SimpleBGC Software User Manual
Contents
1. Basecam ELECTRONICS SimpleBGC Software User Manual Board v 3 x Firmware v 2 43 GUI v 2 43 Basecamelectronics 2013 2014 1 OVErVICW cccccccccccccsccccccccccccccsscecscccsccecsccecccecccscscsscscccccees 3 2 Step by step setup SEQUENCE ccccsecccscecssescscssccscsseceees 7 5 GUL OV CIVIC W ssesvisstescocsesscscesecsass chessioccescprsatrestecsavenscentatenscetas 10 4 BASIC SQCCINGS waiin cvssssecisavanssssdssidiacscssscsasaepetnansasdaasoeccsastaneasies 12 5 PUD Agee AC UNING as cvs kcicescpasccseazocscusesanis sues sustesvonsvatnivensasseunes 16 GRE Settings is sscscasecdisceds tonccestavsseceausessestobacaebeestavtasea onstevsaacaess 18 7 Follow Mode SettingS sccsssscssscssssssssssscssescsceseseees 21 8 Advanced Settings o0000000000000000ene0ae ene nne anae nane neenaenannene 24 9 Service Settings 0o0000000000e0 anane nanne nee ne nan ane anae nane nnenanne 26 10 System Monitoring 000000000000 00en0enenae nee neene nee a naa nene 28 11 Digital Filters 00o0e00000e0esene0n0enenen one teen trate 29 12 Adjustable Variables o000o0000000000e00e 0000000 nee anae nnenennenee 31 13 Firmware update 00000000000000000 0000000000 nenen nean annnenannenee 35 14 Possible problems and solutions 000000000000000000000no 38 1 Overview 1 Overview With the help of this manual you will learn how to con2. e FREQ R FREQ P FREQ_Y the main frequency of oscillation If RMS_ERR is too small this parameter is useless 28 11 Digital Filters 11 Digital Filters This tab contains settings to configure digital filters that can help to improve guality of PID controller operation Notch filters Magnitude dB 03 0 4 0 5 0 6 i Normalized Frequency xx rad sample These filters can reject narrow bandwidth They can help in case when the system has a pronounced mechanical resonance Raising the extent feedback gain oscillations will appear first on the mechanical resonance frequencies and does not depend on variations of PI D settings In this case using one or several notch filters can help to increase feedback gain and get more accurate and stable work of PID regulator But this filter will be useless if oscillations appear in the broad frequency range In this case it is better to use low pass filter Example gimbal works stable but when camera tilts downward 60 degrees strong vibration occurs and does not allow to increase gain of PID 1 First detect which axis causes vibration To do this in the GUI go to the tab Monitoring and switch on the following graphics RMS ERR_R RMS ERR_P RMS ERR _Y Slow tilt the camera downward until vibrations occur Most growing graphic will show the necessary axis In the example it is RMS ERR_P Pitch axis 2 When in steady state vibration mode look at frequency indicati
3. 12C errors present Errors are possible if sensor wires are too long or motors outs affect sensor by capacitive linkage Shorter sensor wires Lower pullup resistors value on the sensor board Install spike LC filter on motor outs make 2 3 turns of motor cable through ferrite coil Install spike LC filter on sensor wires the same as motor filter High frequency oscillations Feedback self excitation as a result of high D parameter Check the graphs to understand on what axis is the problem and lower D value Low frequency oscillations Feedback self excitation as a result of high D parameter or high P Lower P increase D GUI cannot connect to the board Wrong COM port selected GUI and firmware versions doesn t match Try different COM ports Upload the latest firmware and download matching GUI version 38 SimpleBGC 3 0 32bit connection diagram IMU SENSOR GND BATTERY 5V LA eS a BUZZER 5 12V E FRAME IMU Gan IMU SENSOR fee i BANA KA Set ed ee eg CAM STAB ROLL CAM STAB PITCH GND 6j6 0 ojo ojo v 06 6 00 0o ONO OV OVOWONONO FLIGHT CONTROLLER OPTIONAL CAM CONTROL ROLL SumPPM SBUS CAMCONTROL PITCH CAM CONTROL YAW RECEIVER YAW PITCH ROLL MENU BUTTON bi e 5 ae FERRITE RING ional if 12C errors JOYST
4. and Number of poles latest 2 setting may be detected automatically as described in the user manual Also main IMU position should be configured and accelerometer and gyroscope should be calibrated Plug in a battery connect board to the GUI and press Auto button in the PID parameters section You will see dialog window where you can setup auto tuning process PID auto tune configuration WW s Better stability Better precision Adjust axis Fi ROLL PITCH Ti YAW Initial values Start from zero Start from current values r Send progress to GUI _ Log to file START STOP CANCEL Slider at the top defines the target of tuning If its close to Better precision it will try to achieve maximum gain and keep it If close to better stability it will find maximum gain and than decrease it by 30 50 to make system more stable You may chose which axis to tune Best result may be reached only if to tune each axis separately But for the first run you can tune all axis at the same time If you want to use your Current settings as start point select Start from current values Otherwise values will be set to zero in the beginning Select Send progress to GUI checkbox to see how PID values change in real time during tuning process Select Log to file to write PID values together with some debug variables to the file auto_pid_log csv It may be analyzed later to better understa
5. Connection to computer A connection between a controller and a computer can be established via a Mini or Micro USB depending on the version of the controller You will need to install a driver the first time you establish a connection If the driver is not installed automatically you can download it follow the link http www silabs com products mcu pages usbtouartbridgevcpdrivers aspx For Tiny version the driver for Windows can be downloaded here http www st com web en catalog tools PF257938 After you have installed the driver and connected the controller you will see a new virtual COM port in the system Its name should be entered in the graphic interface window hereinafter GUI upon connection You can connect the controller to your computer and supply power from a battery simultaneously But be careful and observe polarity of battery terminals because when a USB connection is established the in built reverse polarity protection is off some versions are not equipped with such protection Wireless connection To connect you can also use a wireless connection through Bluetooth to Serial converter and USB Bluetooth adapter from PC side For example HC 05 HC 06 Sparkfun BlueSMiRF converters and other The converter should have at least 4 outputs Gnd 5V Rx Tx The controller is equipped with a corresponding slot marked with UART Bluetooth module connection is described in Appendix B NOTE Bluetooth module s
6. the controller supports not only remote control of camera angles but also that of a large number of system parameters allowing their change in real time Also it has expanded functions of various commands executed remotely similar to channel CMD but with a much more flexible configuration The tab with these settings is displayed after connecting to a 32 bit board with a firmware that supports this feature Mapping of trigger type controls Slot to edit Signal source Execute an action on each of 5 positions Slot 1 NA ADC1 analog NG Use profile Profile1 Lock I no action Use profile Follow1 Use profile Follow1 Look down Motors toggle ON OFF Mapping of analog type controls Slot to edit Signal source Parameter to adjust Slot 1 NA ADC2 analog NA FOLLOW SPEED _YAW P Min Max Current value There are two types of control Trigger and Analog Trigger control is designed for connecting the buttons and switches in such a way that each state of the button triggers a certain command pre assigned to this particular state The entire range of the RC signal is divided into 5 sectors whereby the transition from one sector to another triggers the action assigned Up to 10 slots are available for matching the control channel set designed for 5 different functions Analog Control is designed for fine adjustment of selected parameters by rotating the potentiometer on the remote control panel It is also possible to sw
7. 3 sections LOW MID HIGH When changing the position of your RC switch signal jumps from one section to another and assigned command is executed The full list of available commands is described in the section MENU BUTTON of this manual o FC_ROLL FC_PITCH is used to mark any of PWM inputs to be a signal from the external flight 18 6 RC Settings controller See External FC gain section for details e Mix channels you can mix 2 inputs together before applying to any of ROLL PITCH or YAW axis It lets to control the camera from the 2 sources joystick and RC for example You can adjust the proportion of the mix from 0 to 100 e ANGLE MODE FC stick will control the camera angle directly The full RC range will cause a camera to go from min to max angles as specified above If RC stick doesn t move camera stands still The speed of rotation depends on the SPEED setting and the acceleration limiter setting e SPEED MODE RC stick will control the rotation speed If stick is centered camera stands still if stick is deflected camera starts to rotate but does not exceed min max range Speed is slightly decreased near min max borders Speed of rotation is proportional to stick angle and the SPEED setting RC control inversion is allowed in both of control modes e INVERSE Set this checkbox to reverse direction of rotation relative to stick movement e MIN ANGLE MAX ANGLE range of the angles con
