A $109 GoodLuckBuy Brushless Gimbal for the H3 GoPro

Here's a short clip, somewhat adulterated by YouTube, of a test of this inexpensive gimbal and controller that I bought from goodluckbuy.com. The Goodluckbuy SKU is 98952, you can look at it by entering that in their search engine. It's made to mount on a Phantom but it's not hard to work up a mount for most any copter.

Here I'm flying it on my DJI 550 Hex "The Witch." I didn't use the provided vibration mounts but rather some stiffer "lord" type mounts I had lying around. Also there are rubber grommets involved.

This gimbal comes without a shred of documentation and I haven't yet figured out how to find the appropriate software. However, it works "out of the box". The only problem is a slight off-level lean on the roll axis, which I've fixed for the moment by simply shimming one end of the GoPro. Build quality is very high. It's all aluminum so not super light.

In this video I've intentionally left bits of the airframe visible to show how hard and well the gimbal is working.

The entire 8 minute flight is as smooth as the 29 seconds seen here.

Slightly off-topic: This clip starts with the hex under manual control in "stabilize" mode, approaching a Geofence that starts at the weed line. When the hex hits the fence it goes into RTL and heads home. It overshoots home (the red landing pad) and neatly turns back to it and ends up right where it should be, at which point I take back control and the clip ends. The slow flight home is my setting, and I think the overshoot might be a result of settings I've made as well, as I'm looking for smoothness, not speed, when I'm tuning.

I'm excited by this gimbal. The YouTube video doesn't really do it justice. If anyone else is using  one of these I'd like to hear from you.

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Comments

  • How well does this fit a standard 3drobotics hexacopter /quadcopter ?

  • @Eric

    When your comment mentions RC screen, are you referring to a PC program that connects via USB or something to the board ?

    What options are available ?

  • Hello Folks!

    I happened to notice a thread about a Carbon Fiber gimbal from GoodLuckBuys.com over at PhantomPilots.com

    If I’m not mistaken, the CF gimbal has the same motors but it is a little taller and requires a mod to the landing gear on the Phantom.  I’m wondering if it’s a lot lighter than the one discussed in this thread.

    Does anyone have the accurate numbers?

    This is the link the CF gimbal:

    http://www.goodluckbuy.com/2-axis-gopro-2-3-brushless-camera-mount-...

    It’s sku 97176 and they’re charging $120.16    

    The link to the thread at PhantomPilots.com is:

    http://www.phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=822&sid=41...

    Does anyone know anything about the other gimbal?

    Regards

  • REDUCING WEIGHT OF THIS GIMBAL: Has anyone tried using GoodLuckBuys sku 98236 as a substitute for the aluminum plates?  It is a set of carbon fiber plates and shock absorbing balls for the DJI Phantom and it's only $17.95 including freight.. 

  • I have had it working with directly connecting a 2S lipo. Currently mine runs on a 3S and I read you can go up tp 6S but I am not going to try that. No bec required.
  • T3
    This may be a stupid question, but does the control board get power directly from a 3S or 4S battery or do I need to use a BEC to get the voltage to 5Vs? I've been using a BEC and I think I should be powering the board directly.
  • Just for the record... In the Pitch and Roll tab the RC portion of the screen is used to set the manual Pitch and Roll functionality (if you connect a lead to A1 and ground you can use a second free channel to use for manual roll)

    The RC-Channel is the input analog channel of the board (A2 = Pitch = Channel 2 and A1 = Roll = Channel 1).

    The RC-Min and RC-Max determine the total angle that the camera tilts or rolls.

    AngleOffsetPitch sets the number of degrees that the camera should be in when in a zero position. To me this doesnt make much sense as the position of the knob determines this ange anyhow.

    Also helpfull to know I think: In the Settings tab the RC portion is also influencing the tilt/roll functionality. RC Abs/Prop should be checked when you have your receiver connected directly (like in most cases I guess) and the rcLPF is helpfull to set the speed in which the camera travels as a result of you turning the knob.

  • Turns out that I was mistaking a lead to be ground.. It wasn't. Now I have the manual pitch on channel 8 of my Turnigy 9X working as well!

  • Thank you Eric. I was looking at the images on Goodluckbuy and it show two different leads. One with a black plug and one with a red plug --- as I'm writing this, the light went on -- DOH!

    The Red is for power and the black goes to the RX. So essentially the Naza gimbal control capability is null because the controller is on the gimbal. Geez I'm dumb.

    Thanks much Eric.

    r

  • Randy, there is only one lead going to the receiver, not to your Naza! It is intended to enable manual tilt but I have not got it working yet...
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