Balancing Your 3DR SOLO Gimbal When Installing A Filter

brucesbees · Dec 28, 2015

I have been working on this all day trying to figure who I wanted to buy my Lens filters from. After contacting Peau Productions and chatting with them I decided they were the ones to go with. The sent me a Link that was just made on December 16th that goes into detail on exactly how to rebalance the Gimbal after adding the filter. I hopes this helps everyone.

Balancing Your 3DR SOLO Gimbal When Installing A Filter – Peau Productions

twitchyzero · Dec 28, 2015

awesome thanks...this looks cleaner than the quarter trick and you just saved me $50 fro getting the deadweight balance kit.

Is there a reason to go with 2x 6g weights if your filter only weights less than 8g? Shouldn't the weights roughly be as heavy as the filter?

The thing with my gimbal is that even with no filter and stock Hero4 battery the H4B camera points roughly 20 degrees down when the gimbal is off. This is not normal?

PdxSteve · Dec 28, 2015

twitchyzero said:
awesome thanks...this looks cleaner than the quarter trick and you just saved me $50 fro getting the deadweight balance kit.

Is there a reason to go with 2x 6g weights if your filter only weights less than 8g? Shouldn't the weights roughly be as heavy as the filter?

The thing with my gimbal is that even with no filter and stock Hero4 battery the H4B camera points roughly 20 degrees down when the gimbal is off. This is not normal?

If you were able to place the 8g weight exactly proportionally opposite from the gopros center of gravity of where the filter is mounted, then yes.

Troiano27 · Dec 28, 2015

I don't recall the thread, but another member mentioned his gimbal failing when using the side weight.

I've recently ordered this kit. I have a GoPro with a Peau lens, and I use polar pro filters. I think his is a great solution. Adjustable for however you want to set your GoPro up.

http://www.back-bone.ca/product/dead-weight-3dr/

brucesbees · Dec 28, 2015

That is very interesting. I have never seen that setup before. I am sure of one thing and that is we will all want to use the least amount of weight possible to get everything to balance. Thanks for the input.

erikgraham · Dec 28, 2015

For what it's worth, I fly with filters without counter balancing. So far so good. The concern is obviously wearing out your gimbal motors but I've been at it since August and no signs of trouble so far.

Now don't get me wrong... I'm not against balancing - it certainly can't hurt. But when you consider the forces exerted on the GoPro/gimbal by wind during flight, then clearly the gimbals are pretty much working all the time. How much extra strain is a slight imbalance causing compared to say a 10 or 15 mile an hour wind or even higher winds (I've flown in 30+ mph winds with Solo).

Even on a calm day, there is "wind" unless you simply hover your Solo and never move it any direction. If your flying 10 or 15 mph into a 5 or 10mph wind, then combined it's 20 or 25 mph. That's a lot of force being exerted on the GoPro and gimbal.

Ian [P13] · Dec 29, 2015

I can't praise the new Back-bone dead weight enough, it makes balancing soooooooo easy. It also means if you had say a number of filters you could even have more than one dead weight, pre-configured for quick swaps.

I'm just working on a quick video review of some Solo accessories so I quickly demo how the dead weight works. I'll post the video here when it's done, either today or tomorrow I expect.

David Weston · Dec 29, 2015

I used a nickel velcro'd on the bac. It's absolutely perfect. With power OFF GP will balance in any position I put it in

brunoferreiro · Dec 29, 2015

i have a 5.4mm peau prod lens on my gopro, i still have vibrations after a lot of mods, moongel, ribbon hdmi, earplugs etc. it is possible that any vibration is because using this lens? needs balancing without filters ?

here is a litle video to show my problem

PdxSteve · Dec 29, 2015

Are your props and motors balanced?

brunoferreiro · Dec 29, 2015

motors yes, now i bought the prpos balancer to balance my props

Troiano27 · Dec 29, 2015

I'll have to look at that one on my 30 inch computer monitor when I get home. On my iPhone I didn't see hardly a wobble.

