The wiki provides no information on setting up and using an alexmos gimbal with serial output. I have a gimbal that I can control with servo inputs and RC Passthrough, but, the issue is when it gives the PWM output as a servo it keeps that PWM Value and the sensor just keeps spinning continuously when using the pixhawks auto pointing features.
I believe if controlled through the serial port it would not have these issues, however, I have no idea how to do this with an alexmos board and there is no documentation on how to do it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! thank you!
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Have you guys made any progress on this? Reading your thread makes me think I have my gimbal configured incorrectly for what I am trying to do. I just want the flight controller to position the gimbal at a specific tilt during an auto mission. I using an AlexMos 8 bit controller and mission planner. In mission planner, I've selected servo for type. I can control the gimbal with the RC but the gimbal doesn't reposition with a DO_MOUNT_CONTROL command in mission planner.
If I use serial like you suggest, I'll no longer be able control the gimbal with my RC, which is feature, I need to preserve.
Please let me if you've made progress.
Thanks,
Dave
Hey I have just got this working, though I still need to solve a couple of issues...
I started with this... http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-storm32-gimbal/
which is the same thing but for a different type of gimbal. I used Serial 2 to send commands to the brushless gimbal controller (Basecam 32 bit 3 Axis). You need to connect the Rx/Tx the same as the link above, and have to set up both the gimbal and the FC (Im using Pixhawk) to speak and listen to serial.
The Mission planner GUI will let you change the gimbal TYPE to Alexmos Serial, and you will have to define which channels you want to control the tilt/roll etc like normal.
Then in the basecam GUI you have to define the RC_ROLL pin mode to be "SBGC Serial API 2nd UART" (may be different depending on your Alexmos controller..)
I have this working, though the serial channels rate of change out of the pixhawk is way to slow, and actually lags behind the input, so I still need to find out more myself..
Hope this helps!
Hi Rory,
Thank you very much for your Post
I'm actually facing an azimuth drift issue with my Alexmos 32bits
I was wondering SBGC Serial API 2nd UART could solve this
I'm using Pixhawk arducopter 3.3.3 rc2
thank you
Claude