Photohigher skyline rsgs

skivvie

Member
Anyone else not looking as forward to receiving their preorder as me? Being a beta tester for this gear and paying for the privilege isn't my idea of awesome. After putting all this work into the hardware, a complete well described manual should be required before release if PH wants people to adopt this thing. Otherwise all people will read is reports of frustration and non working gear. I want to like this thing so very much if it works as promised but I don't want to bang my head against a wall to get there! Please update the manual with good descriptions of the procedures and software controls... Mine's coming this week and I'll gladly post stellar videos and advertise the hell out if it if I can get the thing to work!
 

1001:

I just got my Skyline today and your video did help me in installilng the gyro to AV200. It would be great if you can also do a similar video showing us how to hook it on to the computer and how to do the gain tuning. I'm sure it'll save a lot of frustration from novice people like me.
 

Also i read in your previous post mentioning that we could remove the pots completely from the gimbal! Is that right? Then what do we do with the connections from the Skyline to the pots? Removing the pots makes no difference at all?
 

B

Bengit

Guest
You should have a look at my video about how to mount the skyline on an AV200 :)
I'm saying that we don't need anymore potentiometer.
The skyline emulate the potentiometer signal :)

you take the potentiometers and => on the shelves ( for later use ^^)

Yep, as stated in my post, the Pots are no longer needed, was asking if people had removed them from their gimbals. Had an answer elsewhere that the Roll pot can slide upwards therefore disengaging the Pot gear, will do that I think. Regards
 

Great to see they've pushed out an update quickly.

Flew today with the 1.1.4 update. These are my findings:
Dunno what they mean by slew control, it is still disabled.
A new bug seems to have been introduced. I flew for about 3 minutes then the gimbal went haywire. I landed quickly. The light had gone blue...like the USB was connected...and the tilt servo was rotating continuously having undone the tray screw. So it seems the "cutoff when there is something wrong" feature doesnt work either.
Also I dont know whether it is a new thing or not. My pan control servo is independent of the RSGS because pan has not been implemented yet, although it is advertised on the PH site. When I pan the gimbal, the tilt and roll servos start glitching, ruining the video.
I am powering the servos via the Pan input, This is because if the rx powers the servos, they glitch all the time and powering them this way seems to cure it to a certain extent, but only at very low gain values (one division off zero, or 10%) Any higher than this I get glitching.
The trouble with this is, at this low gain setting. the gimbal does not correct quickly enough and the video does not stabilise. Higher gain is needed but higher gain introduces glitching and judder.
I dont think the RSGS is there yet. Mine is certainly not "Rock Solid". It looks like I am going to have to put the pots back on and stabilise in the traditional way until this unit is sorted.
I agree with the comments about lack of guidance. I can usually work things out without a manual, but only if the device is not too quirky.
 

hi,

@adarsh: you can read the manual also, it's written page 6 :) (plug the USB converter to "pan input")

about the pot: you can remove it completly. the pot input of the skyline harness must be plugged in the pot input of the servo.
 

andrewrob

Member
This thing is annoying me already, I thought the idea was that this would be released after major bugs had been ironed out. I can understand little glitches but things like when I uncheck the "power on" button when using the software it throwing the gimbal roll until it hits its mechanical limit and starts stripping the roll servo gear (because the limits still aren't working) are pretty major problems. I've now got to order a new roll gear as this one is skipping at the end it keeps throwing it to now.

Also when the gimbal has the camera in (AV130 with canon 550d) if I go anywhere above 25% on the slider for tilt velocity the tilt axis starts to judder when moving, 40-50% along the slider and the gimbal starts to judder more and more violently with the tiniest bit of movement.
It still even says on the PH site that it can run from 4-7.2v too, would it really be too much trouble to change it to 6.5v as it should read?

I don't want to sound like an ungrateful child but I expected much more from a PH product and things like the website still showing the wrong specs just rubs salt into the wound.
 

I am beginning to think that the trouble I am having is due to using a canon 550d on a AV130 gimbal. PH say the 550d is in spec for the AV130 but maybe it is too heavy for the RSGS to cope. I wonder if similar problems show on the AV200.
I can up the gain to adequate levels with a gopro, but if you increase the gain to move the 550d fast enough then you get judder. I cannot get it as high as 25% without it turning into a woodpecker. IMHO the glitching, which can be partially fixed by powering the unit via the pan input would indicate that the other inputs would need to be decoupled. That would mean a hardware change I guess.
I cannot even start to think why the unit would suddenly change to USB mode in mid air, however. I might try going back to earlier firmware. Does anyone know if pan works straight through the unit yet? Activating pan at the moment causes glitching on the other servos. Has anyone tried Analogue servos with the RSGS?
 

Hello Chris,
if it can be of any help in another thread i wrote:

One thing i found interesting is that i tried to put it on two different gimbals and was surprised to see that the one with better servos was much more difficult to set up than the one with old analog servos.

