I ended up taking an extra 3DR Pixhawk and using it just to control the gimbal. Honest it does a much better job, jitters are gone and it just runs smoother.
I’m building another machine with a servo powered gimbal, I would like to find something that is equivalent to the PIXHAWK as far as gimbal control but maybe smaller and more compact. Any ideas?
Thanks for the offer to check warranty. I broke the USB off so I don’t expect any warranty work. Thank you for your help.
Without a doubt the Pixhawk is a better controller than the Flip flight controller, though it is ~10x more expensive. Consider an actual gimbal stabilizer for brushless motors:
robotshop.com/en/32bit-3-axi … l-kit.html
robotshop.com/en/8bit-2-axis … r-kit.html
Thank you Coleman. But I am using a servo powered gimbal. I fly 3 different cameras in different configurations and the servo gimbals do a better job with unbalanced loads. With so many configurations it’s too difficult to balance the payloads for each flight.
If you have any other ideas I’m interested in hearing them. Thanks again and have a great day.
The FLIP is certainly the least expensive which can control RC servos, so if not a brushless controller, a flight controller is the next best thing. We offer a Pixhawk variant without GPS:
robotshop.com/en/radiolink-p … =RB-Rlk-10
Care to share a few photos of your setup?
I would but I don’t have a URL for the images and I don’t see a way to put up images any other way. I fly the DJI S900 with a gimbal I made from parts from ServoCity.
In the mapping world we use mostly servo gimbals, less weight and less fuss. There is a small market for better multipurpose servo gimbals, geared would be nice because direct drive has slop that becomes vibrations in movement. Not a huge market but there is a need for simple 2 axis gimbals for mapping drones.
When you click reply here, look at the grey bar below which says “Attachments” and expand it using the arrow at the far right.
WOW, that was hidden there…Sorry I could not figure that out myself…
Ok here are some pics.
Oh, so your controller can be programmed via Mission Planner or do I use something else similar?
Which controller do you mean?
I was referring to your PIXHAWK controller. It uses Mission Planner or something else to make adjustments on the gimbal controls?
I have an interest in a IMU that I could put on a gimbal or camera that can accept a PWM signal and give me a flight log that will tell me my compass orientation during each time the PWM signal was triggered. You or anyone on here have an idea how something like this could be made?
If your gimbal is connected to the PixHawk than yes, it will be configured in Mission Planner.
You could use a MultiWii based controller like THIS one and datalog the information. This would be a DIY project and code might need to be changed for your application.
Lynxmotion Quadrino Nano – MultiWii Data Logging
That is great news there are some options here. Do you know of anyone that would be for hire who could design and program this to be a turn key system for us? We are very interested in a device like this.
Thank you again.
Mark
Hi Mark,
We don’t know who could be interested in making this a turn key system.
You might want to look on the MultiWii forum HERE.
