Alexmos brushless gimbal PID settings : share them with the community

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 !

I've almost have my setup working perfect. Last thing to fix is a slight tail wag in my tricopter. I didn't notice this tail wag defect until I had a super stable 2 axis camera going.

My camera is a small Mobius action cam.

Using Hobbyking 2206-140kv gimbal motors

Gimbal homemade - simple aluminum bar stock bent to right angle . Very simple - works well and is very compact.

Settings still adjusting but works fine with a wide range of PID adjustments.

What I learned which may help others. Eliminate vibration! I had my APM isolated well and vibration levels were very good. I also had balanced my DT750 motors/props and had jello free video in hover.

Hovering was fine with the gimbal. In forward motion I could hear a "beating" motor noise and this apparently this induced a frame vibration that made the brushless gimbal unusable - flopping around like crazy with no way to adjust out the problem. The tricopter flew fine.

I did two things to eliminate my vibration issue:

1. I created a battery plate and mounted the gimbal to this battery plate. Isolation pads placed between battery plate and frame. Idea here was to give my gimbal the battery mass to work with. This helped some but didn't quite fix the issue.

2. Place thin Sorbothane isolation pads under motors. This last step eliminated my vibration problem.

I can now fly forward to max speed of a little more than 40mph with good results. Now I need to adjust PIDs a bit to get rid of the tail wag and practice flying. My flying skills are horrible for smooth video. Added expo to my yaw servo to try and improve smoothness. Not the gimbals fault.

I hope my eliminate vibration tip helps.

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Comments

Brian Sigmon October 31, 2013 at 4:31pm

I've almost have my setup working perfect. Last thing to fix is a slight tail wag in my tricopter. I didn't notice this tail wag defect until I had a super stable 2 axis camera going.

My camera is a small Mobius action cam.

Using Hobbyking 2206-140kv gimbal motors

Gimbal homemade - simple aluminum bar stock bent to right angle . Very simple - works well and is very compact.

Settings still adjusting but works fine with a wide range of PID adjustments.

What I learned which may help others. Eliminate vibration! I had my APM isolated well and vibration levels were very good. I also had balanced my DT750 motors/props and had jello free video in hover.

Hovering was fine with the gimbal. In forward motion I could hear a "beating" motor noise and this apparently this induced a frame vibration that made the brushless gimbal unusable - flopping around like crazy with no way to adjust out the problem. The tricopter flew fine.

I did two things to eliminate my vibration issue:

1. I created a battery plate and mounted the gimbal to this battery plate. Isolation pads placed between battery plate and frame. Idea here was to give my gimbal the battery mass to work with. This helped some but didn't quite fix the issue.

2. Place thin Sorbothane isolation pads under motors. This last step eliminated my vibration problem.

I can now fly forward to max speed of a little more than 40mph with good results. Now I need to adjust PIDs a bit to get rid of the tail wag and practice flying. My flying skills are horrible for smooth video. Added expo to my yaw servo to try and improve smoothness. Not the gimbals fault.

I hope my eliminate vibration tip helps.
Jan October 31, 2013 at 2:46pm

Hi,

Here are my settings for the Alexmos with GoPro camera.

Gimbal is fully balanced for the GoPro.

This is a first video made with the gimbal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNbdxLGJ_nY

The chase was a little bit hard as it was done 'on sight'.
Euan Ramsay October 31, 2013 at 8:01am

You should do a parallel thread for martinez boards too.
MR60

Hugues October 31, 2013 at 7:08am

Of course we assume that the gimbal has been balanced with the camera and all of its accesories and/or fpv camera.
Developer

John Arne Birkeland October 31, 2013 at 4:45am

It is important to note that the golden rule for direct drive gimbals, is to have a 'perfectly' balanced setup. If you camera isn't properly balanced in all 3 axis, controller settings aren't going to matter.
Christiaan van Vollenstee October 31, 2013 at 4:25am

I think this is a very good idea, maybe if this blog goes good you can start a group.

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