Freefly Movi M5 Brushless Gimbal, Official Users' Thread

[flitelab]

You also need to watch the wood props don't come loose with humidity changes as well. Keep an eye on them for each flight.

 

[Quinton]

You also need to watch the wood props don't come loose with humidity changes as well. Keep an eye on them for each flight.

Don't need to worry too much here in the UK with humidity
Saying that it was pretty warm here today at 23C, if you can call that warm.
The flight with the Movi went quite well, however the horizon did seem to be off a bit at the start, but then straightened up somehow.
Just wondering what exactly GPS on the movi is for, and when does it kick in!

Got about 6 mins of it (must rem to also make sure my camera battery is always charged)
Wasn't as smooth as I expected though, still needs a bit of tuning, would upload it but it was very boring shots of football fields and ended up being 3GB

 

[PMaughan]

Had my maiden flight today with the Movi on a Skyjib Super 6 with 16.x5 wooden Xoars.
It went pretty well, however after the flight I felt the motors, and 3 of them were pretty hot 1,3 and 5 basically all the anti-clockwise ones.

I also had a bit of a toilet bowl effect spinning CCW, usually this thing stays put.
I know my gains need a lot of tuning, but would this cause the CCW motors to get hot?
They were not too hot to hold, but still quite hot to what I have seen before.
The ESCs were not hot at all, so what can cause CCW motors only to be hot, could it be the gains not being correct, or a different kind of problem?
Flight was just over 10 mins.

Hi Quinton,

Strange you should mention the toilet bowl effect. I had that today for the first time ever so maybe something odd happening with GPS signal around the UK....

Pete

 

[Quinton]

Hi Quinton,

Strange you should mention the toilet bowl effect. I had that today for the first time ever so maybe something odd happening with GPS signal around the UK....

Pete

I was just watching your Tantallon Castle video when you posted
Was that yourself or a 2 man setup?

Seems that nothing strAnge happening today with the Solar Data.
http://www.n3kl.org/sun/noaa.html

I was worried about it as usually mine flys really straight, and the images that came from the Movi seemed a bit twitchy.
Theres nothing really in the manual what the GPS is used for, as any tests so far I have done hand held has been indoors and no GPS

 

[PMaughan]

I was just watching your Tantallon Castle video when you posted
Was that yourself or a 2 man setup?

Seems that nothing strAnge happening today with the Solar Data.
http://www.n3kl.org/sun/noaa.html

I was worried about it as usually mine flys really straight, and the images that came from the Movi seemed a bit twitchy.
Theres nothing really in the manual what the GPS is used for, as any tests so far I have done hand held has been indoors and no GPS

Just me out this morning hence the rather poor composition of some of the shots....

I've found you have to reduce the stiffness settings quite a bit from what you can use handheld and I've got the pan smoothness much higher than you would use handheld and I've noticed a bit of roll adjustment is sometimes needed or a restart of the gimbal seems to sort it out. Also noticed the toad in the hole seems to slip a wee bit when on a MR, probably just need to tighten the lever up a bit or something.

I don't use GPS much other then when I'm on my own and want to do a pan or tilt but I couldn't use it today due to TBE which as I said is the first time i've seen it.

 

[Quinton]

Interesting indeed.
I am not actually not that far from you, just across the water where the leprechauns live.
I thought it may have been something on my machine causing the TBE as it is the first time I had the AVL58 etc running on the Movi.
Weird thing is there aren't actually that many videos about of the movi flying on a rig, considering that is what Freefly are as a company.

Will need to have much more playing in the settings, not entirely sure why the airborne option is in there, as don't think it can be used when your flying, in the manual it says something about landing/take off, but how are you supposed to set it without being connected?

 

[ZAxis]

Hi Guys.
Thanks for the details about the movi, I do have access to one so will probably work out a mounting system and give it a go.
Lec.
I was also flying around Oxford today and didn't have any odd GPS issues.

 

[Quinton]

Hi Guys.

I was also flying around Oxford today and didn't have any odd GPS issues.

TBH that can be ruled out, as like I posted at the beginning, for the first 3 mins I flew without the Movi, and there were zero problems.
Just wondering what the GPS is for on the Movi, if you think about it, it is located under a multirotor with lots of CF above it, which means it would have problems getting a reception..no?
This is the first time I have experienced TBE on this machine, when the puck is located where it is right at the top of the crash cage.

 

[flitelab]

M5 arrived. Amazing. I had the GH3 on it and balanced in running in probably 15-20 mins out of the box. I'm sure it can be balanced a bit better and tuning dialed in but it's the best balancing experience i've had with a gimbal. So much easier than the cheap Chinese gimbals and Alexmos.

