okay. With wind i get these vibrations (mostly on tilt).
    The thing is, that i didn't have these problems with my cinestar and wkm (blue O-Rings). This is very frustrating and i don't know how to help me out with this.
    It seems that ALTA is flying good but there must be lots of vibrations coming to the M10.
    but may my ALTA has a problem and the props are not balanced?

    what isolators for what weight? (in kg or lbs not "light/middle/heavy"...)
    what stiffness settings for what weight?
    the default setting of ALTA is for what weight? (from x to y kg)
    i really miss this in the manual...
     
  5. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    am i the only one using a GH4 and have vibrations?
    If so than my ALTA has a problem. i will send it back in the next days for the cable service and will tell that they please check the ALTA. may there is a problem with a motor or a prop - this is really bad... even with OIS on i get these vibrations and resulting unsharpness.

    i can't tell it often enough that i didn't have this with the cinestar 8 and wkm. And i didn't work much with gainsettings there...

    Alta users with light cameras (GH4, A7, etc): did you change something with your stiffness settings?
    i changed "vertical stiffness" to 8 but still have the vibrations.
    i used teal, red and black isolators and still have them. mostly when stop or accelerate the ALTA.
    Or when it is windy.
     
  6. Chris Fanning

    Chris Fanning Member

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    Hey Rolf, I have another thread going (see below) where I'm experiencing a lot of these same issues. I can't get my Alta to fly great in GPS mode, Waddles / Rocks back and forth in forward flight, also if it gets hit by a gust of wind while hovering, it gets really unstable sometimes. I also can't get super stable footage like I see freefly get, or like I get out of my DJI gimbals. I've tried almost everything possible to fix all of this, and feeling very frustrated. I had Freefly look at my Alta while there and they said everything was fine, but still came back with same issues. I've been working with support and tried everything suggested and it hasn't gotten much better. Just thought I'd share what I'm going through.

    http://forum.freeflysystems.com/index.php?threads/alta-and-movi-tuning-help.7144/
     
  7. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    Hi Chris,

    yes - the footage looks much the same as mine.
    But i don't fly much in GPS mode. mostly i use GPS to stay at a point. I can't tell if ALTA is rocking back/forth while flying forward but i will try this.
    i used my M10 without full cage and updated this yesterday. luckily i don't have a job to fly this week and i hope that i can test it today.
    May your camera setting is to light for the M15 - pretty much the same like my setting with the M10.
     
  8. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    so now i am at the end... i still have vertical oscillations from the ALTA.
    it's not the MoVI. The MoVI is working fine... even if i stress it while hanging under the ALTA.
    But once ALTA is flying it begins to shake. No matter what cartridges i use.

    vertical stiffness is at 8 and i don't want to set it lower cause the height hold is not good with 8.
    everything else is default...

    I think it's is a problem of the low rpm of the motors and may the props are not balanced... the shakes are coming more rough when i accelerate ALTA or stop it.

    It is frustrating and i am everything but a newbie. i never had such problems with none of my copters i built in the last years.

    i will post a video in the next minutes...
     
  9. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    password: alta
     
  10. Howard Dapp

    Howard Dapp Active Member

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    I suggested in the other thread to, if possible, angle the camera upward to view the alta's arms to see what the frame is doing in flight or mount a gopro somewhere on the gimbal (pointed skyward looking at the alta) wih your main camera mounted and film simultaneously.
     
  11. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    i don't have a gopro to do that...

    but what i can say is, that there are vibrations coming from the ALTA. i logged ALTA via GPS in front of me and touched the landinggear.
    it is vibrating... when i touched the landing gear of the MoVI under my cinestar, there was nothing.
    if you look at the frame while flying you can't see anything like shaking and i think the M10 would handle bigger shakes easily but have problems with vibrations.
    It is getting better with the black rings but without OIS turned on the footage still is unusable.

    it would be nice to hear from other ALTA users with light settings what they changed to get stable footage.
    And IF they fly with default settings and get smooth footage than my ALTA need to be serviced and checked.
    I have the problem since my first flight...
     
