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What am I doing wrong?
  • Walt_S
    I balanced my gimbal, have 5208-75T for roll and pitch and 5208-200T for yaw. Have a 5Dm3 with a 16-35mm lens. I'm got a 32bit board with latest GUI and firmware loaded and have a 4S 4000mah battery. I calibrated both sensors. I've corrected the number of poles and set both sensors to the correct orientation. When I'm trying to set power and PID values, it never comes close to stabilizing, no matter what settings I've tried. If I try to autotune (I've tried all at once and one axis at a time - also tried different levels of "stability" vs. "precision"), it moves erratically, but never in a stable, level position. I have it on a solid base. I disconnected each motor from the frame, plugged them in and set them on various PID and power values. They don't move when the sensor is rolled at all, or at least not in a corresponding manner. I couldn't find any ferrite rings in my area, but I did buy ferrite cores from radio shack and ran each motor wire through them (I also put one on the camera IMU) and placed them as close to the board as possible. The motor wires are the flimsy 3 wire nylon ribbon type. I'm at a loss as to what to do. I don't think this could be a balancing issue as I can't get the motors to turn with the sensor (as I read to do in the manual) even when they're disconnected from the frame. Could it be the wires? Maybe the motors (but all three?). Could it be interference and the radioshack cores are working? I'm not getting any I2C errors, only motor skipping. I see the correct orientation of the sensor on GUI, but the controller is not telling the motors (or the communication is getting messed up) to level. I haven't adjusted any other parameters in the GUI except on the basic tab. I did reset all parameters and started fresh.

    I originally bought this gimbal a year (8bit board) or so ago and had trouble. I could never get the yaw to balance correctly and I actually figured that I fried something on the board when I soldered the power wires to it (that or the 3rd axis add on was bad). I gave up on it and it had been sitting in my shop until I saw the W BGC Pro board all wired and in a case and bought it. With autotuning I figured I'd be set.

    I tried to include everything relevant that I could, but if I left anything out, please let me know and I'll add it.

    I have a short film I'm shooting in February and I really hoped to be able to use this. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks,

    Walt
  • Garug
    What FW do you use, update to 2.43b9 http://www.basecamelectronics.com/downloads/32bit/ (do not update to 2.44b2 (beta))

    Do you get any i2c errors, if yes, you need to get rid of them first, if no, you do not need ferrite rings.

    Did you perform the motor auto after setting power to some values above 100? You need to do that to get the inverted status correct. and after correct the pole count manually.

    Try reseting sensor data and recalibrating ACC and Gyro. You could also save your profiles and erase EEPROM, it will erase everything and set factory defaults.

    As it did not work with 8 bit either, you really should take a look on the gimbal construction.

    Make the gimbal as compact as you can (shorten all tubes to minimum) but maintaining balance on all axis. What is balance? it is gimbal or camera put in any position and the camera stays in that position. (It is not camera getting level without power.)

    Also all axis must move freely.

    Make sure all axis are 90 degrees to each other as accurately as they can be.

    And maybe you should verify that all motor phases have same resistance (about in between 10 to 20 ohms depending of motor, but all phases about the same.)

    Camera installation is very important. If you have possibility to support the camera from bottom and top, do it. the camera must be firmly attached.

    If nothing works, then the gimbal construction is simply not up-to the task.

  • Walt_S
    Hi Garug,

    I'm using fw 2.43b9. I don't get any I2C errors. I did run the motor auto and had one motor with an inverted connection. I then corrected for the number of poles.

    I reset the sensor data a few times and recalibrated both the ACC and gyro. I also erased EEPROM and went back to factor defaults to no avail.

    With the 8bit board, the pitch and roll worked, but the yaw didn't. Like I said, at the time I blamed it on either a bad 3rd axis add-on or my mishandling of the soldering. In retrospect I probably didn't have the yaw axis balanced properly.

    I do have the gimbal balanced now. I can put it in any position and it says. If I tilt the handles in either direction the yaw axis stays put.

    I don't believe my problem has to do with the frame because I isolated and removed it as a factor in one of my tests. I separated the motors after everything was calibrated and then moved the camera sensor. The motors would not turn (at various PID and power settings) to correspond with the movement of the sensor (even with no load). I tried this test after reading it in the manual.

    Alex states "Remove motors from gimbal, connect them to controller and set parameters P=0, I=0.1, D=0 for each axis and set enough POWER. Connect main power supply. Motors should spin smoothly, while rolling the sensor. Little jitter is normal due to magnetic force between rotor and stator (“cogging” effect)."

    I'm not getting that at all. Wouldn't that require that the problem is in either: a setting I don't know about; something wrong with the controller; something wrong with the motor(s), or; something wrong with the wires connecting the motors?

    Maybe I'm missing something else. I see people on the forum that have similar issues, but I've tried all of the potential solutions that I have at my disposal right now (I haven't tried new motor wires, I haven't tried new motors).

    Thanks for your help,

    Walt
  • Walt_S
    I just had another thought. Could it have anything to do with the batteries? They're fully charged 4S 4000mah 30C GForce Elite Series with nanotech additives.
  • Garug
    Gimbal uses just an ampere or so, no need for high C batteries, but thad does no harm. Battery is not your problem, but ensure that the battery voltage is calibrated on GUI and compensate voltage trop enabled.

    would be good to see couple of pictures or video of the gimbal and your settings. Where is your second IMU located? Are all IMU directions (X, Y, Z) for sure correct?

    You could try first with Camera IMU only, just deactivate it from GUI. Also if you have joystick, receiver etc. disconnect them. After it is working add them back one by one.

    It could be some problem in IMU, what the realtime tab is showing for the IMU? are the indicators rotating logicaly if you set motors off and rotate the camera by hand?

  • Walt_S
    I have the second IMU below the yaw on the vertical riser. All IMU directions are set correctly (I've calibrated them many times and am comfortable with the procedure). I have a joystick, but it's not connected. There are no other component "add-ons" to the controller. The real-time tab shows accurate movements when I move the sensor. It's just not translating to the motor's responses.
  • Garug
    It could be one of the motor drivers that is faulty, but I still think that is unlikely, especially if you have performed the motor tests with them as you mentioned above. Did you perform the motor test using one axis motor drivers, or did you also test all the motor drivers. If you test all the motors on their drivers and they rotate smooth, then they are ok.

    As you have also erased EEPROM it is unlikely that anything range is stored on EEPROM.

    It could be some FW bug, but then what would that cause problems only on your gimbal?

    My guess still is it must be something on the gimbal mechanics.

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