gimbal and GP4B issue after GreenCube update

looninho · Apr 3, 2018

Hi all,

After GC upgrade, my gimbal doesn't work well, it does crazy and the gimbal's LED is red, I have video feed but no gopro control, gimbal is fully roll. So I land, power cycle Solo and it's OK.
I've also open the Solo and the gimbal and check all the connections, all seem OK.
Another problem is GP doesn't turn off when power off Solo.

I also noticed that the gimbal is noisy when pitch down and less noise when it goes up. When Solo is off i can't balance the pitch and roll axis, it goes always back to the zero (normal) position.

some notes:
- I've upgrade first without Solex : I used ssh and winscp. Then i bought Solex and update the parameters, issue still remains.
- my GP4B is v5 and it turned off with stock cube.

I've reinstalled arducopter 3.5.4 Firmware and will try again when I can.

Any idea, help will be welcome.

Looninho

Anndybo · Apr 4, 2018

Start from scratch, I would install first open solo. This is requirement before you install Arducopter 3.5.4 in GC.
OpenSolo/documentation

looninho · Apr 5, 2018

Anndybo said:
Start from scratch, I would install first open solo. This is requirement before you install Arducopter 3.5.4 in GC.
OpenSolo/documentation

Yes, i did all the instructions given by P2P : update stock Cube to Open Solo and every was OK. Then install GC without Solex and Solo flights well but gimbal and GP issues.

Yesterday I tested with my other GP3 Silver and it does turn on AND off when I turn Solo on and off! So strange because before with stock Cube i had to turn it on and off by hand.

I'll test two options:
- flight test with my actual configuration : GP4B and GC
- flighttest with GP4B and stock Cube

XevetS · Apr 5, 2018

The latest gopro 4 black firmware defeats the automatic on/off feature in solo....Its been this way since version 4.0 firmware

Also a noisy gimbal indicates an problem such as wires binding or motor bearings whining, sounds like you have a mechanical issue you need to address, OpenSolo works, there are many users without issues and few to none with Gimbal problems associated with the GreenCube..

looninho · Apr 5, 2018

I doubt the issue is my GP4B! I have to do statistical tests : today i flight one battery with my GP3 Silver and there was no problem but with GP4B, the gimbal was out of service 3 times.

@XevetS: if GP4B firmware defeats why my GP4B with V5.0 worked before GC update? I'm sure Open Solo works well : with stock Cube and Open Solo no issue at all. Only when I upgrade GC the problem raises, I doubt my installation went wrong since I didn't have Solex I used ssh and winscp like the instruction for stock Cube. Now I have Solex and I did reinstall arducopter FW.

I'll test to reinstall GP4B firmware.
if always not OK, I'll reinstall stock Cube ans see...

XevetS · Apr 5, 2018

@looninho You stated "Another problem is GP doesn't turn off when power off Solo".

So I stated that GoPro Firmware 4.0 and above "defeats the on/off feature on the Solo thats it,"

My GoPro HERO 4 Black with version 5.0 firmware does not turn on/off when powering on/off my GreenCube Solo its normal...even with a stock Pixhawk 2

You also stated "I also noticed that the gimbal is noisy when pitch down and less noise when it goes up. When Solo is off i can't balance the pitch and roll axis, it goes always back to the zero (normal) position."

So The Gopro firmware or the GoPro 4 has nothing to do with why your gimbal is acting up It should not be making any noises.... Do not use any weights of course with the Hero 4 black..

You seem to be the first greencube upgrade that has a problem with the gimbal acting up,

I'm trying to help not saying you did anything wrong or incorrect..

Either @RichWest or @DaveB will let you know whats up they are the Gimbal Gurus on this forum

RichWest · Apr 5, 2018

The buzzing and inability to level sounds like the gimbal is either damaged or not properly installed. If you could take some pictures of the gimbal straight on and and from the sides would be helpful. Powered on preferred with camera installed.

Curious have you installed anything to dampen the gimbal beyond stock...moongel, ear plugs or otherwise? HDMI cable routing?

Regarding the camera powering off/on with Solo power, V3.00.xx GP FW, would be the correct FW for that ability.