8. API Mapping API VIRT_CH1 gt A a Command Tn CMD MD H gt API_VIRT_CH32 Q eat Low b Analog inputs Ext FC signal p gt pp ADCI1 2 FC_ROLL ty apc2 T FC_PITCH gt O Oo ADC3 ADJ VARS 2013 2014 Basecamelectronics 41
9. Max For example if the full variation range is 0 255 and you need to change it to the range 100 150 you will need to set the slider Min at the mark close to 40 and the slider Max at 60 as shown in the picture Mapping of analog type controls Slot to edit Signal source Parameter to adjust Slot 1 ADC1 analog P_ROLL A 9 5 Min value Max value Current value 32 12 Adjustable Variables In this case the maximum control deviation corresponds to the parameter limit value of 153 that meets our requirements Observing the parameter current value in real time it is easy to estimate the required range by moving sliders There is a possibility to invert a control when signal goes up variable goes down Just set Min slider greater than Max slider You may notice that Min and Max sliders extend a range of a variable to 10 Its done for cases when RC signal is limited in range and does not cover full RC range 500 blue bar does not reach its limits After activating parameters by pressing button Write you will see the current RC signal level on the selected slot as well as the current value of controlled variable Table 1 Decoding of names of controlled variables Parameter s name Description P_ROLL P_PITCH P_YAW Parameter of P PID controller ROLL I_PITCH YAW Parameter of l PID controller multiplied by 100 D_ROLL D PITCH D_YAW Parameter of D
10. PID controller POWER_ROLL POWER_PITCH POWER_YAW Parameter POWER ACC_LIMITER Acceleration Limiter unit of measurement 4 s2 FOLLOW_SPEED_ROLL FOLLOW_SPEED_PITCH FOLLOW_SPEED_YAW The speed of movement in the mode Follow FOLLOW_LPF_ROLL FOLLOW_LPF PITCH FOLLOW_LPF_YAW Smoothing of operation in the mode Follow RC_SPEED_ROLL RC_SPEED_PITCH RC_SPEED_YAW Speed of movement when operating from the RC transmitter RC_LPF_ROLL RC_LPF PITCH RC_LPF_YAW Smoothing of operation from the RC transmitter RC_TRIM_ROLL RC_TRIM_PITCH RC_TRIM_YAW Neutral point trimming for channels controlling the camera by ROLL PITCH YAW in the speed mode RC_DEADBAND The deadband of the RC signal for the camera control channels in the speed mode RC_EXPO_RATE Degree of the exponential curve depth for the RC signal FOLLOW_MODE Follow mode by the PITCH ROLL angles 0 off 1 follow the flight controller 2 follow the gimbal s frame 33 12 Adjustable Variables RC_FOLLOW_YAW Follow mode by the YAW angles 0 off 1 2 follow the gimbal s frame FOLLOW_DEADBAND The deadband for the deflection angle of the frame in the Follow mode unit of measurement 0 1 degree FOLLOW _EXPO_RATE Degree of the exponential curve depth for the Follow mode FOLLOW_ROLL_MIX_START The starting point of the zone transition to the Follow mode degrees FOLL
11. Set l 0 01 P 10 D 10 for all axes Gimbal should be stable at this moment If not decrease P and D a bit Than start to tune each axis sequentially 2 Gradually increase P until motor starts oscillate you may knock camera and see on the gyro graph how fast oscillation decays Increase D a little it should damp oscillations and decay time decreases The lower is decay time the better 3 Repeat step 2 until D reaches its maximum when high frequency vibration appears you may feel it by hands and see noisy line on the gyro graph Current P and D values are maximum for your setup decrease them a little and go to step 4 4 Increase until low frequency oscillation starts Decrease a little to keep gimbal stable Now you found a maximum for all PID values for selected axis Repeat from step 1 for other axes 5 When all axes are tuned in static try to move gimbal s frame emulating a real work You may notice that cross influence of axes may make gimbal not stable In this case decrease a little 8 2 Step by step setup sequence PID values from its maximum for axes that looses The result of good tuning stabilization error is less than 1 degree when you slightly rock a gimbal s frame Further steps to improve the precision of stabilization e Connect and calibrate external flight controller see Advanced Settings External FC Gain e Connect setup and calibrate second frame IMU see Second IMU sensor 5 Connecting and
12. configuring RC e Connect one of the free receiver s channels to RC_PITCH input preserving right polarity In the RC Settings tab e Set SORCE PWM e Assign RC_PITCH input to PITCH axis e Leave all other axes and CMD as no input e For PITCH axis set MIN ANGLE 90 MAX ANGLE 90 ANGLE MODE checked LPF 5 SPEED 10 not used in angle mode lt Connect the battery to the main controller and receiver and check that RC_PITCH input receives data in the Monitoring tab slider should be blue filled and reflects to stick movement Now you can control the camera from your RC transmitter from 90 to 90 degrees If you are not satisfied with the speed of movement adjust the I term setting for PITCH in the Basic tab Try the SPEED mode and feel difference with the ANGLE mode Connect and tune remaining axes the same way as required 6 Testing gimbal in real conditions Connect controller to the GUI and turn ON multirotor motors holding it above your head Check the vibrations on the camera by using Monitoring tab ACC raw data Try to decrease the level of vibrations using soft dampers NOTE Brushless motors versus traditional servos provide faster reaction but less torque That s why it s hard for them to fight against wind and air flows from props If you are developing multirotor frame by yourself try to avoid this influences for example lengthen arms a bit or tilt motors away from center or place camera abov
13. on normal operation mode e LED is on but blinks irregularly 12C errors appears Check in the GUI 12C errors counter Also additional LEDs may present to signal serial communication on RX and TX line 27 10 System Monitoring 10 System Monitoring In this tab you can see raw sensor data stream logical RC input levels and some debug information e ACC X Y Z accelerometer data e GYRO_X Y Z gyroscope data Helps to determine quality of P and D settings Disturb gimbal by hand and see trace If it looks like sine wave D setting is too low and gimbal tends to low frequency oscillations If some noise is always present even without any disturbance D setting is too high and gimbal tends to high frequency self excitation e ERR_ROLL ERR_PITCH ERR_YAW stabilization error graph Same as peak indicators on the control panel and shows maximum deflection angle HINT Each graph can be turned on or off scale can be adjusted for Y axis You can pause the data transmission at any time You can receive extended debug information from the board by selecting the checkbox Receive extended debug info Useful information you can get from the board e RMS_ERR_R RMS_ERR_P RMS_ERR_Y RMS amplitude of gyro sensor data In case of oscillations it helps to define which axis is unstable Its may be not so clearly from raw gyro data because oscillations may have high frequency far above a frame rate that GUI can receive and display
14. the camera rotation in the follow mode Don t set big values that motors can not handle if motor does not produce enough torque it will skip steps and synchronization will be broken In this case acceleration limiter may help to have big speed but do not miss steps IMPORTANT NOTE For high SPEED values above 50 100 its strongly recommended to set LPF parameter greater than zero set it to 2 3 for example and Expo curve parameter greater than 50 Otherwise wrong system operation is possible like vibrations and jerks under follow control and overshoot of target e LPF adjust low pass filter applied to control signal If this value set high fast movements of the handle will be smoothed But it requires careful operation near stop point otherwise camera will overshoot after you stop rotation of the handle Its recommended to not set it below 2 Operation in the Follow Mode At system startup in the follow mode keep the frame horizontally and manually adjust the camera to the horizontal position and adjust its heading Camera easily jumps between the magnetic poles Rotate the camera by hands to desired horizontal position it will stick to the nearest magnetic pole Gently rotate and tilt the frame Turns within 45 will control the speed of the camera from O to 100 Camera rotates in accordance with the SPEED settings until it s angles are not equal the frame s angles or until given restrictions will be achieved I
