General question about hooking my my gimbal to my X8R

[redcloud]

I'm building my hex and still trying to understand my radio receiver and transmitter. I finally got a 3 axis gimbal and I just have a couple questions to get started with it. My radio is a FrSky and a X8R Receiver. My gimbal is a Zhiyun ZI-Tiny2. My flight controller is a Naza v.2.

I was told to bind the X8R in D-16 mode and run Ch 1-8 Naza via S-bus and run the Tiny2 PWM 9-16. I already have the Naza connected via S-bus but I'm not even sure which pins on the receiver to plug the gimbal into. On the gimbal I've got a 3 connection pin wire with a MOD, ground and low voltage (5v) wire, plus three individual wires with a single pin ends; channel 1,2 and 3.

I only see 8 sets of pins on my X8R. Besides the Sbus, I'm using pin 7 for my failsafe. What am I missing here? How do I utilize pins 9-16? And where would I plug in the 4 gimbal wires? I've included photos.

I know this is a newbie question, but thanks in advance for any information you can provide.

Don

Images here:
View attachment 27695 View attachment 27696 View attachment 27697

 

[John Doecliff]

There are some good videos on youtube explaining this, Basically you assign them the way you want them. In other words, pins 1 through 8 can now be 9 through 16. I am running a naza with s bus and I assigned pin 8 (IIRC) to the remote shutter. I'm getting ready to set up a gimbal tilt function from my transmitter and I bought a servo just so I can plug it into the x8r and confirm that I'm getting a signal out from the pins I assign. Having a servo to hook up helps in trouble shooting, you can verify if you have a signal coming from your receiver. This guy's videos helped me out a lot https://www.youtube.com/user/dennisbaldwin/videos
Just search taranis on youtube and you will be deluged with information.

 

[redcloud]

Thanks for the reply John. I am now just wondering where exactly the gimbal wire plug into the X8R.

I've watched Dennis' videos for the initial setup of my Taranis. I looked at some more and I do understand the procedure to bring it up to 16 channels now (I have to find my jumpers somewhere). But I want to make sure I plug the individual cables go (the pitch, roll and heading). into the right pin and don't short anything out. I assume they have to get their own channels but since they are just a single terminal cable, and the channel pins on the X8R are made for three terminal cables. Do they plug into the top-most pin? Looking at the orange-white sticker on the side of the X8R that seems to refer to the three pins, if looks like the bottom two are +/- power and the top-most is for the device signal where I would plug in the single wires (pitch, roll and heading)?

View attachment 27702

And my gimbal has another three wire cable which I'm assume plugs in vertically like any other cable and gets it own channel? My guess (limited documentation included) is +/- power wires for the GoPro (5 volts) plus a "MOD" cable for switching three modes. I don't see that MOD cable shown or mentioned in other YouTube videos with other makes of gimbals and wonder if it's because bought a 3 axis gimbal?

One I get these plugged in I should be able to figure it out. I just want to make sure I plug them into the right pins on the X8R and don't fry anything.

Thanks in advance for any (more) advice.

 

[John Doecliff]

Yes positive is always in the middle and then in this case negative is on the bottom and the other symbol represents your signal wire. I don't know what the 3 pin connector is for in your pic. It may be power out from the gimbal. You could power up your gimbal and then check to see if there is voltage present on that connector, in which case I would think it's not needed. Not sure what the mod is for either. A Sounds like your figuring it out though.

 

[fltundra]

Thanks for the reply John. I am now just wondering where exactly the gimbal wire plug into the X8R.

I've watched Dennis' videos for the initial setup of my Taranis. I looked at some more and I do understand the procedure to bring it up to 16 channels now (I have to find my jumpers somewhere). But I want to make sure I plug the individual cables go (the pitch, roll and heading). into the right pin and don't short anything out. I assume they have to get their own channels but since they are just a single terminal cable, and the channel pins on the X8R are made for three terminal cables. Do they plug into the top-most pin? Looking at the orange-white sticker on the side of the X8R that seems to refer to the three pins, if looks like the bottom two are +/- power and the top-most is for the device signal where I would plug in the single wires (pitch, roll and heading)?

View attachment 27702

And my gimbal has another three wire cable which I'm assume plugs in vertically like any other cable and gets it own channel? My guess (limited documentation included) is +/- power wires for the GoPro (5 volts) plus a "MOD" cable for switching three modes. I don't see that MOD cable shown or mentioned in other YouTube videos with other makes of gimbals and wonder if it's because bought a 3 axis gimbal?

One I get these plugged in I should be able to figure it out. I just want to make sure I plug them into the right pins on the X8R and don't fry anything.

Thanks in advance for any (more) advice.

You need to remove the red wire as it 's for powering a separate receiver for camera op/handheld use.
If you bound the x8r right, 1-8 pwm pins on the xbr become 9-16 when using 1-8 on s-bus.
What's with the failsafe connection on pwm ch 7? Failsafe should only be on s-bus??

 

[redcloud]

My mistake, not failsafe, I followed Dennis video to programmed a three-way switch to give me manual, ATTI and GPS. I'm new to this and am sticking to GPS mode for the time being. I did the bind on my XR8 to enable channels 9-16, then plugged the gimbal cable into pins 9,10,11,12. Now I've mounted my Tiny 2 gimbal, installed the Mac USB driver and the Tiny 2 configuration software but it isn't isn't recognizing the device. When I power it up, the gimbal rotates counter-clockwise slowly by itself. It gives me some control with the right stick of my Taranis for some reason, even though I have no switches programmed to pins 9,10,11,12.

So I'm stuck (again). The help manufacturer's forums have no information on the Tiny 2, only their handheld iPhone gimbal.

Does anyone use the Tiny 2? Any suggestions?

 

[Chalagi]

I run my X8R in sbus also and I have channels 9 thru 16 free. Except I have a horn on channel 9 and my camera gimbal in on channel 10 I only use the signal wire from X8R to the pitch on the gimbal.. The leaves me with another 6 free channels.