Been testing a brushless gimbal on my quad, it's an own-design laser-cut Liteply gimbal which uses a Foxtech AIO (Martinez) controller ($50) and Foxtech 2208-70kv motors ($21). Information is a little hard to find on the controller and tuning of these things a little tricky but so far the results have been very encouraging.
The gimbal was laser cut from 2.5mm Liteply but needed some reinforcement to prevent flex so this is now version 3.1 :)
3mm or 4mm might be a little better in the stiffness dept. but this is not bad at all. It's also really light at less than 35g for the ply parts!
Camera is one of the new 1080p Mobius Camera's which is pretty amazing for the price of $70. just the colours are a bit saturated but that will be sorted out with later firmwares.
A very short video flying above my Johannesburg suburb showing the fantastic stabilization (Note: this is only 720p and I tried to keep the upload size small with a low bitrate, Youtube also takes some of the quality away):
Comments
Thanks Graham for that helpful info.
@ george: this is a completely different way of stabilizing a camera, probably 100x smoother than the best servo. The brushless motors used here are completely step-less whereas ANY servo is stepped (1024 steps for full rotation I think). It's chalk-and-cheeze, a servo powered gimbal's video is mediocre at best.
That's why they have their own special controller, this is a revolution in stabilization, previously only available in gimbals like the Zenmuse at $3000+ (http://wiki.dji-innovations.com/en/index.php/Zenmuse_Z15)
How would a brushless motor setup like this compare to a standard servo setup running through APM? Anyone have experience with brushless servos? I noticed these...http://www.servocity.com/html/bls-251_brushless_servo.html
Of course! You don't need a brushless gimbal for that, you can simply use a servo gimbal. Most flight controllers have the servo controller feature. Unless you have a need for slow shutter, then you may consider the brushless gimbal.
Is it possible to have the camera pointed straight down and stay stable for aerial photography?
This is the silicone wire I use for my IMU cable, and I've also split 2 strands off and use them as a nice light and flexible gopro cable.
http://www.goodluckbuy.com/4p-silicone-wire-28awg-data-cable-brushl...
@Wesley, change the wires for some really soft ones, I used the cable from a set of stereo earphones plus one other wire, all really soft. The stiff wires that came with the controller are unsuitable IMHO. Balance of the camera of course, must be pretty perfect too.
@Mark, didn't even know such small sliprings were available, thanks. Would add a bit of expense and weight though. With soft wires mine seems to work fine.
@Daniel, not using any dampening. Props are well balanced though and the camera is mounted on Velcro, there's also Velcro between the base plate and the mount that connects to the quad which might damp the system slightly.
Graham, very nice for the price! You may as well have gone for the RCtimer $18 motors, and 3-axis controller =D. You basically did what I was striving to do.
BTW are you using dampening? I've been at this hobby for 8 months and only recently have I started using wire dampening which helped. It took 8 months to realize prop balancing was not helping, it was Z-axis vibes from the prop pitch causing it.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next