15. BGC Serial API specification is available for download on our website http www basecamelectronics com Setting control of the Trigger type e Select a slot for tuning Slots where the signal source is already defined are marked with symbol e Select the signal source One and the same source can be used for several slots simultaneously but please make sure that the commands executed for individual slots do not interfere with each other e Assign actions to each sector Possible actions are described in the section Menu Button You can leave any sector unused by specifying no action After activating parameters by pressing button Write you will see the current RC signal level on the selected slot for convenience the whole range is divided into sectors as well as the last activated action You can check in real time whether actions are performed correctly in the case when the Level of the signal has changed Setting control of the Analog type e Select a slot for tuning Slots where the signal source is already defined are marked with symbol e Select the signal source One source can be selected to control the number of variables at the same time which can be convenient to change the value of a group of parameters by single control function e Select the variable that must be changed Decoding of names of variables is presented in Table 1 e Specify the range of variation by means of the sliders Min and
16. ICK 1 3 2013 2014 Basecamelectronics SimpleBGC 3 0 32bit bluetooth connection Settings Baud rate 115200 Parity Even or None Data bits 8 Stop bits 1 BLUETOOTH To upgrade firmware via Bluetooth only Even parity will work Starting from firmware ver 2 41 None parity is supported too Note that by default most modules configured with None parity 2013 2014 Basecamelectronics 40 SimpleBGC 32bit RC signal routing diagram firmware ver 2 43 Digital inputs MODE Serial decoders Mapping PWM out t RC_ROLL SumPPM VIRT_CH1 J Servo1 gt RC_PITCH S bus Seat O Servo2 gt gt RC_YAW Spektrum VIRT_CHx s Servo3 a FC_ROLL Q O Servo4 gt wi FC PITCH PWM decoders Mix Angle control gt ROLL gt gt PITCH gt b gt YAW gt Serial
17. OTE You may skip this step and leave zero values at initial setup 25 9 Service Settings 9 Service Settings Menu Button If you ve connected menu button to BTN connector on the controller you can assign different actions to it Action is activated by pressing button several times sequentially 1 to 5 clicks by pressing and holding Long press Available actions e Use profile 1 5 loads selected profile e Calibrate ACC the accelerometer calibration works the same way as button in the GUI e Calibrate Gyro gyroscope calibration e Swap RC PITCH ROLL temporary swap RC inputs from PITCH to ROLL In the most cases only one PITCH channel is enough to control a camera in 2 axis systems Before a flight you can assign control from pitch channel to roll and make a camera precisely leveled Activating this function again swaps channels back and saves roll position in the static memory e Swap RC YAW ROLL like the previous point e Set tilt angles by hand motors will be turned off after that you can take the camera in hands and fix it in the new position for a few seconds Controller will save and hold the new position This function may be useful to correct camera position before flight if there is no RC control connected e Motors toggle Motors ON Motors OFF commands to change the state of the motors e Reset controller e Frame upside down configures system to work in upside down position New config
18. OW_ROLL_MIX_RANGE The length of the zone transition to the Follow mode degrees GYRO_TRUST Trust to gyroscope compared to accelerometer 34 13 Firmware update 13 Firmware update To check if the firmware upgrade is available connect the board and press CHECK button You will receive information about all available versions of firmware and can choose version to upgrade When selecting a version in drop down List its full description is displayed in the text area below To upload selected version to the board press the UPGRADE button Uploading process will be started Generally it takes about 10 30 seconds to finish WARNING Do not disconnect USB cable or break wireless connection while firmware is uploading PLEASE NOTE e For non windows operating system additional steps may be required See notes at the end of this section e For Tiny version of the board you need to install DFU device driver Detailed instructions provided at the end of this section There is an option to configure system to check updates automatically When new version will be issued you will be prompted to upgrade to it If automatic upgrade fails just after downloading firmware from server for example there are may be problems to upgrade using Bluetooth connection under Mac OS you can try to upload firmware in the manual mode You can find downloaded firmware in the SimpleBGC_GUI firmware folder and upload this f
19. Phase Responses Magnitude dB Phase degrees Filter 1 Magnitude Filter 1 Phase a A AE AE a Bs gt co wo 8 J 2 8 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 Normalized Frequency xx rad sample Applying this filter can be needed for large gimbals heavy cameras with high moment of inertia or for gimbals with reduction gear The working frequency range for them are lower than of the lightweight gimbals But factor D of PID regulator increases feedback the more the higher frequency At a high frequencies the response of the mechanical system can be not sufficiently precise and fast because of many reasons high frequency resonances propagation delay of mechanical impact nonlinearity due to the backlash and friction etc Due to this the system tends to self excitation when gain increases Low pass filter reduces the gain at a high frequency and increases stability of the system But as drawback low pass filter results in phase delay which grows negative near the crossover frequency and can negatively affect the PID stability This is a reason of the complexity of configuring this filter and its usage is not always justified NOTE Up to 2 42 version parameter Gyro LPF was responsible for LPF and provided a first order filter Now it is not used and changed to a second order filter with more precise tuning of frequency and independent configuration for each axis 30 Beginning with firmware version 2 43
20. bove except it can be enabled only for YAW axis For example you can lock camera by ROLL and PITCH axis by selecting Disabled option but still control camera by YAW by enabling Follow YAW option There are additional settings to tune follow mode e Dead band degrees you can set the range where the rotation of an outer frame does not affect 21 7 Follow Mode Settings the camera It helps to skip small jerks when you operate gimbal by hands e Expo curve you can specify the strength of the control when outer frame declines from neutral position For example when the expo curve is enabled i e is not flat small or medium declination of an outer frame will cause very fine control But the strength of control exponentially grows when angles of declination becomes close to 60 degrees It gives a big freedom in camera operation from fine and smooth control to very fast movements e OFFSET it is a very important to properly configure the initial position of the motor s magnetic poles because all further calculations use this information For YAW axis it allows to fine adjust a camera heading relative to a frame heading For PITCH and ROLL axis there is an option to calibrate offset automatically To do this power on system hold frame leveled and press AUTO button Don t forget to write setting when finished If the camera after power on is not leveled you need to adjust the offset setting e SPEED adjust the speed of
21. cillations particularly when the IMU sensor is exposed to vibrations In special cases it may be filtered out by digital filters see below o The I value changes the speed at which the gimbal moves to incoming RC commands and to move the gimbal back to neutral Low values result in a slow and smooth reaction to RC commands and to getting back to neutral Increase this value to speed up the movement e POWER maximum voltage supplied to the motors 0 255 where 255 means full battery voltage Choose this parameter according to your motor characteristics Basic tuning o Motors should not get too hot Motor temperatures of over 80C will cause permanent damage to motor magnets o A Power value that is too Low will not provide enough force for the motor to move the gimbal and stabilize the camera adequately A low power value will be most noticeable in windy conditions when the gimbal is not well balanced or if the gimbal suffers from mechanical friction Slowly lower the Power parameter to find its optimal value Find the lowest value that still provides good stabilization and adequate holding torque o Raising the power equals raising the P value of PID settings If you raise the POWER value you should re tune your PID values as well e Additional power that will be add to the main power in case of big error caused by missed steps It helps to return camera to the normal position If main power additional powe
