With the Epic mounted, I was walking through a tight area and tilted the handles far to the left and the motor gave out and spun the camera. I had to over tilt to the left to get it back centered. Is this because of the weight? I'm at 10lb 2oz Is this normal?
HI Justin, I would say that the Pan Axis was not properly balanced. As you tilted the handles the Pan motor went from horizontal to 45 degree angle which places increased load on the Pan Motor. As you tilted the handles more and more eventually you hit a point where the Pan motor was unable to provide enough torque to counter the imbalance. This type of maneuver quickly shows balance issues on the pan axis. In any event you did not hurt anything! Tabb
Tabb, I can't seem to balance the "roll". Should I be able to balance the Epic @ 10 lbs? I can never get it to stay at "roll" positions
Hi Justin, I think we are saying the same things. - You rolled the handle bars either left or right to fit through the door. - The MoVI did an un-commanded Pan or Yaw is that correct? Tabb
Hi Tabb, yes we are on exactly the same page. I'm just wondering what I can do to make sure this doesn't happen if possible? I can't (tried for hours) get the camera to stay (motors off) balanced on roll. Is it possible with this amount of weight with my setup? It always wants to go back to horizontal level. Thanks for your help Tabb. I know your the busiest guy out there. I really appreciate it. When your ever in FL I'd love too buy you a beer (or 6) ;-)
Hi Justin, This action indicates that the Pan Axis is not properly balanced. Watch the pan axis tutorial videos to see what I am talking about. The goal with roll axis is to get it neutrally balanced so that you can have it stay in any roll orientation. In practice the wires going to the IMU and the tilt axis provide a small strain on the roll axis that can cause it to want to self level. The goal is to get the roll axis as close to neutrally balanced as possible. The best way to confirm this is to make sure tilt axis vertical are balanced and then roll is balanced such that the camera stays level when placed at neutral (0) degrees. If you can achieve this the balance will be fine. Important to note that the issue in this case comes from the pan axis. Hope that helps! Beer sounds great thanks!
Hi Justin, I've been having a similar issue balancing a C300 with Canon Cinema Primes, I can balance my tilt and pan just fine, but when it comes to roll it stays level until I roll either left or right it wants to auto correct to the center. I knew this couldn't be a factor of horizontal weight distribution so all I could think was that the vertical tilt axis may have been too low causing the camera to be bottom heavy. I double checked my tilt balance and it balanced fine in all orientations. I was really quite dumfounded, but as Tabb just mentioned, the cables may be the problem.
I noticed today that 4 screws were loose above the roll motor on the camera side. After I tightened them I no longer had any problem with feeling the pan motor was slipping or giving up. Just passing along what we should all already know "check all screws often".