I run a semi-stock Solo, so other options like GC, OpenSolo or otherwise is beyond my knowledge to what works and what doesn't. Matt would be the guy for that angle. But for what I've read, this would be a first to have a problem.

Again no expert here. Just willing to share my experiences for what I've found in messing with the gimbals.

pyrate · Apr 6, 2018

green cube and open solo should cause no issues with the gimbal
I know it did not happen before and that is what is changed, but simply tearing one down to install a green cube can aggravate weaknesses in connections and wire routing

looninho · Apr 8, 2018

XevetS said:
@looninho You stated "Another problem is GP doesn't turn off when power off Solo".

So I stated that GoPro Firmware 4.0 and above "defeats the on/off feature on the Solo thats it,"

My GoPro HERO 4 Black with version 5.0 firmware does not turn on/off when powering on/off my GreenCube Solo its normal...even with a stock Pixhawk 2

You also stated "I also noticed that the gimbal is noisy when pitch down and less noise when it goes up. When Solo is off i can't balance the pitch and roll axis, it goes always back to the zero (normal) position."

So The Gopro firmware or the GoPro 4 has nothing to do with why your gimbal is acting up It should not be making any noises.... Do not use any weights of course with the Hero 4 black..

You seem to be the first greencube upgrade that has a problem with the gimbal acting up,

I'm trying to help not saying you did anything wrong or incorrect..

Either @RichWest or @DaveB will let you know whats up they are the Gimbal Gurus on this forum

Thank you everyone for replies and helps. I try to understand what is wrong with my Solo.

Yesterday i had big big issue with Solo : it fell from 240 m! What happened?
I performed gimbal test

ne battery with my old GP3 Silver: OK. Then 2nd battery with GP4B: take-off and Solo raised int the sky, didn't stop climbing.

I tried with Solex to change mode to RTL, Stabilize, Land but no success. Solex always went back to Loiter. Solo climbed to 240 m above my head and I had warning msg that max alt was reached but I was fixed at 120 m max and the unit is metric sure at 100%!

So I tried to trigger signal lost by shutdown the controller : no effect!

As it would arrrive, i had battery critically low warning msg. I wanted to record the fall but no control on Gopro (the gimbal was out of service again). I did have video signal. Fortunately a friend of mine had recorded it

(see the video)

Solo never switched to failsafe mode.

I'm very lucky : no body was harmed, no dogs or horses were harmed (there was a lot in the field including my 3 dogs). And my Solo was not broken! As you can see in the video, it bounced and flipped over. Solo disarm, no damage on propellers! just my 4 extension-leg stay deep in the ground.

My dog Lucky help me by cleaning these extension-legs I'm sure he didn't want to eat them! Usually he doesn't like my drones but this time he understood my fustration!

Check Solo this moorning and I notice that the gimbal is damaged. Yaw and roll axis seem not working well, so it can't stabilize.

One good thing with the battery: I can confirm that the recommandation of P2P is right: when I recharge the very empty battery now I gain capacity from 4528 mAh to 4624 mAh of FullChargeCapacity!

I have to digest my emotions. Here is the link to the log file if someone can help me to find the problem. I'll come back in some days

RECENT-9.BIN

Looninho

XevetS · Apr 8, 2018

looninho said:
Thank you everyone for replies and helps. I try to understand what is wrong with my Solo.

Yesterday i had big big issue with Solo : it fell from 240 m! What happened?
I performed gimbal test ne battery with my old GP3 Silver: OK. Then 2nd battery with GP4B: take-off and Solo raised int the sky, didn't stop climbing.

I tried with Solex to change mode to RTL, Stabilize, Land but no success. Solex always went back to Loiter. Solo climbed to 240 m above my head and I had warning msg that max alt was reached but I was fixed at 120 m max and the unit is metric sure at 100%!

So I tried to trigger signal lost by shutdown the controller : no effect!

As it would arrrive, i had battery critically low warning msg. I wanted to record the fall but no control on Gopro (the gimbal was out of service again). I did have video signal. Fortunately a friend of mine had recorded it (see the video)

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Solo never switched to failsafe mode.

I'm very lucky : no body was harmed, no dogs or horses were harmed (there was a lot in the field including my 3 dogs). And my Solo was not broken! As you can see in the video, it bounced and flipped over. Solo disarm, no damage on propellers! just my 4 extension-leg stay deep in the ground.

