Photohigher skyline rsgs

[nicwilke]

Mine works well with position gains in 80 to 120 range and velocity gains in the 60 to 80 range. I'd have to connect to verify but I think right now the tilt position is around 90 and roll 110 with tilt velocity at 60 and roll velocity at 70 or 80. Pan is not in use and the integrals are all at zero.

Two things I found that make a really big difference, make sure both tilt and roll motion is smooth and even across the entire range of travel, and do whatever it takes to get the camera perfectly balanced on the platform. I disconnected the tilt belt and lowered the roll cradle so the roll servo gear wasn't making contact and the entire assembly was free to move on its own, with the camera mounted it's pretty easy to see what direction things are light vs. heavy. I found with the Nex 5N I had to add weight to platform opposite the tilt servo to get it to balance. The combination of the tilt servo weight and the offset lens on the Nex plus the roll cradle and platform on the AV130 not being big enough to be able to move the Nex around very much made it impossible to balance without adding some ballast. Once I did that things started working a LOT better...

Ken

P.S. do Autotune after getting the balance right and with the camera mounted on the platform.

Thanks for the tips.
I've done very similar, and found last night the roll cage was a little on the sloppy side. I loosened the bottom guide pulleys, and pushed them closer to the roll rail and tightened them up. Now it's reduced the deadband slop. Preliminary testing showed a massive increase in smoothness. The servo is not struggling, that's the sweet spot. Can't be too loose, can't be too tight.

 

[nicwilke]

Mine works well with position gains in 80 to 120 range and velocity gains in the 60 to 80 range. I'd have to connect to verify but I think right now the tilt position is around 90 and roll 110 with tilt velocity at 60 and roll velocity at 70 or 80. Pan is not in use and the integrals are all at zero.

Two things I found that make a really big difference, make sure both tilt and roll motion is smooth and even across the entire range of travel, and do whatever it takes to get the camera perfectly balanced on the platform. I disconnected the tilt belt and lowered the roll cradle so the roll servo gear wasn't making contact and the entire assembly was free to move on its own, with the camera mounted it's pretty easy to see what direction things are light vs. heavy. I found with the Nex 5N I had to add weight to platform opposite the tilt servo to get it to balance. The combination of the tilt servo weight and the offset lens on the Nex plus the roll cradle and platform on the AV130 not being big enough to be able to move the Nex around very much made it impossible to balance without adding some ballast. Once I did that things started working a LOT better...

Ken

P.S. do Autotune after getting the balance right and with the camera mounted on the platform.

Thanks for the tips.
I've done very similar, and found last night the roll cage was a little on the sloppy side. I loosened the bottom guide pulleys, and pushed them closer to the roll rail and tightened them up. Now it's reduced the deadband slop. Preliminary testing showed a massive increase in smoothness. The servo is not struggling, that's the sweet spot. Can't be too loose, can't be too tight.

 

[Brian Courtice]

My cage has a little slop in it too, I'll give that a try.
Still no luck with my non-functional tilt input. Still hoping for a response from photohigher about my situation.

 

[nicwilke]

My cage has a little slop in it too, I'll give that a try.
Still no luck with my non-functional tilt input. Still hoping for a response from photohigher about my situation.

Check the tilt servo and Rx have a common ground.

 

[Brian Courtice]

They do share a common ground. The servo works fine at stabilizing the gimbal. It just doesn't respond to tilt input from my transmitter. The tilt input did work for a while, and then it quit. Roll input is working fine. It's not the rx, I've tried swapping it out for another. It's not the connection, I've checked it many times.

At this point I really think my Skyline needs to be returned to Photohigher for examination, and possible repair or replacement.

 

[nicwilke]

They do share a common ground. The servo works fine at stabilizing the gimbal. It just doesn't respond to tilt input from my transmitter. The tilt input did work for a while, and then it quit. Roll input is working fine. It's not the rx, I've tried swapping it out for another. It's not the connection, I've checked it many times.

At this point I really think my Skyline needs to be returned to Photohigher for examination, and possible repair or replacement.

