Brushless conversion for av series gimbals?

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
Just wondering why I haven't seen a conversion kit yet. or is there one out?? Seems with all the brushless buzz going around there would be a kit to adapt the popular av130/200 to a set of direct drive motors. maybe I should monopolize on the idea.
 

There will be a way to do it, but I think it will defeat some of the point of Brushless (direct Drive). The gear mechanisms on roll and the tiny bearing on the tilt are week points of the AV series. I think it is going to be easy and cheap to build brushless direct drive gimbal frames. I have not started to tinker with them yet, but it will be soon. I am ready to let my AV200 go. Although not because it is servo driven, as I think the servo gimbals are still working fine for larger cameras.
 

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
Good point. Didnt think about the gear factor. Still though, if it was an economical upgrade it would be worth it since there are so many of these gimbals out there already.
 

BorisS

Drone Enthusiast
if you really want to balance it out yon wont be happy with the standard craddle on the Av 200 Av 130. The holes won't give you a chance to work percise enough !
Additionally there is no adjustment on the roll axis ! So no chance of bring the roll axis back into the sweet spot for different cams !

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MikeH

Member
All I can say is it is in the pipeline. Have you checked there website lately? the Halo gimbals arent far away and i am pretty sure last time I checked the DD AV200 was listed as well. No prices as yet though

Just wondering why I haven't seen a conversion kit yet. or is there one out?? Seems with all the brushless buzz going around there would be a kit to adapt the popular av130/200 to a set of direct drive motors. maybe I should monopolize on the idea.
 

kloner

Aerial DP
having the gear reduction on roll is what the dd needs. can't wait to see where all the players in the industry are in a year from now when the dust settles, till then i'm all in.
 



DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
I agree there is a small weakness with having the gear. but the real weak links are the gears in the servos, the belt and the potentiometer. I think once the pots can be "successfully" eliminated, then the normal servo drives will work much better. But given a brushless system has no gears or pots it should be quite an improvement in response rate and lack of backlash. I dont feel that having a brushless motor directly attached to the gear on roll would be a bad thing. We will probably see someone come out with this sooner than later.
 

soundmind

Member
Hey,

Brushless conversion kit is in the making i should have some inflight video up in the next couple of days, the bench test do date is blooody impressive, and its will be a real easy kit to fit.

the reduction drive is retained on both the pitch and roll not only to increase the torque but also to reduce the effect of coging on the brusless motors.


Pitch is 4:1 reduction and the roll is 10:1

needless to say the torque is awesome and thus a little forgiving if not 100% balanced. but being balanced does help.

will keep you all updated.;
 
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RTRyder

Merlin of Multirotors
Hey,

Brushless conversion kit is in the making i should have some inflight video up in the next couple of days, the bench test do date is blooody impressive, and its will be a real easy kit to fit.

the reduction drive is retained on both the pitch and roll not only to increase the torque but also to reduce the effect of coging on the brusless motors.


Pitch is 4:1 reduction and the roll is 10:1

needless to say the torque is awesome and thus a little forgiving if not 100% balanced. but being balanced does help.

will keep you all updated.;

If it works as well as a purpose built brushless gimbal and it's reasonably priced, you better gear up to sell a LOT of them. I have two AV130 sitting on the shelf gathering dust while brushless gimbal do the work the AV were intended for, would be nice if I could see some return on the investment I made on the P/H gear. I'm not even concerned about controller boards, just produce a working conversion kit with motors, I'll take care of the rest of it...

Ken
 

chopper

Member
I have two photoshipone gimbals that I paid a lot of money for just begging for some kind of upgrade option. I thought Photoshipone was working on a solution at some point. I dont know if they still are. The gimbals are still great for heavier cam setups, but it would be great if we could get more out of the investment.
 




FlyACG

Member
Ditto what RTRyder said! But I want it to work with Alemos board for sure.

I spoke to Kim at Photohigher - he says the conversion kit will be available in roughly 3 weeks. RC Tiger 5208 motors are in the kit. Should be priced around $450. All that is needed is a Alexmos board.

PH is also planning to update the RSGS system to support the brushless setup but I think the Alexmos board will be ideal and the best option.

Patiently waiting here too for our AV200!
 
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soundmind

Member
Hey Guys,

Been working with photohigher on a Brushless conversion kit for the a v200 - Video Busy Uploading to youtube from this mornings quick test flight using a 10.5mm fisheye to get my frame into shot to give some kinda indication on attitude, the wind was also gusting something crazy needs a little more dialling in on the extremes of the roll but much better then the servo's could ever achieve IMHO - http://youtu.be/eAjLNogKMhc still uploading should be ready in about 2 hours.

retained the reduced drive system to mulitpy the power from smaller motors to keep the weight down. 3rd axis in process.

Gimbal is on loan to a film crew should have some red epic footage soon....;-)

Correction on the motors they will be the RCtiger 4006 as the 5208 will be to big to fit on the pitch where they would make the most difference and the 4-1 gearing on the pitch give heaps of tourqe i spend about 20second balancing my d600 on the standard tray in the above clip.

Your Thoughts?


I may add that all the mechanics is from photohigher the motors are tigers and included in the kit - the kit i won't include a controller but alexmos will be highly recommended as the marinez GUI does not allow the motors poles to be configured correctly for hte gear ratios on the av 200.

 
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