It is not a verdict but just the impression i got to after doing the following: i have an old gimbal that was using an analog servo on the roll ( HS225MG) and that was the gimbal i used the RSGS on as soon as it arrived. Some findings later (i wrote about them in the other thread as i hadn't seen that one at the time) i decided to switch the roll servo to a digital 5245MG. This worsened the roll a lot, the only setting that somehow calmed down the thingy was to set the servo dead band to its maximum (with bad side effects). Then i tried the rsgs on the Cinestar tilt (roll would have required reversing the servo motor) and that was fine. To make it clearer: Cinestar stock servos,although have plenty of power to move the gimbal, have a response that is much flatter than the one you get with the digi hitecs.
Then i put the RSGS back to the previous gimbal and tested a Hitec 5625MG (same problems as with the 5245) and then a Multiplex micro3BBMG (really old and very slow servo) and that was fine, even better than the analog Hitec 225 so i left the mpx servo on the gimbal and went flying. It was a short 4 minute flying but i moved around a bit and didn't spot any heading loss, i was overall impressed by the RSGS potential and, studiyng a bit the signals coming out from the board, believe the philosophy behind the servo control is absolutely brilliant.
Can't wait to use it again, hopefully tomorrow.
 
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About powering the skyline and the servos: be carefull to use a Ubec with enough Amp: 3.5 at least because SAVOX servo can request high amps.
Don't use a tracco or a recom: it can obly deliver 1A.

This night I have nearly finished my test bench for the AV200. I will start testing tomorow evening.
 

I spent the day today trying to get the skyline to work on my AV200 but with limited sucess. I trialed the orignal batch for kim but had a bad experence.
I was hoping this thing is sorted now but it appears to be a way off yet. I can't stop it from rolling when I pan the gimbal, even though this is done "raw data" direct reciver-pan servo, an I have contralised the roll servo in the software. Even with the gains at Min. it is super twitchy, and is doing some random stuff to. I am sure the boys @ PH will get this sorted, but it would have been good to know that it wasn't when it was sent out.
 

jappie911

Member
About powering the skyline and the servos: be carefull to use a Ubec with enough Amp: 3.5 at least because SAVOX servo can request high amps.
Don't use a tracco or a recom: it can obly deliver 1A.

What kind of Lipo do you guys take for powering the Ubec> powering an av-200 and the skyline? I mean which cell and size ?
 

Before having a skyline I was powering the SAVOX with 7.2V Ubec.

now I will use a 2S LiPo, UBEC 6V 7.5A to power the receiver that will power the skyline and the SAVOX. As I don't think the Skyline can handle several amps (SAVOX can request lots of amps) I will power the servo directly.

note: this is MY opinion, not an official statement about the skyline capacity (regarding the skyline capacity to handle several amps)
 

About powering the skyline and the servos: be carefull to use a Ubec with enough Amp: 3.5 at least because SAVOX servo can request high amps.
I am using a Hobbywing 7.5 amp UBEC. View attachment 4788I have not yet tried powering the servos separate from the Skyline but I would be very interested if you have success with this.

I will try this this evening on my test bench.
 

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Hi Clauz, I agree with you about the philosophy behind the control, I have been waiting for some time for a board that works reliably tray mounted so I am very eager for it to have success! I must see if I can dig out some analogue servos, do you have any specific recommendation for a standard size servo that is currently available?
 

What kind of Lipo do you guys take for powering the Ubec> powering an av-200 and the skyline? I mean which cell and size ?

I am using a 1000mah 3s so it can run my video down link, and a 5A/5v ubec to step down for the skyline and servo's. Seems to work OK, lasted about 1.5 hours during the skyline set up today.
 

Hi Clauz, I agree with you about the philosophy behind the control, I have been waiting for some time for a board that works reliably tray mounted so I am very eager for it to have success! I must see if I can dig out some analogue servos, do you have any specific recommendation for a standard size servo that is currently available?

Hello Chris,
i can't wait to have the system working reliably too, given the many problems reported i hope the people struggling with this unit perdon my enthusiasm but my sensation is that the future is here so after testing in flight i congratulated with the guys in PH (even if i won't use it in operation until everything is reliable).
Regarding the servo suggestion i modify my servos myself so choice is not limited to servos with external feedback BUT....i fly mainly handycams or the Nex with small gimbals so i have very little experience with standard servos, i tend to fly with 15 mm thick servos which may be undersize for an AV200. Only exception to this rule is (1001Copters,can i mention it in here? i can cancel if it sounds inappropriate) the Cinestar Freefly F360 servos that looked perfectly matched to the rsgs system (except, as i said, for the fact that it would have needed reversing the roll servo motor which i did not do as the gimbal is on for sale).
My impression is that the steeper is the servo response to the pot offset the more the thing gets nervous and (worst) wanders moving where it should not go. Which servo behaves better in this respect is a question i am unable to answer to, sorry (and anyway i believe the real solution is in the hands of the firmware people, my main hope is that they succeed in solving the issues soon).
Claudio
 


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