  12. Mateusz Hajdziony

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    Man, this looks terrible. :( I hope that Freefly will do something to resolve your issues. One thing that is popping to my head now - did you try adding more payload to the ALTA to see if it stops vibrating? Maybe the frame is resonating at particular range of frequencies. Adding weight would change the motor RPM and, if my hypothesis is right, the vibrations coming from motors should not excite the frame that much. From what I can see you are using the lightest payload possible - M10 is the lightest gimbal and, apart form using BMPCC, GH4 is the lightest camera usable with Movi.

    You said that the Movi legs are vibrating - another thing that you might want to check is to lower the stiffness of the Movi to see if it is the gimbal vibrating, or are the vibrations coming from the top, from the ALTA itself. This will rule out too high stiffness on the Movi and will make sure that it is indeed the copter that is vibrating.

    Another thing to note - I don't think that high frequency vibrations can be caused by stiffness setting on the Alta. I don't think that its even possible to construct a flight controller that could cause such a big machine to vibrate really quickly because the motor response is not fast enough to vibrate the copter with high frequency. Remember that we are talking about vibrations that you can only feel, but not see. Bad stiffness settings on flight controller would result in low frequency vibration of the machine - you should be definitely able to see the machine rocking. That's why I think that either your props are not balance (maybe a bad batch) or the frame is resonating.
     
  13. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    thanks Mateusz!!!

    meanwhile i wrote to the support and they gave some help and tips wich i will try.
    i will lower the vertical stiffness and vertical hold strength (wich i didn't change yet). i will try to figure out how ALTA performs in different modes. If the vertical stiffness is my problem than it should work better in manual mode. I also will put more weight to the MoVI. but one after the other to see what change makes what difference.
     
  14. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    i put the GH4 in a Alu cage to get a bit more weight. After that i was able to increase the stiffness of tilt to 19, roll to 63 and pan to 120.
    i lowered the vertical stiffness of the ALTA to 6 and the vertical hold strength to 75.
    this improved things a lot but still not perfect. the unsharpness is gone and i can use the teal cartridges instead of the black ones.
    i flew the ALTA in windy condition and the results are promising. ALTA still holds height (not as perfect as in default but better than my wkm or MK cinestars) and now i will try to reduce vertical stiffness to 5 and hold strength to 70.
    After that i will test with a heavier lens (tokina 11-16 and metabones adapter).
    thanks to freefly support my frustration gives way to hope :)
    but i have to say good bye to the flight times a had with the naked GH4 without fullcage (20 minutes).
     
  15. Tristan Buhler

    Tristan Buhler New Member

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    Rolf,
    We are experiencing the same problems as well. Movi m10 and a7sii 16-35. Light set up. Light gimbal. We've done the inflight vibration test with gimbal on and off and it's still the same high frequency vibration. Ours likes worse the faster shutter rate. 1/50 is usable, 1/125 isn't. I'm thinking even the orange dampeners are too stiff? I'm debating snipping an o-ring out of each. I'll also try with more weight.

    I see your post is from a month ago. Any updates or solutions you found?
     
  16. Pete Maughan

    Pete Maughan Member

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    Wonder if it maybe something to do with the sensor stabilisation?
     
  17. Tristan Buhler

    Tristan Buhler New Member

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    I've turned stabilization off for all the tests flights cause it's given worse results. Also tried a 24 and 50 prime.
     
  18. Pete Maughan

    Pete Maughan Member

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    I dare say it's a completely different technology but I've had problems with stabilsed lenses whether it's turned off or on...
     
  19. Tristan Buhler

    Tristan Buhler New Member

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    The prime lenses were Nikons with an adapter. They were unpowered by nature so i'm hoping I eliminated variables.
     
  20. Rolf Ableiter

    Rolf Ableiter Active Member

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    Hi,

    i found the solution in different things: more weight to the M10 (full cage update, alucage, speedbooster and tokina lens) and in changing the settings of the ALTA (height stiffness down to 4 or 5, height hold strength down - don't remember how much) and higher stiffness on the MoVI.
    do you have your vibtrations in manual mode? if not than the height stiffness could be your friend :)

    the 1235 lens is not usable. no matter with or without OIS.
     

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