Servo / Brushless Gimbals - Pros and Cons

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
So lets discuss the various pros and cons of these two drive systems. I believe both have a place, well for now at least.. Prove me wrong.

I have both and my work horse is still servo driven relying on a secondary stabilisation system in the camera to smooth out the servos. (but i dont do block buster adverts or movies)

Servos Gimbals
Pros - light, cheap, can by driven by FC or dedicated driver module
Cons - slow-ish to react to flight disturbances.

Brushless
Pros - super smooth as long as you can tune the things
Cons - expensive, heavy(not for GoPro size cameras), needs specialist controllers, notorious for sending people round the bend.

Shoot me down

Dave
 

kloner

Aerial DP
bruhless gimbal pros
-excellent footage
-easy to setup
-industry standard look
-is compatible all the way to a red at this point

cons
-expensive like servo gimbals where a year ago
-heavy due to all the brushless motors and overly engineered frame designs
-tempermental to balance
-can be affected by adverse weather

servo gimbal pros
-can setup once and use for any cam that it'll do...
-super cheap now due to the brushless gimbal revolution
-generally light frames, but because your using micro motors with a ton of gear reduction to make them powerfull enough to work.
-tends to need a smaller airframe to lift it


cons
-no resale value due to the brushless gimbal revolution
- servos generate slop with minimal use and the gimbals performance is greatly impacted.... the symptom is shakey footage, nice
-the smaller airframes you can lift them with tend to be undergunned in wind of any kind.... creates a false sense of safety

.When we crushed our av200, i replaced it with an av200idd,,,, there the same price by the time your all setup new. Haven't even had to use it because we have our own design in r&d that hasn't failed us yet on set...... even it's worst day is better than the servo gimbal did on the best days
 

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
-the smaller airframes you can lift them with tend to be undergunned in wind of any kind.... creates a false sense of safety

I agree with everything there Kloner.. except above. That would be the inexperienced overloading frames with more and more kit because they think they need it.. and because they see there craft will lift it and then go add some more STUFF.

I am not in your league by a long way but my ADX3 AV130 CX730 works.. admittedly NOT for the kind of suff you are doing but then go count how many people on here are doing what you are and then think on how a new comer to this gets to where you are at.. a long long road.

Stop teasing us all about your new gimbal and lest be seeing it... you can send me one to test in the UK if you like, thats as tough as it gets for flying I recon that is unless you are in Iceland or in fact bloody Finland where I am now!

Dave
 

kloner

Aerial DP
It's a kickstarter in a couple weeks, stay tuned. Were targeting handheld cause that's where the money is
 


kloner

Aerial DP
it has a droidworx quick release mount,,,it's baddo, all cnc, jcmonty did bang up job with it.... has a lot of unique parts, features... biggest one is its ready to film out of the case
 

Droider

Drone Enthusiast
it has a droidworx quick release mount,,,it's baddo, all cnc, jcmonty did bang up job with it.... has a lot of unique parts, features... biggest one is its ready to film out of the case

Keep it coming then.. is it beer time over there yet?

Dave
 

kloner

Aerial DP
it's one conference call after another time,,,, 10:34 am.... but its friday

got a model shoot the next two days..... time to gawk and dream
 

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