Hi,
It is very hard to tune a brushless gimbal. Even the best tutorial found on the internet are hard to replicate because we all have different setups : cameras are different, hardware is different, Voltage input to the alexmos board is different, etc.
Let's share our PID settings to constitute an as big library of settings that works as we can. Either you will have the same configuration as someone and you can just copy the settings, either you are close to a published setup and then you can start from there to tune your particular gimbal.
Please post:
-Gimbal hardware : make or model
-Camera : make and model (specify also if you have particular lenses as the weight changes with differetn lenses)
-Brushless motors : make and model, number of turns
-Power , P, I, D for pitch and roll axis
-an eventual youtube video to show your best results with these settings
My turn:
-Gimbal from kamkop.de
-Camera : NEX5R with 16-50 lens
-Brushless motors : GMB 5010 - 150 turns (copies of RCtimers I think)
-Battery to alexmos board : 4S
-ROLL : Power : 120, P : 20, I : 0.17, D : 18
-PITCH : Power 50, P : 17, I : 0.15, D : 15
Result video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw7Z-iPGiKQ
Your turn now !
Comments
@William,
On this frame I had no video TX. However on my TBS discovery I use a separate small 3S lipo. I prefer to keep the power source for my quad dedicated to the motors and main controller.
You do not need 12V as all comes down to the quality of your antennas.
As a test I bought a video TX on 3V emitting 200mW. I ran it off a single cell lipo and could go up to 400m without any problem while having clear video. Now as I said this was for a test on relative limited range (400m) which still is not bad I guess.
Like I said the better your Tx antenna is tuned (matching your frequency) the more power is emitted and nothing is 'lost'. This is why it is important to spent some money on a good cloverleaf and skewplanar antenna.
Cool Thanks Jan,
I was running mine on a BEC Pro being fed 12V I have had them running on 4S before to. So if you are running your gimbal on 2S what are you running your video Tx on? Wouldn't that need at least 12V?
Hi William,
Thank you for the positive feedback.
The gimbal controller is running from a 2S battery without BEC.
So far this seem to work quite well.
The quad is running on a 4S battery which is too high for the gimbal controller and brushless motors.
This is why I opted for the 2S solution. It is just a small battery pack that fits nicely on the inertic mount of the Spyder frame. Also it is completely separated from the quad power source.
Cheers
Hi Jan,
Great video and great setup. Are you running your controller on 4s directly from the battery, or on 12V through a BEC? Basically what kind of power are you feeding to the board and from what source?
Hi Shawn, I finally get pretty good results in this manner:
-I load a maximum weight (including the batteries) on the camera gimbal : the more mass, the less vibrations. The batteries need to be hard fixed to the rest of the gimbal structure otherwise it will increase the vibrations!
-To separate the vibrating frame (motors/props/arms) from the camera gimbal, I use soft silicon gel mounts like these:
You can get some here : http://mikrokopter.altigator.com/anti-vibration-silicone-damper-p-4...
I also modified my motors and props from 700Kv motors/12 inch props to 400Kv/15inch props
For the props I got high quality XOAR wood props ; pre balanced from factory and good compromise between rigidity and some vibration absorption. I reduced by half my measured APM vibrations just by changing to these props !
If your video is not smooth when you turn on the gimbal and your multicopter is not running its motors, that could probably mean two main causes:
-either your gimbal P is too high, try reduce it. Alternatively you can also reduce the power parameter (same effect as P).
-either your gimbal D is too high (causing high freq oscillations). If you reduce D, you might have to reduce P also.
There is no miracle PID, you need to tune by trial and errors. Especially parameters and configurations are different for everyone.
Also, the camera gimbal itself should be extra rigid.
Hope this helps,
So, if the gimbal is attached to a multi rotor and it begins to vibrate (even visible to the drone) what settings must be changed in PID?. Also would that mean a stiffer mount from the gimbal to the drone, or a softer mount?
If I fly my Hexa with the gimbal powered off, it is very smooth, but on is not... Thanks
Yes, did prop balance and it did not improve anything. I'm thinking that the larger propellers and the lower KV creates lower frequencies than my previous design. I thus need to adapt my anti vibration system with softer silicon to filter better the list frequencies.
Did you check the balance of your motors and propellers?
I finished today the assembly of my new x8 version which was supposed to be an improvement over the first one:
-motors MN3117-700kv to MT3515-400kv
- propellers 12x3,8 to 15x4 (APC)
-battery 4s to 6s
Gimbal and camera remained the same, APM and its anti vibration remained identical.
Results are awful: vibrations measured on APM doubled, jello appears on video!
Does it has to make with the larger propellers? Or what? I am really puzzled. Anyone ideas?
Here are mine. I posted these in my blog too. I have been lowering Power step by step to see how it works. Defaults never really worked well for me. It's much more stable now even when yaw is tilted. 5208 180Ts Camera is Canon 5D with battery and 22mm pime lens. 3S battery.
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