AutoQuad Forum

Hi,

to smoothen the onboard videos, I am planning to install a 2-axis gimbal only to compensate the angle on nick and roll when moving or flying with wind.
I think I will need a separate board for steering the gimbal. or does AutoQuad have already a functionality for compensating the angle of the copter on the gimbal.
I do not plan to steer the gimbal from the TX at this stage.

Would appreciate any hint or advise.

Get yourself an from viacopter - you just set the AQ board to send the gimbal tilt command, but the gimbal controller is otherwise a standalone unit.


What camera are you planning to use with it? There are a lot of gimbals out there, but a lot of them are badly designed/made.

The AQ was designed as a flying camera rig, remember?

It already has a lot of features for camera stabilization and operation:
- 2axis servo control. Best results with fast digital servos @6V.
- Passthrough for tilt control
- Camera Trigger
- All sorts of log options & exports
- You can adjust inputs, outputs and finetune the settings in the GUI

aq-log-options.jpg (128.21 KiB) Viewed 24040 times

Good enough for aerial photography and FPV. Menno demonstrated it nearly 2 years ago:



It´s all documented - RTFW!

But it´s all been forgotten due to the Alexmos Brushless Gimbal Mania...

The stabilization from AQ itself is very impressive. Here's a quick first test video from almost 2 years ago with a home-made servo-driven gimbal, controlled by AQ (it's not pretty but shows the compensation pretty well, especially check at around 0:20). The only real limitation is that it may not compensate as well as a dedicated IMU mounted on the camera (like the Alexmos/et al. systems use). If the gimbal moves around independent of the frame (eg. on rubber mounts), the AQ couldn't detect that.

-Max

Thanks Max and than Norbert for this information.
I went through the Documentation but somehow oversaw the concerning chapters, my mistake.
I have found the informaiton now and will go on with my plans.
Concerning the Gimbal I will have to build it myself, as the camera will not be below the quad, but inline with it.
The camera is a GoPro Hero 3.

Now my gimbal is built and installed. I hope to make the first testflight this long week-end.
It is a really poor and cheap creation of myself, but the dry test showed that i works and stabilization working as expected.
Will let you know how it worked out in flight.

I am using Align DS520 digital servos for my gimbal.
I left the output PWM frequency for the Gimbal at 200Hz, but my servos make some strange noises.
I was wondering if this might be due to the frequency?
I have seen in the user manual of several Flybarless systems that they recommend 333Hz as frequency for those servos, should I use if in AutoQuad as well? Or could this damage my servos and I'd better stick with 200Hz?

Would be great if anyone could help me answer this question.

Digital servos usually can operate in the 200-400Hz range so you´re on the safe side with the 333Hz of the Aligns.
http://www.spartan-rc.com/resources/servodb/servo.php