Now that I’ve got my big hexacopter flying with about 10 flights so far, I’m moving toward getting a 3-axis gimbal installed and a camera installed.  That’s the point after all: some better (professional quality) aerial photos and videos than I could get with my little Phantom and GoPro.

Hexacopter with Arris Zhaoyun 3-axis gimbal installed

I don’t have a specific camera yet until I get some more funding, but for now I’ll be able to mount my little Canon S95, which is great for its size.  It shoots decent HD video and also raw still images with quite a nice wide angle of view.  I will need to install a hack firmware for it to allow it to shoot stills every x seconds, but that’s no big deal.

Last night I got the new Arris Zhaoyun (yeah the name kills me every time) 3-axis gimbal installed on the bird, after some parts came in from China.  The mount is not optimal, but looks like it will do the job.

Next I need to get some power to the gimbal.  The issue there is that the 6S battery runs at 22.2 volts and the gimbal needs 12 volts.  So I also ordered what is called a “UBEC” which is a regulated converter which will step down a 22.2 volt signal down to 12 volts.  In fact, it also steps down to 5 volts for other possible on-bird needs.  The UBEC arrived yesterday.

Lighting

The 12 volt supply will also be good for some lighting.  It is very tough to tell what direction this bird is flying and I actually get in a panic because I can get disoriented.  Suddenly the bird will look like it is tilting 45 degrees, but that’s just because the back arms look like they are in front.  The solution is to put some LED lights on the front and rear arms.  Those are 12 volts.

Hopefully I’ll get some time to work on the 12V power situation in the next day or two, and get that Canon airborne soon.

A couple of posts ago in Bird Down I described my terrible carelessness and pilot error, resulting in the horrific crash and damage to my DJI Phantom 1.2 quadcopter.

Many have requested video of the crash and I finally dumped it from the GoPro.  Here it is.

I’m now waiting for parts.

While construction slowly (very slowly) goes on with my big hexacopter, I’m still working on my little bird for aerial photos and video.  The little bird being a DJI Phantom 1.2 with an Arris CM3000 3-axis gimbal.

I did two test flights yesterday, both with the heavier MadDog 2700mAh battery.  That battery is bigger and more heavy than the stock battery, and seems to make a big enough difference in weight that the Phantom drifts vertically and horizontally.  I also have heavy wobbling and shaking, making video unusable.  That’s the exact description of yesterday’s first flight.  Also as part of the test in the first flight were four hard rubber isolation grommets, as opposed to the very soft ones I’ve had decent results with lately.  Once again, bad vibes.

I’ve finally gotten my hands on a decent blade balancing rod for the capped Phantom 2 propellers I put on the bird.  I switched to these props because the craft has more lift and efficiency with them, as well as double the flight time per battery or more.

I did a rough propeller balance after yesterday’s first flight, and also changed two of the four hard grommets back to soft.  This flight was massively better with only a small fraction of the flight producing vibrations or wobbles.  The problem, and the lesson, is that I changed TWO different things on the bird.  So I don’t know if the change in grommets or the blade balancing was the source of the improvement.  It is also possible that both combined made the difference.

Today’s first test flight (if there is one) will have to be blades balanced with four hard grommets and the heavier battery, since I don’t want to unbalance the props.  Then based on those results I may modify the grommets for the next test.

Following, perhaps a test with the lighter, original DJI batteries.

I had good results with the soft grommets, but they’re so soft I’m afraid the whole gimbal may fall off during flight.  It has come loose during transport in its case.