I've read with great interest some of the threads about mounting the Epic to the CS gimbal. I have a CS 3-axis gimbal mounted to the bottom of my Skyjib. I am not pleased with the performance of the AV200, so I switched to the Cinestar gimbal. However, as some have mentioned, the CS gimbal clamps are overpowered by the weight of the Epic. I think it may be worth my effort to beef up those areas by adding an extra clamp to each of the side arms, and an extra two to the roll arm, for a total of extra 4 clamps. It's been suggested that adding double sided tape would work, and it certainly would. But those clamps just barely fit over the tubes as it is, not to mention the tape would ball up and become a pain when trying to make CG adjustments. Does anyone else have suggestions for beefing up the CS Gimbal?
Hi Josh, Aluminum clamps for the high stress joints the high weight the EPIC induces are on the way. The ALU clamps do not slip at all. With the plastic clamps especially in high heat, they can slip with jolts or shocks (like setting the machine down on the ground) The forces the back clamps undergo if you have a 'sharp' landing are tremendous. I will post as soon as they are available. Tabb
That's awesome news, Tabb. Is it suggested that all the Cinestar clamps be replaced with aluminum ones, or just the high-stress areas? After all, reinforcing one area can effectively weaken another.
An unintended consequence is that, right now, the plastic clamps do slip -- and that allows them to absorb energy if "you land the way I land." The metal clamps sound like they will not do this, so one of "my landings" might do some damage.... Andy.
Hi Steve, In my opinion the plastic clamps work great up to about the EPIC sized camera. On my mounts that fly the EPIC and C500 I have switched to the aluminum clamps in the roll cage and changing out those 4 clamp halves seems to do the trick. I have had some harder then intended landings with it this way and the camera has not slipped down in the tubes. The downside of the ALU is they can scratch the CF booms so I try to only replace the clamps that are under high stress. Tabb
Indeed Tabb, last week landed a view times on 2 leg's due to very heavy wind!! With a fully loaded rig > Epic. Edit; whats the eta on the new alu clamps?
I hereby dub this: Firchau's First Law. Of course, the First Corollary is: And if you're having too many hard landings, you're either (a) flying too much, or (b) you're me. Seriously though: I don't do too many hard landings. Well, not that many. OK. Some. Andy.
I wonder if it would also help to put an insert into the tube to keep it from compressing, or maybe it's not compressing? Just the clamps stretching? I did notice recently that apparently due to cold weather every bolt on my gimbal was loose.
Hey Tim, the tubes are not compressing, the clamps are growing / shrinking with temp changes etc. The ALU clamps grip on the booms like crazy. I was worried about crushing the CF tube when testing actually! Tabb
Hi there! I´ve been flying a MK OKTO XL with its MK SLR 2 gimbal and 5D, lately Sony 730.. I´m squeezing in to the industry and have been asked several times about the chance of lifting the mighty RED camera.I m very happy with MK electronics,the flight is inmaculate,rock solid, bot Im aware of the BL limitacions when it comes to big gear.My questions at this point are: Does Mk electronics responde the same with ESC convertors or alternative ones as POWERDRIVE etc? Is Wookong electronics a beter choice?how stable are they compared to MK? Has anybody tried coaxial hexacopter(12motors) with mk electronics, 3638mk engines? Whats the magical set up ? Sorry to be a bit out of thread but I ve been sujested to post here. Many thanks in advance! Alex
Hi Josh. At long last someone with a skyjib and cinestar gimbal. We too have a similar setup the only difference being the camera. We opted for the C300. How is the footage at 25fps or whatever your shoot at. We are having major problems with vibration and Im wondering if other like minded setups are having the same issues. I doesn't matter whether radian is off or on. Props are well balanced both vert and horz. Josh how have you the gimbal mounted to the SJ. We use 8 cable ties two in each corner but I was considering trying a piece of 1/4ply with silicone mounts to go on top of the plate and bolt right through the ply, silicon mount, plastic gimbal mount, silicon mount to the alu frame, just like a clamp to ensure little movement but hoping that the silicone absorbs the vibs. I'm just wondering if the cable ties are functional or an easy mount for the manufacturer. Thank you Colin
Well, in the spirit of "full disclosure", I operate a small venture called Allied Drones who's focus is creating carbon fiber adapters and accessories for the Skyjib and CS8. I've got a few versions of a quick release anti vibration adapter for the CS gimbal to Skyjib v1. So THAT'S how I adapted this gimbal to the Skyjib! LOL But to address your specific issue, yes, I think I'll tend to agree with you that cable ties are probably not the ideal gimbal mounting solution. Silicone gel isolators can work, but it all depends on what's causing your vibrations. Multirotors vibrate...it's in their nature. Even if your props and motors are balanced, each time the prop passes over the booms, you have the potential for generating a harmonic. I have found that I can kill the vibrations to the camera pretty effectively. But when flying a heavy camera like the RED or C300 with cinema glass, my major issue was controlling the "pendulum" effect when the multirotor starts or ends a move. I think I lot of CS8 folks experience this even on DLSR payloads with the soft CS O ring isolators. The isolators need to be soft enough to address the lower frequency vibrations we get from multirotors, while still providing enough resistance to prevent the gimbal from swaying or bouncing on the isolators themselves.
Josh, of all the changes you made to reduce your vibration problems, what had the most effect. We had this heli custom built for us but unfortunately the supplier doesn't want to know. When all is through I will name the company later as I wouldn't like others to experience what we are going through. They haven't a clue about setup or customer service, so I've no idea what to alter etc. I see some changes were made to PIC or something like that but I haven't a notion what that is. Im trying hardware first hopefully the easy stuff.
In my experience, large cameras are less effected by small vibrations just due to their mass. We have several people just using our hard mounting quick release plates on the Cinestar with the the RED and we don't see any vibrations at all get through to the picture. On these large cameras adding a little vibration dampening while controlling the pendulum effect is our main concern. So you must really have some serious vibrations going on! I think you must have something mechanical wrong such as a bad motor/bearing, very unbalanced prop(s), or a loose boom clamp. When you first start up the motors...just as they are starting to spin up, do you see any major wobble with any of the booms/motors?
Josh, to be honest I don't know. Next time on start up I'll keep an eye to things. We have foam pads (pipe insulation)on the bottom of the photohigher retractable landing gear and I'm wondering when its retracted in the up position is there a down draft from the props causing the legs to vibrate which is being transmitter onto the gimbal. I think it will be a matter of trial and error. Vibrations are seriously bad. I have now set the transparent plate on top of the silicone cubes and bolted the plate to the u/c arms with 4mm set screws as opposed to using cable ties in case there's additional movement in there.
I personally do not run those foam pipe insulation things on my copters. The photohigher retracts have some slop in them (as I think do all PH products, that's why I fly the Cinestar gimbal!) and I think you're amplifying the problem with the foam. In fact, I don't see what the foam is for in the first place!