I need a good tutorial for the fc200 china gimbal

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Hello All

Is there any serious and well made tutorial for the china fc200 gimbal installation? (Phantom 2 vision)
with all the parts that the box bring and the one that you need to get it to get this gimbal works!

thanks in advance
 
Here is one tho its rather long and slow tho its not for that exact same gimble but its close enough being they are all basically the same with the same counterfeit control board in them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjtL4w0fL8g "DJI Phantom 2 Vision #12 - 2D-China-Gimbal Assembly (English Version)" It says English version but English is not his first language. But hes still pretty easy to understand what hes trying to say. You just have to bear with him calling it the phantom Wision 1000 times threw out the video. German and dutch get there english w's and V's switched around due to how w's and v's are pounced in german and dutch the opisit as they are in English were v is a w sound and visa versa

and I just found anther one tho I have not had a chance to watch it in its entirety yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iT2WRpTMa8 This one seems a bit more straight forward with out all the fluff like how to take out a screw or what a screw driver is like the other video. Tho this video is a lil funny cause it sounds like one of them videos that Anonymous puts out with the computer generated voice. NOTE being he is hooking in to a phantom 1 which already has an axillary power wire soldered to the battery connection on the main board inside the shell. YOU will have to solder your own power lead on a vision to power the gimble.


lol lol I keep expecting it to say "We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us"
 
Thanks for the info.. agree on the anoymous video. Haha.

Where do i solder the power wires for the gimbal to the power source? At the battery connection to the board?
 
IN my opinion the battery connection to the board is the essayist spot to tap off your power on the vision. Tho there are other places you could do it such as the two wires that feed power threw the white wire to the existing camera or one of the escs dc leads. But neither of them is a good idea cause if you ever get a short its going to also short threw the board and burn some thing out between the short and the battery. and best to not have it fry the board and or the battery if there is ever a short circuit on the power wires to the gimble. Tho one thing I never see any one use but would not be a bad idea is a small inline fast blow low amp fuse cause it dont take much to fry some thing if there is ever a short on the power wire to the gimbals. Such as in a crash if the wire breaks and shorts on its self there is a lot of juice in the battery and plenty enough to melt them wires or blow up a battery in just a matter of seconds.
 
I think I only have one last question... there is a 6 pin connector off of the new gimbal that has two separate 3 pin cords that apparently go to the nara box for pitch and roll control. Anyone have an idea of which is which? One would supposedly go to f1 and the other to f2 but how am i supposed to know which is which?
 
F2 all the way on the left is supposed to be for the pitch control and on the visions should also already have the existing wire for the stock gimble plugged in already. and the roll should be the on right next to that.

But some thing i am wondering about in regards to the two 3 pin plugs. From what I am understanding if you are using the dc power from the phantoms battery only one wire from each of them plugs needs to be hooked up to the pins that provide the signal for pitch and roll. and they do not need the other 2 pins for dc + and vcc - to control the gimbals. But what i am wondering is even tho its not needed if its still ok to plug all 3 pins on each plug in and if it will harm any thing if all 3 pins are hooked up. Some thing is also telling me it probably is ok as long as its not plugged in upside down and causing a short. But I would really like for some one thats done it to say one way or the other if it is ok to do it or not.
 
That's a good point. In fact, the guy in the "anonymous" video specifically mentions something about this at about 6:50.

The whole thing is very strange. Why the 2 power supplies? My instinct tells me to ditch the 3 pin connectors and just solder the power wires to the incoming power on the control board. Then use single pin connectors for control at the nava points. That way if I guess wrong it probably won't fry anything. If I get it figured out I'll at least try and post a picture to spare somebody else from having to go through this.

Outside of the pin-to-pin connection confusion, this seems to be a pretty clean install and a great little inexpensive gimbal. One last thought though - I ordered the Vision+ legs to go on my Vision. You won't have clearance without doing this or something else. You can see all kinds of examples of what people have done on YouTube. I just preferred the cleaner, more stock look of the skids that were originally on it.

Thanks again for your input.
 
Here's another video that was really helpful. This gimbal isn't exactly the same, but the principals of the wiring are essentially the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeE-ZOH9seg

From the adapter provided, I plan to run a single pin connection from the top left pin to the bottom pin of F2 on the naza controller for pitch, and a single pin connection from the top right of the adapter to the bottom pin of F1 for roll, (not fully understanding why I even need this since I'm not controlling roll - but is the phantom?).