 

[econfly]

M5 arrived. Amazing. I had the GH3 on it and balanced in running in probably 15-20 mins out of the box. I'm sure it can be balanced a bit better and tuning dialed in but it's the best balancing experience i've had with a gimbal. So much easier than the cheap Chinese gimbals and Alexmos.

Isn't it great when a product works and is well engineered? Their dual-rail approach with those quick-adjust brackets make just about everything else look stupid by comparison. When you can get almost perfectly balanced in minutes, and adjust settings with a phone/tablet so quickly, the result is a real pleasure to use.

 

[flitelab]

Yes very impressed with the out of box experience so far. no doubt will take tweaking to get perfect but I think I spent 2 days on a Chinese hand held gimbal before and still wasn't half as good as this out of the box after tuning and balancing many times.

View attachment 19120

 

[flitelab]

Have to say so far I'm impressed with the M5 and Freefly support. I've not done much beyond some bench tests wit ha few cameras but so far balancing has been easy and it "just works".

Ran into an issue today where I updated to the new firmware with autotune feature and couldn't connect to it from Android afterwards. Turns out it was just a failed update of the app to the new version. I emailed support and had a response in less than 10 minutes with multiple back and forth messages until I had everything back working. Couldn't ask for more.

The autotune feature looks like it will be a great way to get a baseline tuning for any camera.

 

[SleepyC]

What was the update procedure, I would like to try that next week.

And what is the auto tune procedure?

 

[flitelab]

There is a menu in the app, pc or android to do the firmware update. Just need to download the latest software from the website, connect, and select upgrade. There is a PDF in the download that explains the process but pretty simple. Auto tune basically sets up the config for you, I think it basically keeps upping the settings on each axis and monitors the IMU vibrations. You simply turn it on in the stand, connect the app, and select auto tune. There is a setting to set the auto tune percent, forget what they call it but they suggest 70% for the M5. I found it did a great job, gets you close then you can tweak from there at least. Great when you using a new camera or lens for the first time.

 

[SleepyC]

Awesome Tabb told me about the auto tune, had no idea it was actually ready to release!

 

[Quinton]

New Movi Controller, certainly looks the part but $3500
http://blog.abelcine.com/2014/07/17...e-v3-08-adds-support-for-new-movi-controller/

Lets you also tune directly from the controller.
Also maybe time to update firmware to see what improvements there has been.

 

[PMaughan]

Just a wee warning to make sure you don't need to use the gimbal soon when you come to update the firmware. I attempted to do it today and the gimbal is now dead as a dead duck...

Using the new mac version of the config app it hung during the update and showed no progress for around half an hour. Tried to restart process to no avail. So in the hands of tech support now who i hope will live up to their reputation.

Pete

 

[stevemaller]

Just a wee warning to make sure you don't need to use the gimbal soon when you come to update the firmware. I attempted to do it today and the gimbal is now dead as a dead duck...
Using the new mac version of the config app it hung during the update and showed no progress for around half an hour. Tried to restart process to no avail. So in the hands of tech support now who i hope will live up to their reputation.
Pete

I followed the Freefly procedure to the letter when I did my M5 update, and it worked fine. It did pause for a few minutes after the Mac finished sending over the file, but eventually the MōVI rebooted itself and came back online. Worked like a champ.
Here's my post on the Freefly forum: http://forum.freeflysystems.com/index.php?threads/3-0-8-firmware-update-problem.4893/#post-49345

Just wanted to report that I followed this procedure:

• Downloaded newest Mac configurator
• Downloaded firmware update
• Quit all open Mac apps
• Started up MōVI M5 with gimbal turned off using DX8 transmitter
• Verified good battery levels everywhere (MōVI, Mac)
• Connected to the MōVI
• Saved current configuration to the Mac
• Chose "Update Firmware"
• Confirmed version number
• Began update
• Sat quietly for 2-3 minutes whilst the progress bar progressed
• Saw "update successful" window
• Waited a moment, then reconnected to the MōVI
• Verified that everything was set to zeros
• Loaded saved config from above
• Set "Autotune" to 75
• Ran it

It worked

 

[PMaughan]

Hi Steve,

I followed the PDF instructions too. You mention-

• Started up MōVI M5 with gimbal turned off using DX8 transmitter

Did I miss this from the instructions?

Cheers
Pete

 

[peterd]

HI,

anyone can write me diameters and pitch between the holes of the toad in the hole quick release and male adapter. the best would if you have some blueprint.

Regards

Peter