Sounds like the wiring loom has an issue. What version hardware is the skyline. I had the tilt input not work after a fw change and found it had to carefully rewire the loom. There is 2 schematics floating around, way back in this thread. Perhaps Photohigher can just repost it to save you looking.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk 2

 

[nicwilke]

Oopps, found them revA or review, just check it carefully.

 

[Brian Courtice]

My wiring loom is the newest version, recently provided to me for free, straight from Photohigher. (Thank you Photohigher!) It did work temporarily before it stopped. I have checked all of the wire connections and everything looks good. If there is an issue with the loom, I'd suspect a bad signal wire in the tilt input lead. I can plug the tilt input lead into a spare rx, and hook up 5v of power to the rx, and the Skyline works fine, (except for the lack of tilt input response). The suspect wire appears to have a good connection at both ends.

 

[nicwilke]

OK, Brian, perhaps reflash the skyline with firmware again. You probably have already, but failing that, then I'm all outta ideas for you sorry.

 

[Brian Courtice]

Been there done that. I reset the Skyline to default settings and reflashed the firmware. No change. Thanks for all the input, I appreciate it.

 

[chicolima]

Ok, I'll try looking at the monitor and make the changes BUT when you say "...-4 degrees" (in case if it become worse) are you speaking of the tilt or roll movement?
Thanks.

 

[tombrown1]

Okay, starting to get frustrated with this thing. I've been tinkering a lot and still can't get a consistently level horizon.

I understand that there will be jitter issues and there may be a slight delay to level out after an aggressive maneuver - but sometimes I am getting 3 to 4 seconds of a skewed horizon.

Isn't the primary mission of this gadget to level the horizon? Thinking seriously about selling it and getting a different product. Certainly somebody makes something that levels the horizon out of the box.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom

 

[nicwilke]

What's your roll integral gains set to Tom?

 

[tombrown1]

Tilt position: 50
Roll position: 150
Pan position: 0

Tilt velocity: 25
Roll velocity: 80
Pan velocity: 0

Tilt integral: 20
Roll integral: 20

 

[nicwilke]

Move Tilt and Roll integral (both) to zero and recheck.

 

[tombrown1]

Will do. I have previously had those gains at 0 and seem to remember having the same problem. I'll give it another try first chance I get.

Thanks for the reply.

TB

 

[Helifish]

Hi Tom,
I have only recently aquired a skyline av 200 360 which i have mounted to a frame that goes in a R44 helicopter. The tilt stability or Horizon issues you appear to be having i have as well and i beleive all these units will have due to inertia and acceleration. I have broached this subject with Brendon from Photo higher and here is what is happening.
My understanding is the skyline uses a mems gyro coupled to an accelerometer to determin whats happening and uses gravity to know what is suposed to be level.
When you accelerate or slow down the centre of gravity is displaced exactly as a peice of string with a weight on it is if suspended under the aircraft. You notice that the horizon levels once you reach a stable speed as would the string hang strait down (except for air resistance)and then tilts as you decelerate again as would the string move forward. Because you are looking sideways the roll axis is being affeced due to the acceleration direction. If you were looking forward the tilt would be affected but the roll would stay with the horizon....as in tilt down as you accelerat and tilt back as you decelerate. The main problem i have is when i turn or bank the aircraft the centre of gravity goes out the side and the effected axis moves accordingly. With strait and steady flight you should get great results with a little tuning of the gains.
I overcome this as much as possible by using the remote control in slew mode and compensate the roll or tilt manualy till we resume stable unaccelerated flight.I am using a monitor onboard to keep the frame strait when required Mostly i edit out the crap from my footage . If i can maintain a constant turn and displacement of the Cof G then it stays pretty stable
I find the Skyline brilliant for stabilising bumps, gusts that roll and yaw and other flight upsets that are temporary but it is only doing what it thinks is right and that is keeping things level with the Cof G it can measure. Brendon from PH is apparently working on a firmware upgrade that will give you some control over the accelerometer and that will enable you to slow down its responce so you will get less effect from acceleration changes.....but probably at the expense of stability somewhere else i suspect.
You need to remember the skyline is a few hundred dollars worth of technology and not a $700,000.00 Cineflex set up....but in some circumstances it is nearly as good.
Try flying smoothly and stabilise the speed and direction before the spot where you want to start your image capture and i think you will get great results.
Hope this helps