22. d position on the gimbal For a standard IMU sensor installation Look at the gimbal from behind just like the camera will view out from the gimbal Viewing the gimbal in this way the UP and Right direction will match the Z and X axis You can place the IMU sensor in any direction keeping its sides always parallel to the motor axis be very accurate here it is a very important to precisely align the sensor and mount it firmly Configure your IMU orientation in the GUI The correct configuration should result in the following Camera pitches forward the PITCH arrow spins clockwise in the GUI Camera rolls right ROLL arrow spins clockwise in the GUI Camera yaws clockwise YAW arrow spins clockwise o Skip Gyro calibration at startup With this option the board starts working immediately after powering it on using the saved calibration data from last gyroscope calibration call However stored calibration data may become inaccurate over time or during temperature changes We recommend you to re calibrate your gyro from time to time to ensure the best performance Second IMU sensor There is an option to install the second IMU sensor on the gimbal s frame The advantage is more precise stabilization you may use lower PID s to get the same quality and knowing of frame tilting that greatly helps for 3 axis system to extend the range of working angles _ BASECAM _ Second IMU should be co
23. dules with the main module and in its clones Because there are many modifications of this protocol it may not work as expected in the first versions of SimpleBGC firmware but we will work on correct implementation in next versions There is a dedicated socket on the board marked Spektrum that matches standard connector You should bind satellite module with the transmitter manually e For each control targets you can choose appropriate hardware input from the drop down List o RC_ROLL RC_PITCH RC_YAW FC_ROLL FC_PITCH hardware inputs on board that accept signal in the PWM Pulse Width Modulation format excepting RC_ROLL see above Most RC receivers output this signal type o ADC1 ADC2 ADC3 dedicated analog inputs marked on the board as A1 A2 A3 and accepts analog signal in range from O to 3 3 volts For example joystick variable resistor provides such signal Connect A1 A3 to the center contact of variable resistor 3 3V and GND to side contacts See Connection Diagram for more info o VIRT_CH_XX In case of RC_ROLL pin mode is set to multi channel signal format you can chose one of the virtual channels o API VIRT CH KM Channels that may be set by Serial API command e Control targets o ROLL PITCH YAW controls the position of the camera o CMD allows to execute some actions You can configure 2 or 3 position switch on your RC for specified channel and assign it to CMD channel Its range is splitted into
24. e camera control when it follows frame Monitoring real time sensor data monitoring This screen is extremely helpful in tuning your gimbal performance Firmware Update Firmware and GUI software versions and update options Upgrade lets you to check the fresh version of firmware and upgrade if necessary 5 GUI overview e Filters settings to setup digital filters for PID controller 2 Connection COM port selection and connection status Profile Profile selection loading re naming and saving 4 Control Panel graphic visualization of gimbal orientation angles in three axes e Black arrows are displaying the angles blue arrows are a 10x time magnification to provide higher precision Red marks show target angles that gimbal should keep e Thin blue lines shows the maximum peak deflection from the central neutral point e Blue digits show peak deflection amplitude Using these numbers stabilization quality can be estimated e Vertical red bars to the right of the scales show actual power level from O to 100 e Gray arrows shows the angle of a stator of each motor if known 5 READ WRITE buttons are used to transfer setting from to board 6 MOTORS ON OFF button is used to toggle motors state 7 At the bottom of the screen tips status or error messages in red color are displayed Overall cycle time and I2C error count is also displayed 8 Battery voltage indicator with warning sector Boa
25. e frame IMU may be mounted in any orientation keeping its axis parallel with motor s axis Configuring the frame IMU To configure the frame IMU first of all set its location in the Advanced tab Sensor area Write settings to the board and go to the Basic tab Press the button Frame IMU Sensor Axis TOP Y RIGHT Skip Gyro calibration at startup CALIB ACC CALIB GYRO Configure Camera IMU Frame IMU If the second IMU is connected properly this button becomes active It means that all IMU settings now affect on the frame IMU Change sensor orientation axis TOP RIGHT and write setting to the board if 14 4 Basic Settings necessary board will be restarted After restart calibrate the accelerometer and gyroscope like you did it for the main IMU For the accelerometer you can do simple calibration or extended 6 point calibration You may notice that right panels with arrows are displaying now angles not for the main but for the frame IMU Also in the Monitoring tab accelerometer s and gyroscope s data go for the frame IMU It helps to properly configure an orientation of the sensor and check its calibration 15 5 PID auto tuning 5 PID auto tuning This feature will be helpful for the beginners who experienced difficulties with PID tuning Before you start automatic tuning its very important to properly configure hardware of your system motor outputs Power Inverse
26. e props in case of H frame Also bear in mind when copter moves with high speed an air flow is deflected and can affect the gimbal Connection COM27 Board F j SimpleBGC GUI v2 42 b3 File Board Language View Help version 3 0 Advanced PID Controller Adaptive PID gains control Mj ROLL RMS error threshold 10 Attenuation rate 50 v Recovery factor 5 MOTORS ON OFF Parameters successfully loaded from board Profile Lock1 Rename Disconnect N Firmware Load 2 42 b4 basecamelectronics com Service Follow Monitoring Upgrade Filters Motor Configuration POWER ROLL 499 INVERT PITCH 4594 mi NUM POLES YAW 130 ag Sensor Mj PITCH J YAW RIGHT Axis TOP Fj Skip Gyro calibration at startup CALIB ACC CALIB GYRO Configure Camera IMU Frame IMU WRITE 0 02 0 03 The GUI contains different functional blocks 1 Configuration block in the central part of the window organized by tab Basic Basic gimbal stabilization settings Adjusting these settings is usually adequate to achieve good camera stabilization Advanced More precise tuning options RC settings to control the gimbal roll pitch yaw orientation with RC inputs Service Specify the behavior of the MENU button located on the controller board or mounted externally and tune the battery monitoring service Follow settings related to special mode of th
27. em You need to install Microsoft Visual C 2008 x86 redistributable http www microsoft com en us download details aspx id 5582 37 14 Possible problems and solutions 14 Possible problems and solutions Problem Motors don t spin Possible causes Power supply is not connected Supply polarity inverted POWER set to 0 Solutions Check all connections Set POWER between 50 200 Camera is trying to align but falls back Camera is not balanced It s an error in motor windings or one phase is broken POWER is not high enough Balance camera Check motor winding Increase POWER parameter During fast YAW rotating camera deflects by ROLL and then slowly gets to horizon Bad accelerometer calibration Sensor is not in parallel with motor axes Make advanced ACC calibration by 6 positions Align sensor with motor axes During fast motion with acceleration camera deflects and then slowly gets to horizon This is normal effect of accelerations Try to increase Gyro Trust in Advanced tab YAW arrow slowly spins in the GUI Slow drift is normal less than 1 degree minute It s because of gyro drifts over time Note to sensor Immobility during gyro calibration Re calibrate gyro Camera slowly drifts by any or all axes just after power on Bad gyro calibration Re calibrate gyro Clicks and crunch are heard during work LED is synchronously blinking
