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

  • Can you post the link to that gimbal please. It like the protection it afford the camera and I can't find it on GLB site.

    Thanks,

    r

  • Well then...you got the good gimbal :). I went the cheap route.

    Sorry i can't be of much help.

    r

  • DJI site does not help.  This gimbal is controllable, seen videos on YT, but not enough info to figure out how.  Here are some pics. 1st pic shows entire gimbal, 2nd pic shows cable for tilt control, and 3rd shows connector (top right of circuit board) for tilt control.3692861620?profile=original3692861761?profile=original3692861645?profile=original

  • Also, have you looked at the DJI site ti view the videos for the Phantom?

  • Can you provide a link to the gimbal you purchased?I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think you can control the GLB gimbal with the NAZA directly. I know that the DJI  ZenMus gimbal is brushless and it will work with the Naza if you use the PMU from DJI as the interface between that gimbal and the NAZA. The GLB gimbals have only one plug and that's for power. It has it's own control board. I've tried plugging the motors on the GLB gimbal directly into the Naza ports designed for gimbal control and it does not work. The manual even tells you that it will not work. Perhaps someone will chime in with more info and correct me if I am wrong.

    r

  • Real newb here.  Just bought GLB gimbal and using stock DJI Phantom with stock receiver.  Can anyone give detailed instructions as to how to wire gimbal to receiver for tilt control?  That's all I want is tilt control.  I have the Simple BGC GUI from Alex Mos and the DJI Naza Assistant with tilt enabled.  Just don't know what wires or receiver port to use.  GRRRRR.

  • Comment above: I have a dji 450.

  • I want to mount this gimbal below the baseplate. Have to drill 4 holes in the bottom (45x45).

    Does anabidy where the leads are? Can I drill without getting problems?

    Dick Gerritsen

    the Netherlands

  • Hello Rick,

    In order to add a manual control to point the gimbal down, you will need to hack the board and assign a dail on the radio to control the function. I requires running jumpers from the poins on the board to the rx on you aircraft. there is an earlier post in this string that kind of explains it, but you may have try different plugs to get it to work with your equipment. the post is from Edward (Sandy) Abernety. It seems fairly straight forward.

    Good luck

    r

  • That would be great.  I look forward to hear what you come up with.  Also, would there be any issues using this gimbal (or similar one) for pointing the camera straight down?  Thanks.

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