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.
Comments
Rick, I have both the camera and gimbal. I offered up the camera for a fitting and it _should_ fit.
The tripod mount under the camera is right at the end of the slot on the gimbal. If it does not fit, a small amount of dremmel would make it fit.
As for weight - I'm not sure. I could not test-fit the camera over the weekend.
Gut feel though - I don't think it will be a good solution for this camera; the "arm" which holds the camera is also narrower than the base of the camera so is not a good fit.
For about $50-70 more (granted, a high percentage) you can get a bigger version which should work for the 260 and larger and be less of a mash-up than this.
I should get a chance this week to do a real test with it if you're willing to wait.
For those who have purchased this gimbal, would a canon sx260 be too big, or too heavy for this gimbal? The canon sx260 is 231g and 4.2"w x 2.4"h x 1.3"d. And can this gimbal be used to point the camera straight down?
First post here, so thanks to everyone for sharing all of this information. I am trying to build a mapping uav for ag applications, using the 3dr x8 kit and a couple canon cameras.
Anyone using this gimbal with the sony as10/as15? If yes please some pics and advise?
AHAH!!
Thanks. I feel less dense already.
r
The plug that goes to GND on the 2x3 set goes to a GND pin on the RX.. The other 2 go the respective RX channel SIGNAL pins you have selected to control the pitch and roll with knobs..
To Sandy Abernethy: Thank you again, had a chance to futz, but find I am dense. :(
I get where three of the plugs from the three-plug cable go - I think: One to a grd pin of the 2x3 pin set and two go on the top pins of the 2x3 pin set. But where do the other three plugs of the three plug cable go? I played with it last night testing the A1 and A2 pins on the side of the control board. Are you plugging any of the the plugs from the three plug cable into your receiver, and what receiver are you using?
Thanks again for your help.
r
My gimbal from goodluck sometimes levels out after i give it 30 seconds, but there are other times when it seems confused and continues to twitch and rotate (roll) about never stopping. The only way i can fix this is to reset it by disconnecting the power and try and connect it up with it roughly in a level position. This doesnt always work, but it does.
Anyone have any tips how to make it work reliably ? Im also have problems hooking up the USB, most of the time it plain doesnt work. It rarely fails to load the values or params and the graph also doesnt work.
I've just tried the roll function, and after being very confused, I figured out the rx output defines the rate of change in the roll, i.e. the higher the value, the quicker it would roll down until eventually locking and shuddering.
I was hoping it would reposition itself based on what the ppm output was. Is there any way to change this behaviour?
@Hein thanks for that.
for those interested, ive attached a few pics of another GoodLuckBuy.com gimbal. This one is $120ish.
DJI Phantom Brushless Gimbal Aluminum Camera Mount w/ Motor & Controller for Gopro3 FPV Aerial Photography
SKU 99701
ive included a pic of the entire package and a close up of the board.
Awesome!! Will futz tonight and see what I get.
thanks Sandy.
r
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