28. f the camera moves unpredictably perhaps its the wrong direction of rotation of the motors and you need to change the Reverse flag in the Basic tab To achieve the smooth motion increase the LPF parameter increase Expo curve and decrease the SPEED 22 Follow Mode Settings and the Acceleration limits For more dynamic control change these settings in the opposite direction In case of failure of stabilization due to external disturbances the camera can completely lose synchronization with the frame In this case it is necessary to return it to the proper position by hands IT IS VERY IMPORTANT to keep the frame horizontally because at this point the frame s zero angles are calibrated You can switch between modes on the fly by activating different profiles Camera will keep their position between modes 23 8 Advanced Settings 8 Advanced Settings e AHRS options influencing on camera angle determination accuracy o Gyro trust The higher is value the more trust to the gyro data compared with the accelerometer data when estimating angles It can reduce errors caused by accelerations during moving but also decreases gyro drift compensation resulting in horizon drift over time For smooth flying it is recommended to set low values 40 80 which will give more stable horizon for longer time For aggressive flying it s better to set higher values 100 150 o Accelerations compensation enable it to use a ph
29. get this information and use it to control a camera It is necessary to connect and calibrate external flight controller see EXT FC GAIN settings After calibration you can setup the percentage values for ROLL and PITCH axis so the camera will follow frame inclinations e Follow PITCH ROLL this mode is dedicated to hand held systems FC connection is not required In this mode the position of the outer frame by PITCH and ROLL is estimated from the motor s magnetic field This means that if motor skips steps position will be estimated incorrectly and operator should correct camera by hands returning it to proper position WARNING you should use this mode carefully for FPV flying because if the camera misses its initial direction there is no chance to return it back automatically o Follow ROLL start deg Set the angle in degrees of the camera PITCH ing up or down where the ROLL axis enters follow mode Below this angle ROLL is in lock mode ROLL axis mode E locked to the ground F soft transition o Follow ROLL mix deg Set the range in angi BING camera degrees of the camera PITCH ing where the Won TOES mi iollowitame ROLL axis is gradually switched from the lock mode to follow mode see picture HINT To completely disable follow for ROLL set these values to 90 0 To permanently enable follow for ROLL regardless of the camera PITCH ing set values to 0 0 e Follow YAW the same as a
30. ght corner It is not required to read the parameters by pressing READ You can save different settings in 5 different profiles Profiles can be switched over through GUI or by menu button Please note that some settings are shared by all profiles the settings concerning hardware component configuration in particular as well as sensor orientation RC inputs outputs to motors and some other You can assign random names to profiles They will be saved on the board and will remain unchanged when you connect to GUI from a different computer 2 Step by step setup sequence 2 Step by step setup sequence 1 Adjusting the mechanics Mount the camera on the tray and balance the gimbal in all three axes Stabilization quality strongly depends on balance quality To check your balance pick your turned off gimbal in hands Make fast motions along all axes try to catch resonance point and swing the gimbal If it is hard to do gimbal is balanced correctly NOTE Good balance and low friction can scale down power consumption and keep good quality of stabilization If you rewound motors by yourself it s recommended to check winding Remove motors from gimbal connect them to controller and set parameters P 0 I 0 1 D 0 for each axis and set enough POWER Connect main power supply Motors should spin smoothly while rolling the sensor Little jitter is normal due to magnetic force between rotor and stator cogging effect Pay great attention t
31. hing the gimbal data from your flight controller optional For better stabilization and utilization of some additional features the knowledge about the frame inclination angles is required SimpleBGC IMU doesn t provide such information Most of FC have servo outs for connecting gimbals This outs should be connected to SimpleBGC controller through EXT_ROLL and EXT_PITCH inputs o Activate gimbal outs in FC and set range limits for angles you generally fly for example 30 degrees of frame inclination should equals full servo range about 1000 2000 o Deactivate all filters and smoothing of FC gimbal settings if present o Inthe RC tab make sure that inputs EXT ROLL EXT_PITCH doesn t used to control gimbal i e are not chosen as source for any other RC control task o ln Monitoring tab check availability of EXT_FC_ROLL EXT_FC_PITCH signals and make sure they are split to axes correctly Frame roll angle tilting should cause EXT_FC_ROLL change in 24 8 Advanced Settings approximately 900 2100 range The same is for pitch o Connect power supply and setup stabilization as described above tune POWER INVERT PID o Push AUTO button in External FC Gain group and smoothly incline aircraft s frame to different directions by all axes for 10 30 seconds o Push AUTO button again to complete calibration Calibration will stop automatically after some time too New gains will be written into EEPROM and shown in the GUI N
32. hould be set for baud 115200 and parity None or Even Under None the board can be connected to through GUI Under Even not only the controller can be adjusted but also its firmware can be updated 5 1 Overview through Bluetooth To change Bluetooth module settings see its manual Running the application i 2 3 Attach USB cable Run GUI select COM port from the List in the left corner of the main window and press Connect When the connection to the board is established all profiles will be read and downloaded GUI will display the current profile settings You can read the board settings again any time by pressing on the READ button Make sure to have installed the latest version of firmware To check open Upgrade tab and press Check update Update if a new version is available See section Firmware Update for more detailed information After you have finished editing the parameters press WRITE to save them to the permanent memory of the controller EEPROM Only the current selected profile will be saved To restore the factory settings go to Board Reset to defaults All the parameters of the current profile will be set to defaults except for general settings and calibration data In order to erase the settings of ALL profiles general settings and calibration data go to menu Board Erase EEPROM To switch over to the settings of another profile choose the desired profile from the List in the upper ri
33. ile in the manual mode Uploading firmware in the manual mode This option intended to special cases when the board becomes bricked GUI cannot connect to it and you need to upload special recovery version of firmware or when you experienced problems with automatic upgrade Use this mode carefully and only if you understand what you are doing 1 Disconnect any power source USB cable 2 Close set FLASH jumper on board attach jumper to 2 pins marked as FLASH shorting them 3 Connect board to PC by USB cable 4 Run GUI select COM port but don t connect and go to Upgrade firmware Manual tab DO NOT PRESS CONNECT IN THE GUI IF JUMPER IS CLOSED If pressed you need to repeat all steps from the beginning 5 Choose firmware file hex or bin format 6 Select board version e v 3 x 32bit through Virtual COM Port for a regular 32bit board e _v 3 x 32bit through USB in DFU mode for a Tiny 32bit version 7 Press FLASH button and wait for process to be finished 8 Open remove FLASH jumper If board is alive you can connect to the GUI you can upload firmware in manual mode without setting FLASH jumper 1 Connect to the board normal way 2 Choose firmware file 35 13 Firmware update 3 Press FLASH button and wait for process to be finished Upgrading under Mac OS and Linux Starting from 2 42b 7 its possible to upgrade firmware from GUI under Mac OS and Linux and v
34. irtually any other OS Open source tool stm32ld htips github com jsnyder stm3 2d is used to upload firmware to the board NOTE If its failed to run tool under your OS you can compile it from sources located in the SimpleBGC_GUI bin stm32ld src folder Place a result to the SimpleBGC_GUI bin folder renaming it to stm32ld_mac for Mac OS stm32Id_linux for Linux family and stm32Id for any other OS Installing DFU device driver This driver is required only for Tiny version of the board connected by USB Open source utility dfu util http dfu util gnumonks org is used to write firmware to this board Windows 1 Download Zadig from the page http zadig akeo ie example 2 Run Zadig In the Device menu select Load preset device example 3 Browse file SimpleBGC_GUI conf SimpleBGC 32bit board cfg 4 Install driver WinUSB example a gj WORK To check that driver is installed properly 8 1 Close set FLASH jumper on the board and connect it by USB to PC preserving this order exactly e 2 Windows will find new device SimpleBGC 32bit board 4 Universal Serial Bus devices 3 Open remove jumper re connect USB and run GUI to if SimpleBGC 32bit board upgrade firmware a Linux Most Linux distributions ship dfu util in binary packages for those who do not want to compile dfu util from source On Debian Ubuntu Fedora and Gentoo you can install it through the norma
