/dist/images/branding/favicon

ALTA6/MōVI M5/GH4 update

Discussion in 'ALTA' started by Steve Maller, Apr 13, 2016.

  1. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2012
    Messages:
    3,981
    Likes Received:
    807
    I made several flights yesterday with a newish configuration. I fly an ALTA 6 with a MōVI M5 and GH4 with either the 12mm prime or 12-35 zoom. I've had some issues with jittering in some cases, and I've struggled to find the solution.

    But after reading numerous posts here, I decided to add weight to the MōVI, and I also swapped out the red isolators for the teal isolators. I turned up the stiffness settings on the MōVI a bit, and turned down the stiffness on the ALTA.

    I flew four 15 minute+ flights, three of which were made in pretty gusty wind conditions. The footage from all the flights is very stable, even though the copter was bouncing pretty severely in some cases. Flight time is slightly impacted, with my ordinary 18 minute flight times being reduced by 1-2 minutes because of the extra weight on the MōVI. I suspect my MōVI battery will also not last as long, but I generally swap out the MōVI battery after two flights, anyway.

    So if any of you have experienced issues in this "light" operating configuration, I'd echo the comments of others, and encourage you to experiment a bit.
     
  2. Frank Galella

    Frank Galella New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 8, 2015
    Messages:
    6
    Likes Received:
    2
    Hi Steve, thanks for the thread. One of our Alta's is set up the same way as yours and the same issue would come and go in high winds. Akira beta made a big improvement although the settings changed a lot. The other not so obvious solution for us was found on page 21 of the Akira manual which says "set the Output Filter to a value of one (1) and configure each axis filter independently. If Output Filter is set to a value greater than one (1), its value overrides all three independent filters" using this method smoothed things out tremendously. The other thing we did was rather than add weight haphazardly to the MoVi we installed the extended battery kit that gets mounted on one of the MoVi's 3 arms, this now gives us the extra weight and also extra battery life for the MoVi and Connex. We can now fly 4 sets of ship batteries for every MoVi battery. I am interested to see what others have to say. The GH4 is our go-to camera for most of our work, we have won over job bids against Red's multiple times.
     
    Bryan Harvey likes this.
  3. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2012
    Messages:
    3,981
    Likes Received:
    807
    Thanks for that, Frank. I actually added weight to the camera mount itself so it would impact all three axes (as though it was flying a heavier camera). Adding the 2nd battery will only change the dynamics of the pan motor. I wanted to affect all three. But if your solution works, stick with it! ;)
     
  4. Chris Lethbridge

    Chris Lethbridge New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 25, 2015
    Messages:
    14
    Likes Received:
    2
    Hi Steve, how much weight did you end up adding on? Are you also using the GH4 battery grip? Thanks
     
  5. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2012
    Messages:
    3,981
    Likes Received:
    807
    I added about 300g, and no, I'm not using the grip.
     
  6. Duane Bradley

    Duane Bradley Active Member

    Joined:
    Dec 6, 2012
    Messages:
    212
    Likes Received:
    26
    I actually got the G7 and a 14mm pancake balanced nicely on the M5. The only issue being that you can't perfectly test the tilt balance because the Movi cage is so high on the axis that you can't tilt the camera directly up towards the toad to check the balance there, you need to guess and estimate. Still, after tuning I could see in the GUI that all three axis needed no more the +1 or -1 of motor input to stay balanced. I am going to add a manfrotto quick release plate to increase the weight to bring the CG lower which should help.
     
  7. Kevin Obschlager

    Kevin Obschlager New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 24, 2015
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Hi Steve, i also fly a GH4 configuration. Could you tell me what stiffness settings you adjusted? Thx
     

Share This Page