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Using storm Pro-3 universal gimbal throught pixhawk

Posted by Pau on September 28, 2016 at 7:42am

Hi, 

Has anyone worked with the Storm Pro-3 universal gimbal yet, as advertised here? If so, can anyone please point me in the right direction where they did the necessary config for the gimbal? 

I presumed that the gimbal controller board is a Storm32-BGC board and can be setup as stated on its wiki here, and then furthermore can connect to pixhawk as documented here... 

Anyway, if anyone has bought one of those Storm Pro-3 universal gimbals, any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you

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Tags: pro, storm, storm32-bgc
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  • Pau October 5, 2016 at 10:13am

    Just to give you guys an update on my struggle / learning curve... It is some sort of AlexMos / SimpleBGC driver board supplied with that gimbal, but definitely beginning to think that it's some sort of clone from them. The reason I say this is:

    • I couldn't find a board on google thus far that looks exactly like mine
    • We are specifically instructed on the site not to deviate from the uploaded firmware. Some firmware versions leave the board entirely unresponsive when you try to interface.
    • There are no board markings on the PCB to identify the board.

    So don't want to criticize the gimbal and board, maybe I got an unlucky batch. As far as I can determine the gimbal itself with brushless motors is quite solid, and got no problem with it, but I'm done with the pirate-board. Ordered two other gimbal controller boards as replacement:

    1. Alexmos BGC board v3.3 DRV8313 (which looks to have very convenient auto PID calibration)
    2. Storm32-BGC v1.3 (documented straight forward connection to Pixhawk).

    Between the 2 of them I will definitely be able to get this problem out of my system. 

    Thanks for the help Marc & Graham. Cheers

  • Pau September 30, 2016 at 12:35am

    Thanks for the replies. Yes, I eventually got hold of the controller software... Once I knew to start googling for "SimpleBGC" gimbal stuff. I got all the links to do PID setup, firmware reversals etc. Still working through all the content, but it seems that I'll be able to figure it out and interface with pixhawk through connecting to the normal PWM aux pins of Pixhawk.

    From the question Graham had, the gimbale as I got it, starts shaking after being powered... I thought it was to do with the PID settings or not enough power sent to the motors (to sufficiently support the camera weight), but it seems that the newer firmware version messed up the gimbal (according to this video). So reverting back to a previous firmware "should" fix it.

    Thanks for the inputs. I'll keep you updated if there's anything else I find out, worth mentioning (which could help anyone else for future reference). 

  • Moderator
    Graham Dyer September 29, 2016 at 12:49am

    As Marc said it's not a Storm32, they state it uses SimpleBGC V2.40b7 firmware and do not to update it (why not?)

  • Marc Dornan September 28, 2016 at 7:36pm
    No. It looks like an 8 bit Alex Moss controller. Probably not a great option these days. You could put a Storm32 on though.
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