Hyperactive Gimbal Spasms

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That one is trickier if you're asking about the Solo Gimbal. No guarantees but pleaase describe the jitters or better yet link to a YouTube video of them. Pixel arrangment worth many many mouth sounds


Hopefully one of these links will work.



Brand new gimbal.(supposedly)- I bought it from an individual not a retailer. Looks new enough to me. No signs of any use. Open solo 3.0 in the bird.


I've tried calibrating the tilt (chan6) using AP Mission Planner (mac osx). Didn't seem to make any difference. Is there a gimbal master reset function that I'm unaware of?

Physically the installation is as it should be. I can fit my other gimbal which works correctly motor wise - no spasms- smooth as exlax - but that gimbal has no video feed.
 
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I believe that is called drummer boy. I have one that does it, just a little faster. Most likely a bad board from everything I can speculate from the board. Rich is the expert in this area. I wound up buying 3 back up gimbals just in case. I bought new, there are a few of them out there. I have two not in use with the tape still sealing the box. I will sell one of them. Message me if you need one.
 
That does indeed look like a little drummer boy syndrome. Usually caused by the IMU located behind the camera cradle being damaged. Or out of sync with the potentiometers on each shaft. But usually it's the IMU.

That board actually isn't hard to swap, but I'm nearly positive the calibration for the IMU is stored in the Microcontroller's eeprom, as I have only had one swap be successful. Out of 5
 
Hopefully one of these links will work.



Brand new gimbal.(supposedly)- I bought it from an individual not a retailer. Looks new enough to me. No signs of any use. Open solo 3.0 in the bird.


I've tried calibrating the tilt (chan6) using AP Mission Planner (mac osx). Didn't seem to make any difference. Is there a gimbal master reset function that I'm unaware of?

Physically the installation is as it should be. I can fit my other gimbal which works correctly motor wise - no spasms- smooth as exlax - but that gimbal has no video feed.

I believe at least one member has bypassed the on-gimbal HDMI completely using a ribbon cable back to the IMX6's micro-HDMI port. Wish I could remember who....
 
I believe at least one member has bypassed the on-gimbal HDMI completely using a ribbon cable back to the IMX6's micro-HDMI port. Wish I could remember who....

Bruce , is this reply in regard to the other gimbal i mentioned that has no picture (not the drummer boy gimbal)

That sounds like a tricky connection to make. Is it? Ribbon cable to Micro HDMI?

I am in possession of three or four old gimbals in various states of disassembly. Need any parts Bruce? I’m happy to donate them to the cause.
 
Bruce , is this reply in regard to the other gimbal i mentioned that has no picture (not the drummer boy gimbal)

That sounds like a tricky connection to make. Is it? Ribbon cable to Micro HDMI?

I am in possession of three or four old gimbals in various states of disassembly. Need any parts Bruce? I’m happy to donate them to the cause.
I was thinking ribbon cable HDMI, like the relish3d ones that used to be for sale.

And at last count I had (!) 43 (!) gimbals in some state of malfunction. Fully half of them stabilize but are missing the video output because of damaged HDMI ports. So I think I should pass....
 
Affirmative. I also said most of them were in some state of disrepair. Bought on ebay in lots of 3-10
 
Kevin, I'm no expert here, just have a few mis-guided opinions and willing to post-up those for all to critique.

Having 5 working gimbals and numerous non-working units, I've lost interest in trying to dig deeper into the spastic gimbals. Just no return value for my time as I only need one gimbal (one bird) at a time.

If eprom, per Bruce's suggestion, is a $20+ chip. I've thought to harvest from another board, but unsure I have the proper tools and understanding to be successful. Static and heating issues being my concern, as I'm a self taught brute-force soldering hack.

Ed, plenty of spastic gimbals out on the market. I've warned that there are plenty of crap-heads willing to sell their problems off to others. Shameful crap-heads.
 
Affirmative. I also said most of them were in some state of disrepair. Bought on ebay in lots of 3-10

I just got my 3dr solo and the gimbal seemed fine the first time I fired it up. Now it looks like this: video

Pretty bummed out about it. Just flew it one time at a hover for testing. Any ideas or am I screwed?
 
I just got my 3dr solo and the gimbal seemed fine the first time I fired it up. Now it looks like this: video

Pretty bummed out about it. Just flew it one time at a hover for testing. Any ideas or am I screwed?

Video isn't loading for me. Is the light on the back red, yellow, or breathing green?
 
I saw the video...
{closed caption version}
It was not tilting smoothly, kind of jumping to points along the rotation.

Moon - First the gimbal has two modes of operation. When Solo is on, but not armed, the gimbal motors are in low torque mode, basically a ready mode. When Solo is armed, flight motors spinning, the gimbal motors are in high torque mode, which is when the gimbal can overcome minor resistances.

Having said that, duplicate your test with Solo armed and see if the issue persists. Obviously try this with the props removed. Also you can manipulate the gimbal by hand to feel if the gimbal tilt rotation has any indication of resistance, while Solo is off.

In your case, I haven't seen anything similar, this could be from the controller paddle rather than the gimbal. I noticed that the controller was showing the changing angle on screen, but that is not a direct indication that the gimbal is in compliance with the input. I want to say that the angle indication is separate from the actual signal to change the angle...it's been awhile. I've experienced a dis-functional paddle before, solution was to clean with compressed air and/or insure the wires were fully inserted to the paddle inside the controller.

Also there is a teflon tape inside of the tilt arm's cover. Back when some experienced this tape's adhesive catching the control/hdmi ribbons as they wound up inside this housing. Check there as well.

Good luck...
 
I saw the video...
{closed caption version}
It was not tilting smoothly, kind of jumping to points along the rotation.


In your case, I haven't seen anything similar, this could be from the controller paddle rather than the gimbal. I noticed that the controller was showing the changing angle on screen, but that is not a direct indication that the gimbal is in compliance with the input. I want to say that the angle indication is separate from the actual signal to change the angle...it's been awhile.

The displayed angle on the controller can be 2 different things - either the requested angle from the controller or the reported angle from the gimbal. USUALLY the two are in sync, but in the case of poor communications links [either WiFi or the bird's on-board CAN/serial bus] then the requested angle will be shown until it can be correllated with the actual position as received.

Confusing, right? It's actually a user-interface thing as near as I can tell. The designer's attempt at a little 'feedback smoothing' for the human brain.
 
I'd say usual as well, but then I'm not watching the gimbal angle on the controller when flying. The gimbal works or it doesn't, usually...;)
 

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