RCTimer Brushless gimbal controller - How to get it to work.

[Gav]

No luck with my marinez board. Bin bag I reckon

[Smit80]

Mine wouldnt work at all with the CDM v2.08.28 driver see if you can un install it or roll back to the one I use 

Gaza did you have any issues with Yaw?

TOday was my first time out with the standard RcTimer controller and when I yaw the gimbal rolls Lol. It';s completely standard. How far pitched down will it let you adjust with A1 input>?

[Gaza07]

Ive not actually flown with a camera on it yet just a bit of weight to balance it, from what i saw it was working fine didnt notice and roll with the yaw but it may have been doing 
It doesnt roll very far and seesm slow but that can prob be speeded up in the GUI was going to increase the end points see if it made it go further 

[Smit80]

No worries Gaza,

I';m gonna get it on the GUI tonight also. When I was testing before taking it out it seemed fine but now I';ve been out and got home the Yaw tilt is apparent. Let me know how you get on and good luck ~:)

[powerlord]

woah Powerlord... please explain or give me a link to such thread... I';ve been all over the internet for weeks trying to solve this connect problem... if that';a what you mean by ';solved in another thread';....
Thanks
Dan

http://www.multi-rotor.co.uk/index.php?topic=2318.msg19195#msg19195

basically as Gav says - go back to earlier FTDI drivers and all is well (and to upload arduino code choose pro 16 bit).

I tried the latest 49RC2 today and it';s vastly better than 48 - no more over correcting - it is rock solid.

On the minus side they have changed all the parameters again to totally different values, so you need to start from scratch again - however there are 2 piccies of common settings in the download to get you started.

I upgraded my cheapy ebay carbon fibre gimbal today to 49 and will do the rctimer one tomorrow.

stu

[Gaza07]

I made a short video of it working sorry its a bit wobbly but I was holding the quad and my phone and its hard wobbling one and not the other  ::)
You can see it works fine and I will be uploading a flight video later to 
I set the end points to 150% in my tx and you can see when it gets so far it jumps back so it looks like 100% is the max travel because it doesnt flip back when set to that,
I';m hoping there is another way to get it to travel a bit further but I suppose what it does now is better than nothing 

http://youtu.be/iDlkw6HZet4

[Gaza07]

Heres the video of my first gimbal test flight, there is a bit of a yaw problem the copter doesnt seem to be quite locked in on the yaw but this is a beta version of arducopter and the first time its had this problem,
The gimbal seems to work very well  I was really wobbling the copter around a lot and you can often see the motors in the top corners 

http://youtu.be/mSJpEH5tLN4

[powerlord]

That';s looking really good.

[Gaza07]

Thanks Powerlord I was very pleased with the gimbal but the copter firmware was quite bad on the yaw there was a slight breeze and that would blow the yaw around a bit which didnt happen on the previous firmware 

[powerlord]

can you post your gimbal settings file Gary ? be useful to others I';m sure.... to me in particular if you are running 4s.

stu

[Smit80]

Nice footage Gaza, Seems really stable.

Is it only me who';s getting a strange tilt when the airframe yaws? If you pick yours up and spin in a circle with it at arms length does yours tilt and then rotate a bit like its had a few too many shots??

[Gaza07]

Heres a screen shot of the settings used and a saved file from the _48 GUI
If you look at the pics enclosed with the 049A r40 firmware you will see my settings are almost the same as the example 

[attach=1]

[attachurl=2]

can you post your gimbal settings file Gary ? be useful to others I';m sure.... to me in particular if you are running 4s.

stu

[Gav]

Nice one Gary

Great to see your garden from the air for once and not from a head cam LOL

Nice one.

Gav

[Gaza07]

It seems fine when I yaw the copter, I did use the yaw alot in the video and it didnt flip out, one thing I have noticed though is when you test it if yout to aggressive it will flip out and doesn';t like it then but works fine in flight 

Nice footage Gaza, Seems really stable.

Is it only me who';s getting a strange tilt when the airframe yaws? If you pick yours up and spin in a circle with it at arms length does yours tilt and then rotate a bit like its had a few too many shots??

[Gav]

Just got my gimbal working WOO HOO!

Just like to thank Gary for pm';ing a photo of the IMU sensor orientation in relation to the gimbal.  Once I mounted mine the same direction and re flashed the firmware (v48 for me at the moment) it worked !!!  Strange thing is I had to physically remove it from the ';glued on'; position that it came in.  My gimbal was pre assembled. 

For some reason I was not able to reverse the direction or motors on the software and this was why I was getting in a pickle and motors would not react correctly.  I am a happy chappie and crazy how a piece of mechanical / electronic gimbal assembly can frustrate so much.

Another classic ';give it some time and help from friends and all will work out in the end'; scenario.

[powerlord]

Gav that';s the gimbal I';ve just ordered from eBay I think.

Any good now it all working ?

[Gav]

Hi matey

yeah I got it working ok however I do not trust it LOL  is lost its settings somehow (think it was when I connected the pitch control lead to the receiver and power up the receiver only)  gimbal went crazy again
Anyway I almost hand launched the gimbal without quad, across the room.

