F550 and Sony NEX7

[Vortex Aerial]

VIDEO: F550 and Sony NEX7

Here is a short orbiting clip i did with the F550 hexa and Sony 7 this morning after some flight testing. Disregard the ghetto neighborhood across the street as i can be scene standing in the drive way next to the covered boat about 60 feet below and 100 feet away. And yes its been stabilized, lets not kid ourselves. All shot through the goggles. Password protected: orbit (case sensitive) http://vimeo.com/39017943

 

[meme]

Really Nice! Wich Gimbal do you use?

 

[Michael64]

Looks super nice I liked the framing of the video, what program do you use to edit in.
Do you fly completely in googles or is it an eyetopper setup. Looking for a way to frame shots as well but do not want to be full FPV.

Michael64

 

[Elliott000]

good stuff, same question as above, im curios what editing software you use and which stabalization engine.. im edit in vegas 11 , havent tried to stabalize yet

 

[piccoloflyer]

I am going to ask another half of the question, what motor and prop combination, not DJI stock prop I hope, the raw footage has to be good to run through the stabalization

 

[GGoodrum]

Here's a short video I did today with my F550 hex, using the same 2-axis gimbal, and a NEX-5N with the 18-55mm "kit" lens.

The inset video is from a GoPro that is hard-mounted to the upper F550 late.

-- Gary

 

[meme]

Here's a short video I did today with my F550 hex, using the same 2-axis gimbal, and a NEX-5N with the 18-55mm "kit" lens.

The inset video is from a GoPro that is hard-mounted to the upper F550 late.

-- Gary

Gary, ready to order, have you fixed the servo issues?

 

[UAVproducts]

Here is a short orbiting clip i did with the F550 hexa and Sony 7 this morning after some flight testing. Disregard the ghetto neighborhood across the street as i can be scene standing in the drive way next to the covered boat about 60 feet below and 100 feet away. And yes its been stabilized, lets not kid ourselves. All shot through the goggles. Password protected: orbit (case sensitive) http://vimeo.com/39017943

That is very very cool.

As far as being stabilized who cares, its the end result that matters.

 

[GGoodrum]

Gary, ready to order, have you fixed the servo issues?

Yes, we finally have found the "perfect" servo. What I'm using in this video are MKS HV767s in both axis. These are true 12-bit, and have very close to zero deadband. The Hyperions I was using are 11-bit, but you could program out the deadband, so the performance was good. The problem was they apparently have a non-existent QC program. I had one batch/lot of about 45 that were all bad, and of the good lot, only half of them worked right. I spent the better part of this last week trying a boatload of different servos, with varying amounts of success. I tried a Hitec 7966TH, which is also 11-bit, and also can be programmed to eliminate deadband, and predictably, it worked about the same as the Hyperions. Next I tried an Align DS610, which is 12-bit, but it did not work as smoothly as either the Hyperion or the Hitec, becaues it has a built-in deadband. These are not programmable. I then tried the Savox SC-1257TG, also 12-bit, but with less deadband, so it actually works a bit better than either the Hyperion or Hitec. About equal to this is the JR/Spektrum 6040, again 12-bit but with a bit of deadband.

At my friend Stephen's (Steph280...) suggestion, I then tried MKS, a fairly new servo company from Taiwan. What I wanted to try was the HV 787, which is stupid fast at .033s on 7.4V, but my LHS was out of those, so I decided to try the HV 767, which on 7.4V has a speed of .118s. This is right on the edge of being fast enough, in this setup, but they make up for this in one sense by having an insane amount of torque (430.5 oz/in), which ends up providing a level of dampening. In any case, these servos are most definitely 12-bit and have near zero deadband. The result is silky smooth operation. I can see a little movement, which is from the slight lag, but certainly within acceptable limits. This was a day with gusty winds, which the WK-M was fighting fairly aggressively, and I was purposely not trying to fly smoothly. In any case, I have some HV 787s coming Monday to try as well.

I'm trying to get signed up as a dealer for these, but I'm also exploring the possibility of getting a "special order" version of the SC-1257TG with zero deadband. The Savox servo is a lot less expensive ($70 vs. $110...).

-- Gary

 

[meme]

Yes, we finally have found the "perfect" servo. What I'm using in this video are MKS HV767s in both axis. These are true 12-bit, and have very close to zero deadband. The Hyperions I was using are 11-bit, but you could program out the deadband, so the performance was good. The problem was they apparently have a non-existent QC program. I had one batch/lot of about 45 that were all bad, and of the good lot, only half of them worked right. I spent the better part of this last week trying a boatload of different servos, with varying amounts of success. I tried a Hitec 7966TH, which is also 11-bit, and also can be programmed to eliminate deadband, and predictably, it worked about the same as the Hyperions. Next I tried an Align DS610, which is 12-bit, but it did not work as smoothly as either the Hyperion or the Hitec, becaues it has a built-in deadband. These are not programmable. I then tried the Savox SC-1257TG, also 12-bit, but with less deadband, so it actually works a bit better than either the Hyperion or Hitec. About equal to this is the JR/Spektrum 6040, again 12-bit but with a bit of deadband.

At my friend Stephen's (Steph280...) suggestion, I then tried MKS, a fairly new servo company from Taiwan. What I wanted to try was the HV 787, which is stupid fast at .033s on 7.4V, but my LHS was out of those, so I decided to try the HV 767, which on 7.4V has a speed of .118s. This is right on the edge of being fast enough, in this setup, but they make up for this in one sense by having an insane amount of torque (430.5 oz/in), which ends up providing a level of dampening. In any case, these servos are most definitely 12-bit and have near zero deadband. The result is silky smooth operation. I can see a little movement, which is from the slight lag, but certainly within acceptable limits. This was a day with gusty winds, which the WK-M was fighting fairly aggressively, and I was purposely not trying to fly smoothly. In any case, I have some HV 787s coming Monday to try as well.