 

[jaco707]

Hi,

I have Skyline RSGS + AV200 + 360 Pan with legs and I have problems with settings. I use Skyline Software version: 2.2.0.0, Firmware Version: 1.2.2.
1. The camera tray don't tilt by 90° - only about 45°. Servo limit is set to 90°.
2. Settings of "Position Gain" works good, but it seems to me that "Velocity Gain" and "Integral Gain" settings do not work at all.
Servos in gimbal works fast just when I set "Tilt Position" and "Roll Position Gain" about to 600-800. On the recommended 100-150 is very very slow.
I can not set properly the gimbal.

Could you give me some advices, how to solve these problems, please?

On question 1 ... check your end point or subtrim set in your radio. If the software is set up at 90 degrees that is the most obvious thing to look at.
The other thing to look at for tilt is "Did you center your servo" , meaning remove the belt, go into software and move you position numbers ( normally a minus number )
until the servo stops, level the tray and put the belt back on..

Thank you for your answer.
The problems were caused by my mistake, because I did not use the dummy pots. Now skyline work very well.

 

[tombrown1]

Hi Tom,
I have only recently aquired a skyline av 200 360 which i have mounted to a frame that goes in a R44 helicopter. The tilt stability or Horizon issues you appear to be having i have as well and i beleive all these units will have due to inertia and acceleration. I have broached this subject with Brendon from Photo higher and here is what is happening.
My understanding is the skyline uses a mems gyro coupled to an accelerometer to determin whats happening and uses gravity to know what is suposed to be level.
When you accelerate or slow down the centre of gravity is displaced exactly as a peice of string with a weight on it is if suspended under the aircraft. You notice that the horizon levels once you reach a stable speed as would the string hang strait down (except for air resistance)and then tilts as you decelerate again as would the string move forward. Because you are looking sideways the roll axis is being affeced due to the acceleration direction. If you were looking forward the tilt would be affected but the roll would stay with the horizon....as in tilt down as you accelerat and tilt back as you decelerate. The main problem i have is when i turn or bank the aircraft the centre of gravity goes out the side and the effected axis moves accordingly. With strait and steady flight you should get great results with a little tuning of the gains.
I overcome this as much as possible by using the remote control in slew mode and compensate the roll or tilt manualy till we resume stable unaccelerated flight.I am using a monitor onboard to keep the frame strait when required Mostly i edit out the crap from my footage . If i can maintain a constant turn and displacement of the Cof G then it stays pretty stable
I find the Skyline brilliant for stabilising bumps, gusts that roll and yaw and other flight upsets that are temporary but it is only doing what it thinks is right and that is keeping things level with the Cof G it can measure. Brendon from PH is apparently working on a firmware upgrade that will give you some control over the accelerometer and that will enable you to slow down its responce so you will get less effect from acceleration changes.....but probably at the expense of stability somewhere else i suspect.
You need to remember the skyline is a few hundred dollars worth of technology and not a $700,000.00 Cineflex set up....but in some circumstances it is nearly as good.
Try flying smoothly and stabilise the speed and direction before the spot where you want to start your image capture and i think you will get great results.
Hope this helps

Thanks for the response. I'm going to keep messing with it to see if I can make it workable. I may have to switch to 2-axis Radian though. It doesn't seem to have the same problems.

Also, could you explain integral gains in regards to your inertial string analogy. I still haven't wrapped my head around integral gains.


Best,

Tom

 

[Macsgrafs]

My RSGS has an awful roll when in the air, it canks over by about 20 degrees, even in a hover!!!! Not impressed to be honest, its certainly NOT what I saw advertised by PH's video.

Ross