Do you stabilize your footage? If not why? I stabilize everything whether it looks like it needs it or not. Any of these big advertisements (the one for the new GoPro drone comes to mind) that says no post stabilization, I call complete BS too. I shoot flat and color grade, because I want my footage to look better then real life. I stabilize as well. I don't know if your footage will ever be perfect. Again, I cant see anything on my iPhone. I'll look when I get home tonight.

The Squire of Gothos · Dec 29, 2015

If you happen to be using the H4Silver with the Polar Pro filters, the solution is simple...remove the 2x2.7g balancing weights....practical parity even an engineer could live with...well...

...and on closer inspection of my Polar Pro filters, the PL1 has a big old scratch in the middle so the set will be order 4 of the last 5 being returned to Amazon due to defect......happy days....at least the weather is too crummy for flying.

brunoferreiro · Dec 30, 2015

Thanks to everyone for their recommendations. I am using a gopro hero 4 black with supermount and 5.4mm lens of peau productions. on a normal monitor the vibrations perceived very well and is no a small vibration. tomorrow is the first test with balanced propellers. my engines are well balanced already. what I question is, a gopro with factory lens would have the same problem or is it something more solvable with stabilizing. I upload the results tomorrow. thanks

a not balanced or bad balanced gimbal can cause this kind of vibration, or just damage the motors?

Troiano27 · Dec 30, 2015

brunoferreiro said:
Thanks to everyone for their recommendations. I am using a gopro hero 4 black with supermount and 5.4mm lens of peau productions. on a normal monitor the vibrations perceived very well and is no a small vibration. tomorrow is the first test with balanced propellers. my engines are well balanced already. what I question is, a gopro with factory lens would have the same problem or is it something more solvable with stabilizing. I upload the results tomorrow. thanks

a not balanced or bad balanced gimbal can cause this kind of vibration, or just damage the motors?

I'd just like to add, could your next test/example video be of flying? Rarely do I put long non moving static shots in a video. I feel 99.5% of my aerial videos are going to be of moving shots. Do you plan on long static shots of your solo sitting still? I believe composition and subject matter make a big impact on a video. If you are going to evaluate your videos because you can't get 30 seconds without a jiggle, I'm afraid you'll be searching for a long time.

brunoferreiro · Dec 30, 2015

look at this, was the first time i post for the same problem

Troiano27 · Dec 30, 2015

ok, Ive watched the two videos in full rez on my 30 inch monitor/ I can now see the jello. Have you tried using an ND filter? A neutral density filter will slow the shutter speed of the gopro down and can take out some of the sensor shake.

TheBasicPilot · Jan 2, 2016

Easy and cheap and you can leave it on (less the weight) and still use the gimbal protector without modifying it.

brunoferreiro · Jan 6, 2016

Well, I go back after several tests. Calibrate my propellers, calibrate the gimbal and Improved considerably but still have microvibrations, the largest vibrations disappeared. I need to test the filter to reduce the shutter speed yet. I guess I have to learn to live with the rest and use post stabilization. ahh, I had to return to the gopro with original lens and leave 5.4mm peau, the results are better in sharppness image and the anti fish eye process in premiere makes a good job.

Mauiwind · Jan 7, 2016

erikgraham said:
For what it's worth, I fly with filters without counter balancing. So far so good. The concern is obviously wearing out your gimbal motors but I've been at it since August and no signs of trouble so far.

Now don't get me wrong... I'm not against balancing - it certainly can't hurt. But when you consider the forces exerted on the GoPro/gimbal by wind during flight, then clearly the gimbals are pretty much working all the time. How much extra strain is a slight imbalance causing compared to say a 10 or 15 mile an hour wind or even higher winds (I've flown in 30+ mph winds with Solo).

Even on a calm day, there is "wind" unless you simply hover your Solo and never move it any direction. If your flying 10 or 15 mph into a 5 or 10mph wind, then combined it's 20 or 25 mph. That's a lot of force being exerted on the GoPro and gimbal.

Very good point