So, we'll see how it goes. I won't be able to do it until next weekend due to travel, but I'll keep you updated on the results. To the original poster who started this thread - thanks, and we'll get through this!

Patrick
 
I was thinking about this some more and if you want to only hook up one wire on each plug you could still use the 3pin plugs and just remove the two other unused wires and pins from the plugs. without having to go get single pin plugs.
 
I also think using the 3pin plug will also stay in place better then if just using a 1 pin plug. Being there is going to be more friction on 3 pins in the holes rather then just one. so it can wiggle or vibrate lose when flying. or in a crash.
 
Some more things that dawned on me and some bumps in the road while trying to get my phantom vision ready for one of these gimbals. Them 3 pin plugs will have to have the wires and pins taken out to be able to get the wires threw the hole in the landing gear then put back on after. Sort of easy and not a big deal. But some of the other issues I ran in to was when trying to add some height to the landing gear. I got a kit for extending the legs an extra inch higher. and didnt want to use them bow legged tall landing gear due to them all being more flimsly then the stock ones. and also they will not fit in my case. But right off the bat when trying to install the 1 inch stand offs from the height kit. The top plate of the cameras anti vibration mount dont clear the the stand offs without flipping that top camrea bracket over and either counter sinking the holes a tiny bit or using slightly longer screws. I went with the longer screws. BUT when you flip the top bracket over so it will have clearance to fit. Being the ears on it now curve down ward about 1/2 You end up loseing 1/2 inch from the added 1 height. So I only gained 1/2 inch. So lol I still dont think its going to work and may have to go back to the dwawing boad on the legs. ugh! But Ill report back later on that.

The other thing is the white cable that plugs in to the camera Its a bit short and also a bit too stiff for the gimble. So I seen that others dealt with that by just getting a short 4 pole extension cable. Well I tried that with two different ones and got screwed on both of them. even tho they said they were 4 pole extensions. The first one 1 got does have 4 poles on both the mail and female ends BUTTTTTT they have the pin outs flipped on two of the rings on the plug so its not going to work and will ffry my camera if I plug it in. Then the other freaking cable extender I got even tho they said it was a 4 pole male to female. the female side only has 3 connects in it. and two of the 4 poles are joined. So I had to take 2 of the cameras white wires that I just happened to have an extra one and I had to cut them and solder them together To make a longer wire. Tho I could of used one of the extender cables that didnt work and just chopped off the female end and the male end of my white cable. Now even tho I got a long enough cable. I still dont know if its going to be to stiff or not. But if it is I'm going to carefully cut away the outer insulation. But that will look like crap with the shilding wire and grounding tap tape thats around the wire. Tho I may just take that off being dji never bothered to do it right and the ends dont hook in to any were for any interference to bleed off in to any way so its not really shielding much interference any way.
 
Does any one know if the wires for the roll even have to be hooked in to the naza being there is not a way to control the roll from the stock dji tranmitter? Or does the gimblas controller and its own IMU that it has already control the roll? I know I see it says the pitch wire dont even need to be hooked up inless you want to be able to controll the pitch threw the 7th channel. It would be very cool if the roll is not used or needed. Being I was just fiddling around some while board and waiting for my Gimbal to arrive. and I took a 3 pin connector and shaved down the sides a bit and got it so it works in the existing plug on the phantom vision that goes to the stock servo and the other end of that wire is already plugged in to the right spot on the naza to control the pitch. So in theroy if I ever wanted to take off the new gimble and put the regular one back on I can still use the existing plug and not need to reopen the shell every time I wanted to swap things around. I could of even tapped off my 12vdc for the power lead off of the white camrea cable's red and black wires. and install the new gimbal with out ever havering to open the shell at all.
 
J.James said:
But some of the other issues I ran in to was when trying to add some height to the landing gear.

I used some plastic tubing that I cut and added some layers of electrical tape to make it nice and sturdy.

J.James said:
Then the other freaking cable extender I got even tho they said it was a 4 pole male

I used an old 4 pole male, removed the insulation around it and soldered flexible thin wires onto the tabs. Then used some hot glue to cover it all.

I've attached pictures to show what I mean. Just remember to always disconnect the Phantom's battery when plugging and unplugging the cable into the camera!
Hope this helps!
Here's a video taken with this setup - for the price this is a great gimbal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oT84A91-k4
 

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Turns out even tho the one extension plug I bought that said in the documentation after I got it that it was not wired right on the female end they were full of crap cause tested it and its got all 4 connections on the female side and all the rings are wired to the right ones on the male end. and its a really flexable soft latex sheathing So I wasted my time making the one I did out of two old white stock camera plugs.

