Hoverfly HF Gimbal Video

[Cloud Level Media]

I finally got around to getting my HF Gimbal all mounted up. I am really stoked on it's performance thus far. I can't wait to get it out on some upcoming shoots for further testing.


https://vimeo.com/49278950


Big thanks to the HF team for working so hard on this controller.

cheers
Mike Hagadorn
Cloud Level Media

 

[RotorFilms]

Hi Mike,

Really cool video. One thing I'm very interested in is the mounting position of your Gimbal Controller, I had mine mounted on the horizontal cross bar of the roll axis at first but I got terrible oscillation, that is when I found this article released by Hoverfly which helped a lot. (https://hoverflytech.zendesk.com/entries/21649133-where-to-mount-the-hoverflygimbal)

Do you not get any jittering from your Gimbal, especially on the roll axis?

Regards,

Andre

 

[Cloud Level Media]

That was my first stab at mounting the board. Since all of the servos have pots or are continuous rotation (I believe) I put it on the bottom tray. I built a small bracket to hold the controller. I have had pretty decent results out of the box with minimal fuss.
I wonder though if I could get even better performance mounting it elsewhere???


cheers
Mike
Cloud Level Media.

 

[RotorFilms]

Hi Mike,

I'd like to think that will get better results. The only one which is continuous rotation on the CS 360 gimbal is the pan servo, the roll and tilt are both pots. I sure found the results to be better after I moved it.

Andre

 

[Cloud Level Media]

Nice. That clears it up. I will give it a go mounting the board above the tilt axis.

cheers
Mike
Cloud Level Media.

 

[thijmen5]

Looking good. I only have a jitter when the gimbal changes direction. Do you guys have the same? Im on a av130 though.

@rotorfilms: have you ditched the pots and placed it onto the tilt?

 

[RotorFilms]

@rotorfilms: have you ditched the pots and placed it onto the tilt?

Sorry what do you mean by ditched the pots?

I don't have any jitters on my Gimbal anymore ever since I moved the Gimbal controller as indicated in that link I attached earlier in the thread.

 

[DucktileMedia]

I was told this as well by Al at Hoverfly. I am curious to know if anyone has tried mounting the board on the tilt using no pots, similar to the Skyline setup. Seems getting rid of the pots is the way to go as they are a weak link in the chain. I have pretty good results from the standard setup but better is always nice.

 

[RotorFilms]

Iris

How will I go about ditching the pots? I have a CS 360 gimbal with the external pots. Would I need to bypass the pots and make all the servos continuous rotation?

 

[DucktileMedia]

maybe Hoverfly can chime in here but from what i understand, there is an option under the servo tab that allows you to go into continuos rotation mode. when you do this, you take the pots off completely and attach the board to the camera platform such that it stays fixed to the camera. It is no different than how the Skyline RSGS works. The pots are giving position feedback to the board and telling the servos how much to move. if the hovergimbal board is fixed to the plane of the camera movement then the board now tries to always keep itself level. the big questions are does this really work better and is there compensation for the tilt override? Sounds promising though as most of our pots are garbage.

The new gimbal boards that are coming out are so much more precise than the pots signal, add to this mechanical backlash, that the board is not the weak link in the chain. Either the systems need to be "dumbed" down a little or the whole drive system needs to be better matched. This is why everything we will see from here out will be direct drives and/or more precise drive mechanisms.

 

[Photronix]

Im not sure Dan has this option exactly where he wants it. I will check. But yes eliminating the pots has its advantages.

 

[Benjamin Rowland]

If you want to omit the pots on the Cinestar gimbal, you'll need to make "dummy pots" that plug in where the pots currently do. The pan servo on the 3 axis Cinestar gimbal has on one of these dummy pots plugged into it. It is a male servo connector with black shrink wrap on the end covering a pair of resistors.

These dummy pots are easy to make, and I was about to lay out the process, but PhotoHigher has already done it for me. Just go to page 6 of this pdf. Make a dummy pot for each of your servos, unplug your current pots from the servos, then plug in these dummy pots just like the pan servo.

all the best,
Ben

 

[DucktileMedia]

thanks. when you do this do you need to change the software more to continuos for the servos? This is using the Hovergimbal of course.

 

[RotorFilms]

Hi Guys,

OK we have been having some bad weather so I thought I would try and modify my CS 360 gimbal with all continuous rotation servos by bypassing the pots. Problem is I can not get it to work properly for some reason, I get a lot of jitters when my Gains are too high on the roll and tilt axis. Also another issue is the fact that the axis lag too much hence I try and set the gains higher and when I do that I get the gimbal jittering like crazy.

Has anybody else tried running the their Gimbal without the pots? if so have you had any success?

Hoverfly any advice?

I'm going to keep trying for the next couple of days if I succeed I'll let you know, if not I'm going to swop back to the pots.

Regards,

andre

 

[thijmen5]

Im running the Av130 with pots and I'm getting a jitter everytime the gimbal changes position. When it needs to correct in the same way it doesn't jitter. Anyone?

 

[RotorFilms]

Im running the Av130 with pots and I'm getting a jitter everytime the gimbal changes position. When it needs to correct in the same way it doesn't jitter. Anyone?

Make sure your gains are not set too high. Also where did you mount the HF Gimbal board?

 

[thijmen5]

Make sure your gains are not set too high. Also where did you mount the HF Gimbal board?

I can try dial the gains down indeed, hopefully it won't need much. The hoverflygimbal is placed on the front of the gimbal power input pointing downwards.

 

[S11D336B]

Check this guy out, if you haven't already seen it.

 

[hoverben]

When Al said...

I'm not sure Dan has this option exactly where he wants it.

... what he was saying was, "The firmware doesn't support this yet, but Dan is working on it." It will often appear to be working when installed in a no-pot system, but it will never perform up to expectations.

Resolving this has been one of Dan's priorities over the last month and he expects to have it ready and released before the end of the week - but if and only if it is operating to expectations. I should have an update from him about that later today. We know the PhotoShipOne users have been waiting a long time for this compatibility release but we want to make sure we're able to give you the best operating experience we can from the start.

 

[DucktileMedia]

Yeah, the last thing you guys need is another "Skyline" issue on your hands.