Brushless Gimbal Developments

[BorisS]

Hi Guys,

there seems to be more and more DIY and components developments going on on brushless gimbal setups.

The video below from Jussi member of the Autoquad team.

Quoted from Rcgroups: "

Thanx to the SBGC project by Alex Moskalenko and the efforts of AQ Team members like Jussi (ViaCopter), Paul (Flyduino), Felix (famous Flyduino NanoWii and UltraESC design) and SebastianJ (Gimbal design) we'll soon have what many desire: an affordable, simple but effective solution for Multirotors - and any vehicle you can think of attaching it to."

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and i guess the initial impulse work comes from http://www.simplebgc.com/eng/ Alexmos

Anyone any additional infos on these developments ?

 

[redridinghood]

Finally a gimbal that outperforms all others

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3oo4NDxCA0

 

[BorisS]

Japp all we need now is a mad scientist and a DIY kit from him to allow us to cut the heads chicken and keep them functioning. Stick them to the copter and a cam to several heads. Although one head might manage a gopro 3

Boris

 

[PaNt]

some more information...

Good afternoon,

we have updated the web page and have added more informations like prices estimations and technical details.

PCB's and Motors are being processed ("Pro" version of the motors, the "Hoby" versions will be available in March).

For the " Luxury " mechanics, we start milling final pre production versions next week. They will be tested and we will have a few testers checking that it's stress free to build , wire ( video cables on the Go pro 3) and that everything is working fine.

Once done, and final small modification made if necessary, we will start the production.

The first batch is 300 pcs and is covering so far the pre orders / reservation requests we have at the moment, and there is still a little remaining stock. We will launch a new batch in the next couple of weeks in order to be able to answer to the requests, so there is no stress to have to be on the list.

We will give availability estimations in 2 weeks for the complete kits and DIY kits

Due to the high demands overseas and i far far away countries, we have or are setting up small partnerships with a few partners to allow the prices to remain acceptable. Please note that all the prices we give as estimations actually are including 19,6% of VAT, which means you can remove close to 19% for overseas prices if you are not concerned by VAT in your country

TOmorrow evening we will be at the CNC factory with Thierry to work on the milling strategies and drawings refinement, in order to reduce the number of operations when it is possible and tool changes, and ensure the best repeatability ( meaning that on 100 pcs, 100 are good instead of 80 ok and 20 almost ok only) . We will also make small modifications, then we will wot with David to make the changes on the solid works file, to prepare the user manual.

The top bracket of the camera cage will have a small milled pocket to receive the IMU and a small cover to protect it also.

We will deliver a small aluminum housing for the Controller also, because it protects the unit and it acts as a heat dissipator also. And it looks great

Some people asked us if some ESC's were needed. No ESC is needed, motors plug directly on the Gimbal . You will find attached a diagram for installation.

The 2 big chips on the controller are acting in fact, by simplifying, as the association of Mosfets and Drivers in conventional BRushless ESC's.

The small Button is on the FC to act as menu button. We will describe the functionnalities and base tuning rules in the manual, which will be available very soon for download.

All that is needed is a lipo, but we are checking with our great friends " Gryphon" in Korea if they can supply us some Mini AV beck regulators ( 12V bed with very clean signal) so we could maybe propose something allowing no additional lipo and also allowing the feeding of the controller / motors and also a video transmitter. We will test and see how it works

You can read the latest news directly on the website and we will send a new update within 3 days.

We want to thank you warmly for your interest in this product, and for all those who sent kind words about this product, please do not forget that nothing would have been possible without Alexmos ( www.simplebgc.com) who allowed us to produce the controller under license from him.

This is for us clearly a very nice business opportunity also, we have to recognize it, and we will do our best to show you the " E-Copter" quality as we do it for custom projects manufacturing

Please, do not hesitate to send us any comment or suggestions, we are opened to all remarks, positive or negative

 

[PaNt]

and a pic from the gimbal.

 

[ChrisViperM]

Awesome.....

I guess DJI will be sitting on huge pile of Zemuse for GoPro before it even hits the market....the same goes for the HERO 1000 from Photohigher....


Chris

 

[BorisS]

Ah looking good. Also very interested what the prices will be between the DIY package and the finished gimbal. Certainly nice to have this around since it put stress on the existing or coming products from the players and make them reduce price or offer additional feature or components.

boris

 

[Bartman]

this is great stuff. is there room for the wires out of the GoPro and for swapping SD cards?

bart

 

[chopper]

Great to see some new additions to the Gimbal world.