I reflashed it but still crazy ...I then clicked on DEFAULTS on the gimbal software tool and it suddenly went silent and worked as it should.  WEIRD!!!

going to try the 49 software if I can using my win7 laptop and the fdti driver Gary posted a few posts back.

Gav that';s the gimbal I';ve just ordered from eBay I think.

Any good now it all working ?

[powerlord]

Mine other carbon one does that.

I now have a process that works:

- only have USB on card when changing settings unless you really want it to be doing weird mental stuff during config.
- connect and check it got settings.
- make yer changes
- save settings. Wait for GUI refresh (if it doesn';t it didn';t workso close and reconnect and repeat)
- save to flash.
- close button then connect.
- check loads and shown new settings.
- disconnect USB.

Now the interesting bit:

- apply power and let it do whatever it does. It will either look like it worked or go mental. Either way it is lying...
- remove power and then power up again
- mist of the time it is only this second reboot that it will have properly picked up your changes.

Even after that sometime when I power it up in the field it goes batsh1t and needs several powe cycles.

The rctimer one on the other hand never goes batsh1t. So I think it';s the controller (which is a different layout). Looks like your one (and the one I';ve ordered ! ) has the same cheap crap controller or imu or summit.

[Gaza07]

I found mine can be a bit touchy at times always save and save to flash   

[Gav]

Sounds about right mate.

I believe you and have found that you need to have a routine that works and STICK to it. 

Well I have gone through it again and it seems to behaving itself ish lol  with v49 loaded too. Using a win7 laptop and v48 gui.

Pin A1 and gnd  on the martinez board is now hooked up to channel 6 on my rx for the pitch overide using knob on the tranny.

Need to tune out some oscillation noise in the pitch motor now.  Oh god that means trying to connect the gui again lol

[Gaza07]

Will be intereted how much movent you get on the pitch before it flips its lid  ::) mine will point straight up but wont go all the way down  I think this firmware needs a lot of work yet 

[coastersteve]

Picked one of these up off fleabay - managed to haggle him down so happy days 

Here';s the obligatory shake the copter video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaDDRwS5ny4

I';ve tried _49 with the help of Gaza but with any of the _049 firmware';s I cannot stop the pitch motor from buzzing. Go back to the _48 with the default settings and its fine.

I';ve put some of the memory foam ear plugs in to the dampers and that seems to have done the trick perfectly. All I';ve done is a quick hover in the lounge as its throwing it down outside but the result was super stable.

[coastersteve]

I cannot get _49 working right for love nor money, I';ve always got some vibration from the pitch motor and when I don';t it flops around like a loon. I';ve spent hours on it this morning.

Anyway, here';s a bit of a loiter video over our house/estate and it seems rock solid, if over compensating a bit and since the video I';ve got it levelled up better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd0t7NjGVL4

[Gaza07]

Looking good steve it looks like you get a bit better movement than me when I pitch my camera forward from the tx id goes bonkers before it gets to far 

The firmware and gui are very buggy ut then it is open source and still a beta 

[coastersteve]

If you want to use the _049 GUI app, you open the TCL file with this program:
http://equi4.com/tclkit/download.html

I';m attaching my settings as they might be be useful to some people.

Anyway, here';s the flight video (At night) with _49 firmware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXMpNNyoCXE

[Gaza07]

Looks like you got it setup well   

[rcjarvis]

Well THanks Coastersteve, I';ll try this venue... just for reader';s interest... I have to plug the battery on my rctimer controller or it will not connect...Device manager will not even see the board if the board does not have a 3s lipo on it...+ the firmware updates are endless... up to 1.5 hours... My laptop is an alienware mx-17r2, 8 go ram.. win 7 64... when I see ';timeout';  for some 30 seconds, I';ll see an update on the % and after a while (3 to 4 minutes) it starts rising in %age... My kk2 flashes in less time it takes to spell K  K  2....so if you think Timeout means ';timed out';... your wrong.... so was I...

Dan

[rcjarvis]

That also does not work for me...Here';s what I did:

Opened the 49 file with the app in the link Coastersteve proposed above...Upgraded firmware , then tried many... countless times with driver 2.08.24...no succest...Message : tc reading values............

Tried updatig to driver 2.08.28..... same results... Here';s a picture of my port values:

[Gaza07]

New firmware already out BETA Version 049 r58 incl. GUI (GUI is not up-to-date) 

I have uploaded the firmware using the Arduino app v1.05 and run the 049 app using the toolkit linked to earlier but CoasterSteve, I then had a problem the default settings were messed up quite badly, I tried re uploading the firmware several times but the settings remained corrupted, so I up loaded a erase program to the board and let that run,
After that the firmware loaded fine with all the defaults set as they should be, but the gimbal was buzzy and horrible,
I messed about with the settings until I was happy with them and the buzzing was gone, and I could control the pitch all the way in both directions, below is a pic of my settings a short video the shake it about type and some pics of the gimbal 

http://youtu.be/EYegOAFThBI

[attach=1][attach=2]
[attach=3][attach=4][attach=5]

[coastersteve]

I too have had a play with the new firmware... Don';t get too dizzy!

http://youtu.be/RvpGqIA8Foo