My dog Lucky help me by cleaning these extension-legs I'm sure he didn't want to eat them! Usually he doesn't like my drones but this time he understood my fustration!

Check Solo this moorning and I notice that the gimbal is damaged. Yaw and roll axis seem not working well, so it can't stabilize.

One good thing with the battery: I can confirm that the recommandation of P2P is right: when I recharge the very empty battery now I gain capacity from 4528 mAh to 4624 mAh of FullChargeCapacity!

I have to digest my emotions. Here is the link to the log file if someone can help me to find the problem. I'll come back in some days

RECENT-9.BIN

Looninho

Oh Man I am sorry to hear what happened, I'm sure the experts will chime in once they view the log for issues, The Gimbal is going to be tough to replace they are getting rarer and more expensive by the day. There are a few people on this forum that do repairs on these if they are not to far gone..

pyrate · Apr 8, 2018

Did you by chance have some sort of mission loaded on here? looks like the sticks just went full throttle and stayed that way

If this is the right file

XevetS · Apr 8, 2018

I noticed that also and thought I was seeing things, maybe the wrong file?

RichWest · Apr 8, 2018

The gimbal is likely bent on all three axis, based on the impact shown in the video. Not much can be done to recover from those types of failures. There is some value in the gimbal for parts, if the main circuit board survived, maybe $30.

It appeared to me the crash was a depleted battery decent. Speed of decent and lack of VRS. Could be the reason the log shows full throttle, trying to maintain alt.

Sorry for your loss.

looninho · Apr 15, 2018

Hi all,

I'm back!

sorry for the bad log file, thinking it was the last one downloaded by Wookie...Here is the right one:
2018-04-07 17-13-45.bin

with my knowledge, I try to analyse with MP:

- unreadable msg like: v3 0021003B 3136510A 34313630
- no change mode msg (i switched many time to Stabilize, RTL, etc.)
- Power issue, seems OK, Vibe on 3 IMU :OK. Everything seem OK except altitude and barometer.
- When I select 'ERR' to analyse with MP, I see nothing
- GPS.Alt shows 540 (5.4 m?) but in fact Solo was really hight, Solex shows 240 m but FENCE_ALT_MAX = 120 m and Solex did output warning msg. Here is CTUN.BAlt:

So I need your help!

I tear down Solo to check all and I see that the 13 pins cable to accessory bay was broken, maybe due to the last time when I installed?GC? Is it the origine of my problem?

I try to repair the roll axis of my gimbal, I think it is slightly bent. Yes it is hard now to find a Solo gimbal with reasonnable price.

looninho · Apr 16, 2018

pyrate said:
Did you by chance have some sort of mission loaded on here? looks like the sticks just went full throttle and stayed that way

If this is the right file

View attachment 8441

Sorry pyrate, it's a wrong log file.
You are right, this is a previous mission loaded and there was no issue for that flight.

looninho · Apr 16, 2018

XevetS said:
I noticed that also and thought I was seeing things, maybe the wrong file?

Sorry XevetS, i posted the right log above.

looninho · Apr 28, 2018

Hi all,

It is really strange, KML + gpx in Google Earth shows the path was always at ground and waypoint shows one pic at 523 m!

In parameters, the 6 flight modes are all Loiter.

I start to think about three possibilities : Solex, GPS or my tab was wrong:
- if GPS was wrong why I can't use stabilize or Land. There are no warning about GPS Signal. Solo stayed well in loiter. So It was not GPS issue.
- My tab or Solex? I remember before that flight I was unable to connect Solo with Tower even I disconnected Solex. There were Tower Solo and Solex in background of my tab but I disconnected one app before connected to other. Maybe one app was autoconnected? In this case do you know what could be the issue?

For me, Solex is in my focus because it showed 240 m vs Alt Max 120 m and switched to Loiter all the time. Why my Solo climbed is mystery, something wrong with altitude value.

I repaired the extension bay connector and Solo flights very well indoor. I don't dare to flight outdoor!

Today I've updated Solex to 1.7.1. How can I find its bug fixes? Because in the new list there are crash fixes among other improvments.

Looninho