Gimbal startup and position question

[davephantom]

Does anyone have a video of their vision+ turning on? I notice a strange jerking 3 times and it seems to not point straight forward almost as if the 3rd axis is not calibrated. Can the gimbal be calibrated?

Will try and get some video posted of what I am seeing. Finally what is your starting beep sequence in naza mode?

 

[davephantom]

Does anyone have a video of their vision+ turning on? I notice a strange jerking 3 times and it seems to not point straight forward almost as if the 3rd axis is not calibrated. Can the gimbal be calibrated?

Will try and get some video posted of what I am seeing. Finally what is your starting beep sequence in naza mode?

Found this thread though it didn't show in search viewtopic.php?f=27&t=12971 would still love to see a video of someone's startup facing straight on. Dji's startup video he does it holding it up and gimbal appears correct, mine certainly doesn't behave that way. Seems to slowly hunt back and forth and end pointing a very obvious number of degrees to the left leg.

 

[doug86]

mine seems to do the same thing, a few seconds of moving around when I power up the battery, and then it always points about 45 deg down, or about half way between pointing dead ahead and straight down. I just figured that position was the default.

 

[Didjelirium]

+1

Mine does exactly the same thing. Shaking movement 3 or 4 times when you power on. Having absolutely no knowledge of the 'normal' attitude of a gimbal, I thought that was something like the servo-motors thingy powering up or something, like shifting gears to test the position or something.

Once done, mine is also facing down about 45 degrees, though I usually shoot at that angle or closer to the 90. Since you can always readjust afterward within the app, I'm no sure if that does qualify as a 'problem' per se. Something that doesn't make much sense. Maybe they changed the firmware to have it facing down cos you're gonna be shooting mainly facing down anyway. Living in China for a long time allow for a higher resistance level to things that makes no sense, so maybe my opinion is biased.

Anyway, +1. Exactly same thing for me.

 

[MikesTooLz]

you should be able to turn on your remote (do not use a mobile phone to connect to the phantom) and then turn on the Phantom. Once on, turn the channel 7 on the back of the controller with a screw driver until its at the angle you like. I'm thinking that the camera will then always start out in this position that you choose. By default the remote is set so that the camera is at 45 degree angle pointing down.

I personally like to have my camera facing up while taking off and landing so its less likely for something to touch the camera lens.

 

[abacus01]

mikestoolz,
Can you elaborate on what you mean turn to channel 7 on the controller to adjust the camera startup on the gimbal. as everyone here is saying mine is also at a 45 degree angle down. But on the DJI video of the unboxing when the guy turns his on it points straight ahead. So, not sure how to get this done. Thanks

 

[davephantom]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Haven't tested it but the starting position channel 7 people are talking about the pot on the back of the controller (top one is that channel and bottom one is ce/fcc mode. Have not played with this to see if it changes the default starting position. I am not concerned with that because it can be adjusted in the app. My concern is the camera even after the jitter move doesn't end up pointing straight so it aims more to one leg than the other as if the 3rd axis (yaw) isn't calibrated. I see from the other thread some more people have this, I am going to try to recalibrate the naza and see if it helps through it doesn't really make sense as the IMU is supposed to be seperate. BTW, I am on fw3.0.

 

[BlackTracer]

On bird power up, I notice mine does a little twitchy yaw dance, maybe 3 twitches, then stops somewhere near center yaw. Not always exactly center but not at a limit either. Always at a 45 down though. If I then use the yaw stick I can move it left and right, it yaws with that stick command, then it returns to center with the stick centered.

Toolz have actually done the channel 7 adj with pot and does it now default to your setting? Even with controller off?

 

[Mori55]

I think it does a self check. I Rember something in the firmware update about a self check of the electrical system.

 

[jritchie]

So mine also point straight down after power up and I first thought the gimbal was broken because it makes a whine or buzz while pointed down. I played around with the pot on the back of the transmitter and here is what I found:

* Make adjustments to the top pot only. The bottom one controls the mode (FCC|CE).
* You must power off the Phantom and transmitter while making adjustments then power back up to check progress.
* If you turn the pot all the way clockwise it will NOT make it point level but instead go back down at a 45.
* Start by adjusting the pot to somewhere in the middle position then move tiny amounts clockwise and power on to check.
* The best I could get is very slightly below level. Very slightly below and that is close enough to level for me.

For the person with the gimbal point slightly left, I didn't see any way to adjust this. Maybe ti is a trim setting in the assistant software?

 

[DHut_PV+]

Like I mentioned before I've had only 1 flight experience so far with my p2v+. I noticed it too, I guess I assumed it was because the grass was touching it. I actually saw others do this and considered doing it myself and that was to bring a box or something to take off from to prevent it from doing that, but I guess what I was seeing wasn't the grass.

 

[jritchie]

Well, that didn't last long. After the last power up it lost the setting and is right back at pointing down. It also seems the pot is now stripped out and I cannot make any more adjustments. I was very gentle with the micro screwdriver for those wondering... so yeah, if you mess with this pot be extra careful.

 

[Grayscruff]

Hello, I've noticed that my Vision+ gimbal is acting a little strangely too. On power up, it seems to jerk or dance about 6 times then behaves normally. All the camera controls and gimbal behavior from that point on seem to work as expected. This is how my gimbal behaves:

Power on Vision+ battery. Aircraft performs Power On Self Test. Aircraft is indoors so enters Ready to Fly w/o GPS mode. Gimbal initializes by orienting itself looking straight forward and level. The camera lens then moves into its default 45 degree angle looking towards the ground and yaws slightly towards the left leg. It then slightly jerks about 6 times. Then it slowly yaws back to center position.

I did some testing and this is what I found:

04/26/2014 - Maiden flight, no strange behavior from any Vision+, gimbal, camera, or transmitter system. Flew in RTF with GPS. Was awesome!

04/28/2014 - Rainy day, so I powered on indoors to get a better feel for the iPhone app camera controls, noticed the gimbal doing this jerking movement. At the time the rear status lights were blinking yellow, indicating that I was in RTF mode without GPS. I did some more testing in our 3 season porch and the gimbal behavior went away on its own, like it had recalibrated itself. During this round of testing, I noticed that I had GPS lock with steady blinking green lights. I must have been able to get GPS lock indoors because I was near the windows and got lucky. After power cycling numerous times and testing the gimbal start up sequence and camera controls, I put everything away for the evening satisified.

04/29/2014 - Another rainy day, so decided to go back to familiarizing myself with the camera system and controls. Gimbal jerking on start up is back. Rear lights are blinking yellow and I was unable to get GPS lock (because I was indoors). Never was able to get GPS lock for more than a few moments from the same indoor spot in our 3 season porch.

I'm not sure if correlation is causation here, but thought that I would add my information. By the way, hello to the fellow Minnesotan above me- south metro twin cities here. I have a 5MB video if anyone wants to compare notes.

Seems like a good community here, glad I found it and registered.

 

[Mori55]

As I said before , I'm pretty sure it does a self test. Sure I read that in the firmware update.