35. itch between fixed values using a multi position toggle switch that almost all of RC transmitters have Up to 15 slots are available for assigning the control channel to one parameter For both types of Control the signal source can be PWM inputs on the board designated as RC_ROLL RC_PITCH RC_YAW FC_PITCH FC_ROLL They use standard RC receivers Analog inputs ADC1 ADC3 They can be connected to analog potentiometers with resistance value of 1 10 kOm the end terminals are connected to GND and 3 3V whereas the central terminal is connected to the ADC input Virtual channels from multi channel RC In the event of connection of RC receivers with a large number of channels over a single wire virtual channels of RC_VIRT_CH1 RC_VIRT_CH32 receiver can also be used You can read more on this in the section RC Inputs 31 12 Adjustable Variables e Virtual channels operated through the Serial API from another device API_VIRT_CH1 API_VIRT_CH32 TIP This type of input allows independent developers to create an external control panel with any set of buttons switches and potentiometers serviced by a simple microprocessor for example based on the Arduino software which reads and transmits the state of control devices data over the wired or wireless serial interface Since the tuning of control functions is performed through SimpleBGC_GUI software for such control panel can be extremely simple Documentation of protocol Simple
36. l software package tools For other distributions namely OpenSuSe Mandriva and CentOS Holger Freyther was kind enough to provide binary packages through the Open Build Service e Copy dfu util to SimpleBGC_GUI bin dfu util linux to let GUI to find and execute it MAC OS Mac OS X users can also get dfu util from Homebrew with brew install dfu util or from MacPorts e Install macports from http Avww macports org install php e Find and install dfu util from there e Copy dfu util to SimpleBGC_GUI bin dfu util mac to let GUI to find and execute it FAQ and Troubleshooting Q Firmware uploading process was interrupted and board is not working now not responding to GUI Is it fatal A No its not fatal for your board moreover its impossible to damage board such way You just need to upload special recovery firmware You can find it in the firmware folder named simplebgc_recovery_32bit 36 13 Firmware update or download from our site Refer to instructions how to upload firmware in the manual mode Then you can connect to the board and upgrade to any version as regular Q know from somebody that there is fresh version but don t see it when checking for updates Why A Its normal There are may be beta versions available for beta testers only or may be different versions for different boards You will receive only stable versions issued for your board Q Can I upgrade firmware from Mac or Lin
37. nd system behavior There are number of tools to plot data from log files for example http kst plot kde or How does it work Tuning process does simple job it gradually increases Pl D values until system enters in self excitation state It means maximum possible gains are reached Than it rolls back values a bit and repeats the same iteration 2 times Averaged good values are stored as PID settings During process you should firmly hold your gimbal in hands You can place it on the support but check that it provides strong hold not less than your hands After about minute of work you can see that PID values have grown big enough and camera is stabilized Now you can slightly tilt handles in all directions to emulate real usage conditions Find point where self excitation is maximum and continue tuning system in this point a worse case position It is normal that gimbal can start to vibrate when PID values come close to theirs maximum If any motor 5 PID auto tuning looses sync due to strong oscillations you can help to restore it by hand without interrupting the process In some cases you can get better result i e higher PID gains if you remove high frequency resonances before starting automatic tuning See section Digital filters for more details LED is flashing during tuning process When process will finish its job LED will light ON and new PID settings will be transferred to the GUI There is al
38. nect adjust and calibrate in a special environment the SimpleBGC 32bit controller by BaseCamElectronics The main principle of SimpleBGC operation is to compensate undesirable impact on the stabilizable device with brushless motors in holding mode Motors are managed with a controller board that receives the repositioning data from the gyroscopic sensor Gyroscopic sensor IMU shall be mounted together with the camera to register any undesirable repositioning Frame sensor can also be used Frame IMU Thus data from two sensors will be used by stabilization board simultaneously for more precise system stabilization Introduction Stabilization system controller board and its software were designed and licenced by BaseCam Electronics SimpleBGC stands for Simple Brushless Gimbal Controller gimbal controller for brushless motors It is a high quality stabilization system designed for non professional as well as professional use You can purchase our controller version http Awww basecamelectronics ru store or a licensed controller version from our partners the list of our official partners is available on our web site http www basecamelectronics ru wheretobuy Different manufacturers alter the basic version of the controller for example by adding an integrated Bluetooth component or reducing its size etc Please pay attention to the relevant data sheets published on the corresponding manufacturer s web site Individual stabilization co
39. nnected to the same 12C bus as main in parallel Sensors KNA should have different 2C address Main IMU 0x68 Frame IMU 0x69 On the Basecam IMU address 0x69 may be set by cutting the ADDR bridge located on the back side of the sensor Mounting the Frame IMU There are two options where to place the second IMU below YAW motor and above it In case of 2 axis stabilization there is only one option above ROLL motor 13 4 Basic Settings Frame IMU above YAW gt m YAW MOTOR below YAW SL above ROLL ROUL PITCH MOTOR MOTOR Camera IMU If the sensor is placed above YAW motor it helps to stabilize ROLL PITCH and YAW motors But the system becomes less stable during long work because the frame heading estimated from the second IMU may drift with time and auto correction may not work in all cases If the sensor is placed below YAW motor it does not help YAW axis stabilization but works more reliable In this position there is additional option you can choose from Below YAW PID source It means that if Frame IMU is mounted below YAW motor it can be used as data source for PID controller In some cases this can give better result than the main IMU because mechanical system IMU Motor becomes more stiff when its length is shorter and its closed loop operation becomes more stable Like the main camera IMU th
40. ntrollers are available as well as devices with preinstalled controllers http www basecamelectronics com readytouse There are also ready gimbals without electronic stabilization system In this case you will need to purchase a controller and install it yourself If you decide to assemble a stabilization system yourself please visit our forum where you can find the necessary information http forum basecamelectronics com In this manual the original 32bit version of SimpleBGC controller is described as well as the multiplatform application for its adjustment Basic connections Basic controller connection scheme within the camera gimbal stabilization system is shown in figure 1 1 Overview Battery 8 25V USB to PC ROLL motor button receiver Fig 1 Basic connections 1 USB port is used only to connect SimpleBGC 32bit stabilization board to PC Gyroscopic sensor IMU is connected to 12C slot 3 Each axis motor is connected to the corresponding motor connection Po NOTE It is advisable to pull each motor cable through a ferrite ring and make at least one loop around the ring to avoid high frequency interference induction interrupting the sensor and other electronic devices 4 The stabilization controller SimpleBGC 32bit is equipped with a power cable to enable a battery connection Its bared wires should be soldered to the corresponding connector on your battery Polarity should be observed otherwise both the contr
