Hello folks, I just started dipping my toes in the basecam waters today, and I'll try to give an accurate state of where I'm at and what I'm looking for. I sincerely hope I might be able to get some help getting up and running quickly because I am very hopeful to use this replacement gimbal this weekend.

Just received the shipment of this gimbal ( http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__52136__DYS_Smart3_3_Axis_GoPro_Gimbal_with_AlexMos_Control_Board_BaseCam_.html http://www.dys.hk/ProductShow.asp?ID=63 ) from HobbyKing today. I took the base mounting plate off of my multirotor and mounted it to the gimbal using the posts and screws supplied by DYS. I then used a clamp to mount it to my desk and hooked up a 4S battery to the power cable. It beeped and started buzzing and shuddering and slowly started moving back and forth but never settled down.

I fought with this for a while, and then eventually I got the idea to actually put the GoPro on it, and TaDa! Wish I would have realized that sooner. With the camera mounted, it trimmed out pretty level, but the yaw is off by about 7 degrees from a "forward" orientation.

I downloaded the latest version of the GUI as well as the USB UART drivers and ran it. When I clicked connect, it would briefly flash some version numbers but then immediately disconnect. After a few tries, I saw that it was reporting the firmware version as 2.3b5, so I went looking on the basecam site and found that version of the GUI and hurray, it connected successfully.

So that is pretty much where I'm at so far. Given that state, I have a few questions of things I think I need to do before even getting to the point of mounting it on my multirotor:

1. What part of the manual pertains to fixing the yaw offset that I'm seeing?
2. Do I need to do an ACC or Gyro calibration if it is relatively true on pitch and roll so far?
3. The GUI shows a number of I2C errors that is constantly climbing about 5 or so per second. I saw an option related to I2C uplift that had a tooltip saying it was for I2C errors, is this something I should try enabling?
4. Should I look at upgrading the firmware? Can I go all the way up to the latest 2.41b4 or could I be limited to some lower version based on the particular board that came with this gimbal?


Next, let me give a bit of background on what I'm hoping to do with this thing. :)

I am flying a 3DR X8 with a Pixhawk flight computer. To date, I've been using a Tarot 2-axis gimbal, and it has worked pretty well. I can control the pitch using the dial switch on my Spektrum DX8, but I wanted more. :)
I have a pair of SkyZone goggles which are capable of head tracking. I've hacked together a slave cable that goes from the goggles to my DX8 transmitter, and I've tested it out with a separate receiver and basic setup of a camera on two servos for pitch and yaw. When i turn on the head tracking, the signals get sent to the receiver and the camera tracks properly.

What I want to do is get this 3-axis gimbal set up on my X8, and have it do its stabilization magic, but allow a "passenger camera-man" to wear the goggles and use the head tracking to look around and record whatever they want.

So, to get to this ideal state, I have the following additional questions:

1. Power -- Currently, I was flying off of a 4S 6000mAh battery that powered everything including the Tarot gimbal. With that setup, I would typically get a minimum of 10 minutes of flight time. That was good enough for me, but I'm wondering if I'm going to lose a lot of that due to the increased weight of the new gimbal. Do I need to look at adding a secondary battery to power the gimbal? Would the weight of something like a small 3S 900mAh actually help?

2. Flight controller stabilization assist -- I've been reading through the BaseCam manual and trying to figure out whether I want or need to hook the Pixhawk up to the gimbal. It was hooked up to the Tarot, but I think that was mostly to enable control of the tilt. Is it likely I'm going to need this or might I be okay without it?

3. RC Receiver input -- I've read in a few places about people hooking up Spektrum satellite receivers directly to the BaseCam? I haven't seen any port that would seem to make that possible on my board. Is that some extra addon or am I just misunderstanding what they are talking about?

4. RC channels -- The header (?) on the board that is labeled for inputs has four sets of 3 pins. two are labeled FC-R and FC-P, and two are labeled RC-R and RC-P. I'm assuming that means pitch and roll for the flight computer and the RC receiver, but where is the yaw input? I see the three output ports for yaw pitch and roll that have cables going out to the motors but I can't find an input for yaw. :/

5. What are the really big problems that I haven't even thought of so far? :) Am I barking up the wrong tree here or is this camera-man head tracking thing reasonable?

I greatly appreciate your taking the time to read all this. I hope you might be able to offer a bit of assistance. I'm happy to continue reading, but this is pretty technically deep stuff that I don't have a lot of familiarity with yet, although I'm eager to learn.