Question about Gimbal and AutoQuad

[DUKE40]

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.

[SuperSharpShooter]

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.

[kinderkram]

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 23990 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...

[Max]

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

[DUKE40]

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.

[Lindbaergh]

[DUKE40]

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.

[DUKE40]

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.

[kinderkram]

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