41. nts Works only in SPEED mode e Limit Accelerations this option lets to limit angular accelerations in case of hard RC or Serial control useful to prevents jerks or skipped steps smoother camera control less impact on the multirotor s frame The Less is value the smoother is camera rotation under control e PWM Output allows to pass any of virtual channel decoded from serial input signal to special pins that can output PWM signal This signal can be used to drive hobby servo or IR camera trigger for example On the SimpleBGC 3 0 boards these pins share PWM output function with other functions Servol FC_ROLL Servo2 FC_PITCH Servo3 RC_PITCH Servo4 AUX1 To enable servo output on any of these pins make sure that its not specified as RC input in the GUI 19 6 RC Settings This feature may be useful if you connect RC receiver by single wire and want to decode signal to the separate PWM channels When connecting regular hobby servo to these ports there are two options where to get 5V to supply them o Connect external power for example from 5V BEC to the central pin of any of RC inputs and cut de solder jumper J1 that passes 5V from internal voltage regulator to them WARNING two power sources joined together may burn each other because switching DC converter is used to provide 5V supply for the board and it may conflict with the external power source o Close solder jumper J1 and get 5V from inte
42. o sensor installation Its axes must be parallel with motor axes Pay attention to mechanical links They must be a VERY RIGID and backlash free Sensor provides feedback data for stabilization and even any little freedom or flexibility will cause delays and low frequency resonances This can complicate setting of PID and cause unstable work in real conditions frame vibrations wind etc 2 Calibrating the sensor Gyro is calibrated every time you turn the controller on and it takes about 4 seconds Try to immobilize sensor camera as hard as you can in first seconds after powering on while signal LED is blinking After powering on you have 3 seconds to freeze gimbal before calibration starts If you activated option Skip gyro calibration at startup gyro is not calibrated every time and controller start working immediately after powering up Be careful and recalibrate gyro manually if you will notice something wrong with IMU angles Calibrating Accelerometer You must perform ACC calibration only once but it s recommended to recalibrate it from time to time or when the temperature significantly changes e Simple calibration mode set the sensor horizontally and press CALIB ACC in the GUI or menu button if it s assigned LED will blink for 3 seconds Try not to move sensor during calibration At this step no matter how camera is leveled You are calibrating the sensor not the camera e Advanced mode recommended perform calibra
43. oller and the battery can be damaged The other end of the cable should be inserted into BAT slot Never lock battery terminals it may lead to an explosion NOTE Batteries of 8 to 25V are acceptable If you use a lithium polymer battery LiPo 3S to 5S inclusive are acceptable S stands for the quantity of cells in a battery Each cell can be charged up to 4 2V Consequently a fully charged 3S LiPo is equal to 12 6V and 5S LiPo is equal to 21V A detailed description of a controller connection within a complete stabilization system can be found in the detailed connection scheme GUI installation First you need to download the latest version of the GUI application from our web site 1 Overview http www basecamelectronics com downloads 32bit and unpack it in any folder To start the application you need to have Java Runtime Environment by Oracle in your system http www java com GUI for Windows e Simply run SimpleBGC_GUI exe GUI for MAC OS e Run SimpleBGC_GUI jar ATTENTION GUI uses a virtual COM port Create a lock file to access it 1 Start terminal navigate to Applications Utilities and double click on Terminal 2 Make folder var lock by command sudo mkdir var lock 3 Change permissions by command sudo chmod 777 var lock 4 Allow to run non signed applications in System Preferences gt Security amp Privacy gt General gt Allow Applications downloaded from Anywhere GUI for LINUX e Run run sh
44. on check another variable in the same tab FREQ P It shows the main frequency of vibration in our case it has value 100 Another way is to use spectroscope for example as application for smartphone that takes audio signal from mic but it helps only if vibration is well audible 3 Onthe tab Filters fill out the parameters of the first notch filter for Pitch axis Frequency 100 Width 10 checkbox Enabled is switched on 4 Write the parameters to board The vibration has been significantly reduced and its frequency shifted to 105Hz Change the frequency of the filter to 105 Hz Now the frequency shifted to 95 Hz Set back value of the frequency to 100 and increase the bandwidth to 20 Now vibration on this resonance frequency is completely gone Note you 29 11 Digital Filters need to set the bandwidth as narrow as possible Too broad bandwidth can result in decreased PID efficiency 5 Having closed one resonance continue increase gain of PID Responsible for gain are the parameters P D Second resonance occurs on frequency 140 Hz when we tilt the camera upward Fill in values for second notch filter for PITCH axis to cancel this band too the same way as above In this example we have not needed to set filters for the other axes But it can happen that resonance occurs on more than one axes Then you will need to set filters on both axes possible with the same frequency Low pass filter Magnitude dB and
45. r is greater than 255 the result is limited to 255 e INVERT reverse motor rotation direction It s extremely important to choose the correct motor rotation direction to not damage your gimbal To determine the correct direction set the P I and D values to 0 and the POWER values to 80 or higher if your motors don t produce enough force to hold move the camera Level the camera tray horizontally and click the AUTO button in the Motor configuration settings The gimbal will make small movement to determine correct motor rotation direction Wait for the calibration procedure to complete Then re set your PID values and tune your Power values e NUM POLES Number of motor poles This value needs to be equal to the number of magnets in your motor s bell During the auto calibration process described above this value is automatically detected However this value is sometimes not correctly determined during the auto calibration process and will need to be verified and possibly corrected manually Most brushless gimbal motors are built with 14 poles or magnets and utilize a DLRK winding scheme Count your motor magnets and enter this value if the value is not correct in the GUI 12 4 Basic Settings Main IMU sensor Note Before tuning your controller install the camera into the gimbal firmly and ensure your gimbal s center of gravity is leveled as much as possible Specify your IMU sensor board s orientation an
46. rd menu This menu encapsulates options to Read Write settings duplicating READ WRITE buttons to calibrate sensors to reset parameters to their default values or completely reset board by erasing EEPROM Language menu The GUI starts in the English version of the user interface To change the interface language choose one in the language menu and restart the program View menu You can change a visual theme from the View menu For example when using GUI outdoor better to switch to one of the high contrast themes Further in this manual each tab is described in details At the end of this manual you can find step by step tuning recommendations 11 4 Basic Settings 4 Basic Settings PID and Motor settings e PJ D PID regulation parameters for all axes o P describes the power of disturbance response Higher values means a stronger response reaction to external disturbance Raise this value until the stabilization quality of fast disturbances will be adequate If the P value is too high oscillations of the axis will start to be present These oscillations will get worse if there are vibrations that reach the IMU sensor board If oscillations occur raise the D parameter by 1 or 2 units and then try to raise the P value again o D The D value reduces the reaction speed This value helps to remove low frequency oscillations A D value that is too high can cause high frequency os