I'm trying to get signed up as a dealer for these, but I'm also exploring the possibility of getting a "special order" version of the SC-1257TG with zero deadband. The Savox servo is a lot less expensive ($70 vs. $110...).

-- Gary

Great, my money is on that Gimbal for sure. Any idea when you'll ship the first items?

 

[Vortex Aerial]

NEX7 is a giant killer of a camera. Love this thing !

 

[jhardway]

great vid, that NEX7 is a nice camera.

 

[GmeisteR]

I'm a Multi-rotor noob so bear with me here...could a stock F450 carry this nex7 camera? If not, could you upgrade it to where it could? also...what gimble did you use?

 

[Tomstoy2]

I don't think it a very good idea to throw such an expensive camera on a small frame. Even the dji hex would be to small in my opinion.
For something like what you want to do I would be looking at a minimum of a 650 frame with the best electronics possible.

There is one standard rule; if it flys, it dies.
No need to tempt fate.

 

[wingbreaker]

can someone name the gimbal used in the first post? I read through here, a bunch of people asked what gimbal was used but nobody responded.

 

[hjls3]

can someone name the gimbal used in the first post? I read through here, a bunch of people asked what gimbal was used but nobody responded.

I believe it is a gimble that he has made and thinking about selling. I could be wrong there but after reading some other post as well, it appears that alot of really nice work has gone into the development of this soon to be gimble.

 

[GGoodrum]

Sorry about not responding sooner. The gimbal Chris is using, is one of the prototypes of a new 2-axis gimbal that is sized to fit a DJI F550 and has a yoke the is tailored for a Sony NEX-5N/7. I am developing this gimbal with my partner, Andrey Kim (Askman here...). We are close to releasing this gimbal and just have some final "tuning" to go on a dedicated gimbal controller that we will make available as an option.

We are happy with the operation and performance of the gimbal itself now, and have made some small changes and "tweaks" since the earlier versions like Chris' unit. We are now using two MKS BLS950 high resolution brushless digital servos, with 2.5:1 belt drive ratios. In order to really get the most out of this gimbal, you need to use something other than WK-M or Naza's gimbal outputs, which are flawed, in my opinion (slow 50-100Hz update rate, vs the 400-500Hz required to allow smooth movements...). On my own setup I have been using an XA v1 FC/AHRS combo as a separate gimbal controller, and it works quite well, but what we are testing now is using a small Naze32 board with some special "tuned" firmware. We are probably one update away from finishing this testing effort. Once complete, we believe we will have a total package with real "Zenmuse-like" platform independence.

Below is the raw video from a flight I did recently, using the XA v1 FC/AHRS, but with our recent switch to a 2.5:1 belt drive reduction, we've reached the limits of the XA FC's gimbal gain adjustment range. The roll axis is pretty close but the tilt axis is a bit low, which causes some movement in the video. Not much, but just enough to cause a little twitch for some movements, mostly due to the WK-M's aggressive maneuvers to hold position in some strong gusty winds. There is a GoPro hard-mounted to the F550's top plate, to show platform movements and to illustrate how well the vibration isolation scheme we use works.

Here is the same video after using FCP's built-in stab function, with minimum settings:

We don't have the gain adjustment limit problem with the Naze32 controller, but we're still trying to do some other tweaks to give even better performance. I believe we are literally a day, or so, from finishing this effort. This will allow us to achieve true platform independence, where it won't matter what the platform does, the camera will stay put.

These gimbals will be available at a number of sites, once we get production ramped up. Initially, however, they will be available at my TPpacks.com site, which I'm in the process of revamping. Right now there is just a placeholder store front, but this will be updated this week to have more info about the gimbals, etc. Attached are a couple pics of the TP550-NX mount/gimbal. It includes the integrated landing gear (but not the LED strips which I added to help with orientation...).

We also have a smaller GoPro version that is sized for a F450, and versions that are tilt-only and isolation-only. We are also going the other direction and will have a larger DSLR-sized version.

More later...

-- Gary

 

[hjls3]

Sorry about not responding sooner. The gimbal Chris is using, is one of the prototypes of a new 2-axis gimbal that is sized to fit a DJI F550 and has a yoke the is tailored for a Sony NEX-5N/7. I am developing this gimbal with my partner, Andrey Kim (Askman here...). We are close to releasing this gimbal and just have some final "tuning" to go on a dedicated gimbal controller that we will make available as an option.

Im super impressed. Will for sure keep tabs on the units when they come available. Nice work.

 

[wingbreaker]

thanks for the info. I am a pro videographer trying to get into rc aerial. I just bought a Flame wheel 450 and have a go pro hard mounted, good results but want pro quality and eventually want to mount an new or canon 7d. My site: video.hapdigital.com

 

[kloner]

Gary, i've ran the hv767 in both mks and HK and the HK are just relabled mks....... have got them as low as $50ea. They've been in a 700 size 26cc flybarless gasser for 3 years. bought em cause i fly over water and figured could consider disposable, but they became one of my favorites. I run JR and Outrage brushless in other birds, but that one with the 767's is fun to fly...... they also have a 3s version of a similar servo as well as the 787 at .033

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=9983
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/...87_Digital_HV_2S_Servo_8_44kg_033sec_67g.html