 

[BorisS]

this is great stuff. is there room for the wires out of the GoPro and for swapping SD cards?

bart

As far as i understood yes and they are thinking about adding a VTX possibility onto the gimbal and some other stuff.

 

[SamaraMedia]

Awesome! Looking to rework a hexa I'm building and this gimbal rocks! Looking forward to more info and availability. What's your copter setup, size, motors?
Greatly appreciated.

John

 

[BorisS]

Awesome.....

I guess DJI will be sitting on huge pile of Zemuse for GoPro before it even hits the market....the same goes for the HERO 1000 from Photohigher....


Chris

I don't think it will be to mush stress for DJI. They can probably produce a lot cheaper than all of them being in china etc. If they didn't have huge costs for development that they are still working off. For others wanting to do the same and were we already heard price ranges around 2000 3000 $ for their go pro gimbal its going to be bumpy.

Boris

 

[Bartman]

boris

i'm already expecting to learn this tech and to adopt my mount to it. i don't know yet if it will make it better but i'm interested to learn more. i don't like the limitations of brushless drive as it locks you into one camera/lens combination because balance is so critical but we'll see where it goes. i'm hoping a larger motor can swing a small camera as smoothly as it does a large camera.

very interesting stuff and i'm impressed by the guys that take on these challenges without big engineering departments behind them.

 

[BorisS]

bart I don't think that one can mark the brushless gimbals to only fit one camera and lens. I adopted the zenmuse gh2 already to work with the gh3, little vibs still but thats more due to the s800.
If the gimbal is cleverly designed to allow the cam be mounted on the balance point in all three axis, it is certainly possible to mount different cams and lenses. It all a question of the gimbals frame design.

For example the Zenmuse has already been seen with a CX 7** Gopro Canon Emos ( what ever is called) and the gh3.
I think the reason why DJI made their first approach so restrictive is just because they wanted it out of the box and not have complaints because you have users out there ( believe me) that can't balance a gimbal.
So the motors and sensor setup on the Zenmuse seem to work on a broader bandwidth than thought.

So I think a small sized, mid sizes and big sized gimbal for all different cams is possible ( like never seen but announced by PH ).

Boris

 

[Jodde73]

Will the full weight of gimbal+GoPro "hang" on the roll axis motor bearings and axis? 4mm?

and a pic from the gimbal.

 

[Bartman]

Will the full weight of gimbal+GoPro "hang" on the roll axis motor bearings and axis? 4mm?

that wouldn't be good mechanical design but it looks like the early runs went that route. give them time and it'll get better.

 

[BorisS]

to tell the truth who care about the gimbal. The good part it the controller they are bring out for 99 euros. If it works nicely and you can build you gimbals around it or buy gimbals for it forgot all the other highly priced stabi systems out there !

View attachment 9140
final verison usb and IMU added.

Boris

 

[SamaraMedia]

Boris, that is great news. It does seem like the weak link on many of the gimbals that are out there now are the tuning needed through the specialized gimbal controls, RSGS, Radian, HFP, etc.. From my experience, and that is limited to about one year trying to get my AV130 tweaked, that it really boils down to the expertise of the operator and ability to figure what needs to be adjusted and how.

I'm always looking for the next best thing to come along so I'm looking forward to the new products being offered from them.

And as always, the wealth of knowledge from this community!

John

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Wow, this is really great, congrats to the makers of this! What with this gimbal, and the open source flight controllers really coming into their own, the closed-source guys are really in for a shake-up. It doesn't help that most of them are using construction techniques that many of us can DIY in our basement. Bunch of cut plate, tubes, clamps and screws. I can't believe hardly anybody is making anything from a mould anymore. Airframes like the Phantom are the future.

There's another open source gimbal design that I've been participating in that is performing quite well:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1739869

This one is servo based. I think the BLDC design will work better for hovering multi-copters, but I wonder how well it will work at higher speeds, with aerodynamic loading on the gimbal and camera. Servos might still have an advantage there.

The only advantage left for the closed-source guys is that typical OS efforts don't do well in the "take it out of the box and it just works" aspect. Documentation, etc. But from the look of things, some of the gimbal controllers on the market don't do that well either!

 

[DucktileMedia]

I gotta hand it to them, it is a great example of form and function. They should work for Apple with products like that. Beautiful little thing! I'd get one just for its looks.