This video is about how to modify and install and adjust a cheap gimbal with a BGC control
board onto a DJI Phantom with Naza-M controller, and a gimbal control lever on the remote control.
The gimbal was designed for a GoPro 2 with SD card access on the right. The GoPro Hero
3 has the SD card on the left. I switched the gimbal arm around to the other side to
gain access to the card slot, when the camera is mounted.
See first how this is supposed to work.
The green light in the back here is a working camera arm position sensor.
This is the power cable supplied by the Phantom.
We solder it to the connector supplied by the gimbal kit.
In this case, we connect the red wire to the red wire.
And then the grey wire to the black wire.
We now use shrink tube to isolate the wire endings.
Because the wires have full battery power, we need to make sure,
that they don’t come lose and touch anything else.
A lose power or ground wire could cause a fire and a downed aircraft.
Attention: The gimbal kit manual has this wrong at this time!
This graphic on the Naza controller shows, that the signal wires are on the bottom of
the connector, closest to the little nose on the connector.
I have connected a yellow wire to F1 for the roll control
and a green wire to F2 for the pitch control.
The gimbal power and the gimbal control wires are routed
through this hole in the landing gear.
It is time to close the air frame. Do not pinch any wires,
especially at the 4 locations shown here.
Insert and tighten the 4 screws needed in each arm.
I strongly recommend to use removable thread lock.
You will need a philips driver and a 2 millimeter hex driver.
We are mounting 4 rubber dampener in the ground plate, and mount the plate to the air frame.
I have to use the orange colored ones, because I lost the original black dampeners during a crash.
Here is a quick overview of the gimbal control board.
We have two connectors for the gimbal motors.
We have control signal connectors.
And we have a USB connector to program the board,
and adjust settings in the gimbal control software.
Now we can attach the gimbal to the aircraft. I am going to show here how to insert the
rubber dampener into the mounting hole. We need to be careful to not damage them.
I modified a chop stick from the Chinese restaurant to make my own tool for this task.
Make sure the tool you use does not have sharp edges.
Because I lost a few during a crash, I now use cable ties to secure the dampener.
Make sure the locking mechanism is on top, otherwise it will dangle in front of the camera.
Connect the gimbal power and verify the polarity:
black connects to black and red connects to red.
Now we connect the signal wires.
From this view - bottom right is the green wire for pitch control
next one to the left - the yellow wire for roll control.
If we power the gimbal from the same battery, that is connected to the Naza controller,
then there is no need to connect ground and power to the signal connectors.
I fix the harness with one cable tie, but make sure, that there is enough slack in the wire.
Make sure to route the harness around the gimbal arms in a way that everything moves
freely. Cable ties can not interfere with the gimbal arms!
If this locking mechanism of the cable tie is on the other side, it will interfere with
the pivot arm.
We need to make sure, that nothing gets caught in here.
I think I should have a protective cover for the sensor wires.
You may notice, that I modified the camera arm. I did this, because I use a GoPro 3,
and I want access to the USB connector at all times. I had to grind off some aluminum
to make sure the Velcro strap fits. And I moved the sensor to the left. I covered the
sensor board in silicone to protect it from water.
After we install the DJI and BGC software, we connect one USB to the DJI and one USB
to the BGC board. Startup the Naza Assistant and goto Advanced Gimbal settings.
After clicking the default button, we turn the Gimbal Control Switch on. You may set
the value for the gimbal speed to 20. Then we can close the Naza Assistant.
Start Simple_BGC_GUI.exe on a PC or Simple_BGC_GUI.jar on a Mac.
Select the USB port and click connect.
Goto the RC settings tab and enter the roll and pitch angle values as shown here.
Then click write.
You may click read to see, if the settings were written to the board correctly.
Goto the basic tab and set the top axis to -Z, and the right to -X, if you
modified the sensor and pivot arm like me. If you did not move the sensor, then leave
the values as they are.
If your gimbal is doing weird stuff, and flipping around like a dying fish, then you should calibrate the sensors.
Click on calibrate sensor, and grab the gimbal and hold it very still until it jerks a bit.
You will feel it. Do the same to calibrate the gyro.
When you hover the mouse over the calibration buttons,
you may read the help text.
Press write to save the data to the board, and take the aircraft for a flight. Good luck,
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if you can.