Hi Everyone,
I have installed my Tarot T-2D gimbal onto my 3DR quad frame. However, I am struggling with wiring the power to the gimbal. Is it connected directly to the power module, the APM, or does it need a dedicated source of power?
Any advice or links to previous discussions/ instructions would be much appreciated. All the instructions I have found relate to the 3DR Iris and not the 3DR Quad.
Replies
I've used a tap from the 3 Cell aircraft battery. It works fine. Recently I've found the small 3 cell 450mah batteries from readymaderc or e-flite. These work well for a dedicated power supply. Just connect the ground to aircraft ground as it says in the instructions http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-cameras-and-gimbals/wiki/co...
I second what Richard said, with some more detail - if you have the two-battery FPV kind of set up, where you have a 4800 or so main power battery, and a 900 battery for the FPV/OSD, I suggest you just make a small jst splitter and power the gimbal from the small battery. That way, your flight-critical stuff - motors, APM, receiver - is powered separately from the payload items.
You also can hook up the tilt directly to the RC11 output and control from channel 6 on your transmitter. (Or a separate joystick, apparently, but I haven't tried that yet)
If you have the gimbal go-pro hero 3 cable, it plugs right in to the minim OSD and works like a charm.
What version quad do you have, the 2014 or the earlier? I have the old version and had to do some red-neck engineering with scrap fiberboard to make a mount for the gimbal, and a battery mount extension to keep CG.