The two white cables I combined worked out being then end I cut off on one was the end that plugs in to the board and it came from a vision that went for a salt water swim and the pin connecters were green and corroded to hell any way so it was no lose really. and when I took the sheathing off the bottom end and put a thin coat of liquid electric tape over the sheilding It ended up not looking to bad and is a lot less stiff then it was with the thick white covering on it. But the extender still is more flexible and loos better then my black ended wire I made. So I'm going to probably go with the extender and the existing white wire and just keep the one I made as a spare.


But about the tubeing you used on the legs.
What size is that tubing you used? and how much clearance from the table and the camera do you still have? I'M guessing its inch tube and I happen to have some stuff thats 1/2 inch So it should give me the same as 1 inch tube would with out the extra 1/2 inch I got from the leg extenders.
 
I got mine yesterday and it was pretty easy to get it installed. and I happen to have just enough clearance that I have about 2mm under the bottom of the camera and my desk. With the leg extenders. So im going to have to get it up a tiny bit more. Thinking aaybe some of them foam bumper things or some 1/2 in cut pipe will work perfect and give me some room in a hard landing to not bump the camrea on the ground.

as far as hooking it up. I ditched the roll wire being I have no need for it or any way to control the roll from my transmitter. so I only hooked the pitch control in. and also I cant see why the original white cable by its self would not work being mine still has plenty of room and is not to stiff to cause any problem. But for the hell of it I still used the extension plug..

I got it to work some what. BUT while trying to get it to work better I screwed every thing up and its way screwed up now.
at first it was rolling perfectly. and I got it so I can work the pitch from the controller and the app. BUT for some reason the pitch did not seem to track correctly if I tilt the phantom forward or back wards. But managed to get that to work right by going in to the software for the gimbal and changing the settings to a setting called follow. Then when I tried moving the phantom around the camera tracked perfectly and would stay aimed right on the pitch and the roll BUT it screwed up the ability to be able to move it right with the pitch control on the transmitter or the app. so I switched the soft ware back to have it not follow thinking it would go back to how it was. But then thats were every thing go screwy and it trys to pitch the camera about 30 degrees off level. SO I remembered the video with the German phantom wison guy
saying you also need to run the calibration and thats when every thing got even more screwed up more then it already was. After a few hours I came to the board and found some other posts about this gimbal and some one had some screen shots of there settings that worked for them and tried all that and still not right. But I changed so many things that I now am not any were close to what ever the settings were that came with it.

SOOOOOOO if any one sees this that has one of these gimblas with the fc200 camera is there ANY possibility I could get you to plug in the usb to the gimbal and get you to save your settings as a profile and get a copy so I can send the profile to the gibal and see if that fixes it for me????????????????????????????? PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE
 
update on the gimbal . Good news is I finally got the gimbal to work perfectly. The bad news is it some how ended up completely bricking my p2v. Which Im not even sure how it is even possible. But after I got all the settings right in the gimblas soft ware. Threw its usb port. I then went to go back and check some settings in the naza assistant and I got the compass error or not connected message pop up. Then a second later the non di battery message appeared. and it gets worse. I also notice its not showing i have a gps unit either. and when I got to the info tab its also not showing me any thing for the boards firmware version either. So I reopened the shell and looked around thinking maybe I had a wire come off or some thing and every thing is like it should be. I even tried a different GPS unit and compass and still nothing. I tied re updating the firmware for the phantom and even tried rolling it back after seeing this same thing happen to others that installed the iosd mini and the new firmware bricking there phantoms exactly the same way and same symptoms after the version 3.4 firmware came out. I unhooked the gimbal and tried every thing again and still getting all the error messages. Then just for the hell of it I remembered I had a spare naza controller for it. and hooked that all up thinking it had to be the controller that is all screwed up and still all the same things. ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then to make matters even worse I plugged the gimbal back in and it was working right still. But when I was looking in the software for it. It said it had an out dated firmware. So like an *** I updated the firm ware and now I also have a completely bricked gimbal to go with my completely bricked phantom vision. after spending a few hours on the web researching it. I come to find out that when the seller of the gimbal says the firmware is up to date and dont need to ever be updated. What they meant was being its a counterfeit simple BGC board if you even dare try to redo the firmware it bricks it and not any way to reset it back.
 

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