47. rge 26 9 Service Settings process e Set defaults for select the battery type to fill the fields above with the default settings for selected type NOTE you can add the voltage sensor to old boards in DIY way by soldering a voltage divider 33k 10k 33k goes to the battery 10k goes to the GND and common point goes to the pin 19 of the 328p MCU if this pin is grounded de solder it first Buzzer On some boards there is an output to the buzzer or buzzer is installed on board that is triggered on some events like notification on errors or confirmation for user actions Events are configured turned ON or OFF in the GUI You can connect an active buzzer only which has an internal sound generator working from 5V currents below 40mA check this Digikey product search for example If you have no buzzer connected there is an option to beep by motors Motors can emit sound only if they are powered and turned on Status LED There are 2 LEDs on board Red led lights when the power for MCU is present Green or blue LED signals show actual state of the system e LED is off pause before calibration to take hands off or to level gimbal e LED blinks slowly Calibration is in action Freeze gimbal during this process e LED blinks fast system error stabilization cannot be performed To check error description connect to GUI e LED blinks fast for short time confirmation for user action e LED is
48. rnal voltage regulator WARNING before connecting servos check their total maximum current rating and compare it with the current rating that board can provide on the 5V line you can find it in the hardware specifications of the board for regular Basecam SimpleBGC 32bit version it is 1A 20 7 Follow Mode Settings 7 Follow Mode Settings There is a special control mode when the camera follows for a tilting of the outer frame but eliminates small frame jerking Several modes of operation are possible e Disabled camera is locked to ground and may be rotated only from RC o Estimate frame angles from motors it use magnetic field for rough estimation of frame tilting Helps to increase the range of the frame angles where the gimbal s operation is stable To proper operation in this mode it is strictly required to calibrate Offset setting see below Like with the Follow mode its not recommended to use this option in flight its dedicated for hand held systems only NOTE This option is ignored if you connect second IMU mounted on the frame because the data from the second IMU is more precise than from motors e Follow Flight Controller camera is controlled from RC together with the mixed signal from an external flight controller FC Almost every FC has servo outputs to drive a gimbal It feeds the information about the frame angles to this outputs in the PWM format that all servos understand SimpleBGC can
49. s 6 RC Settings SimpleBGC board provides very flexible configuration of remote controller It supports up to 5 digital inputs including one that supports most popular serial protocols and 3 analog inputs It can also output RC signal in pass through mode or by Serial API commands Full RC routing diagram can be found in the Appendix C of this manual e RC Input Mapping here you can assign hardware RC inputs to target control channels There are 5 hardware digital inputs provided on the board for RC Radio control connections and 3 analog inputs for connecting joystick Each input you can assign to control any of three channels one for each axes and one command channel If control for an axis is not needed leave the option at no input e RC_ROLL pin mode allows to configure several formats of incoming signal for RC_ROLL pin o Normal incoming signal is in the PWM format that most RC receivers generally outputs o Sum PPM some receivers may have this signal output It is a PWM format modification in which every channel transmits sequentially through one cable In this case you do not need to connect other channels read your receiver s user manual to check if it has SumPPM out o Futaba s bus receivers made by Futaba may transmit data in special digital format up to 16 channels by one wire Connect it to RC_ROLL pin o Spektrum another digital multi channel protocol that is used to communicate Spektrum s satellite mo
50. so a corresponding menu command that can start PID auto tuning without connection to the PC Adaptive control of PID gains This settings group lets to adaptively decrease PID gains when the system becomes unstable due to high PID gains For example system may be tuned very well in certain position but it may become completely unstable in different position Self excitation may cause strong vibration that may negatively affect gimbal construction and may be even dangerous for the camera Also when vibration accidentally comes it may brake whole footage Possible workaround is to use adaptive PID control lt RMS error threshold 0 255 RMS root mean square error state variable effectively shows the level of vibrations When it exceeds this threshold adaptive PID algorithm comes into action Recommended value is 10 15 e Attenuation rate 0 255 the more this value the more PID gains are decreased Choose this value big enough to quiet system quickly Effect of different rates is shown on the picture err threshold 10 rate 50 RMS_ERR 10 35 60 BE 11D 135 16D 185 210 235 260 285 310 335 360 385 410 485 430 485 e Recovery factor 0 10 defines how fast PID gains are recovered back when the system becomes stable Too low value may increase a chance that vibration comes back in short time Too high value may cause worse operation because lowered PID values are kept longer Recommended value is 5 6 17 6 RC Setting
51. tion in simple mode as above Then turn sensor in order that each side of sensor looks up 6 positions at all including base one Fix the sensor in each position press CALIB ACC button in the GUI and wait about 3 4 seconds while LED if flashing The order does not matter but the base position always goes first because the simple calibration cancels a result of advanced calibration You have not to press WRITE button calibration data is written automatically after each step NOTE Precise accelerometer calibration is a very important for horizon holding during dynamic flying or YAW rotation 2 Step by step setup sequence ait ae a 4 Tuning basic settings e Connect the main power supply e Set POWER according to the motor configuration see recommendations above e Auto detect number of poles and motors direction Do not proceed to next step until proper direction will be detected e Run auto tuning for PID controller using default settings first time e Adjust PID controller settings if required To check stabilization quality use peak indicator in the control panel shown by the blue traces and blue numbers Incline the frame by small angles and try to minimize peak values by increasing P and D to its maximum You may use gyro data from Monitoring tab to estimate stabilization quality too Better to tune PID with the Follow Mode turned OFF for all axes Suggested algorythm for manual PID tuning 1
52. trolled from RC or in Follow mode To inverse the control set higher value first and lower value second For example if you want to configure a camera to go from Leveled position to down position set 0 90 or 90 0 to inverse To disable constraints in SPEED mode set MINAANGLE MAX ANGLE 0 e LPF Signal low pass filtering The higher is value the smoother is reaction to the stick commands This filter cuts fast stick movements but adds some delay as a drawback e INIT ANGLE if RC control is not configured for any axis or there is no signal on the source system will keep initial angle specified in this field e RC Sub Trim allows to correct transmitter inaccuracy o ROLL PITCH YAW trim central point trimming Central point here is PWM 1500 It s better to trim it in transmitter But in case of it is not possible when using joystick for example you can use AUTO function in the GUI Just place stick in center and press AUTO button Actual data becomes new center point Press WRITE button to apply settings o Dead band adjusts a dead band around neutral point There s no control while RC signal is inside this range This feature works only in SPEED mode and helps to achieve better control by eliminating jitters of stick around neutral point o Expo curve adjusts the curvature of an exponential function that allows to get precise control from RC in the range of the small values but rough and strong control near endpoi
53. uration is stored to EEPROM and applied even after restart To switch back to the normal position execute this command again e Look down points camera 90 degree down or maximum allowed limit under 90 configured by the MAX ANGLE parameter in the RC tab e Home position returns camera to the initial position that is configured by the N TANGLE parameter in the RC tab WARNING There is a special action if you press menu button 10 times in series full erase of all settings Use this option for recovery only if board is not accessible from the GUI Battery Monitoring On the all 32 bit boards and some 8 bit boards there is a voltage sensor installed to monitor the main battery voltage It is used to apply voltage drop compensation to make PID stay stable during whole battery life cycle and to make low voltage alarms and do the motor cut off when the battery becomes discharged e Calibrate adjusts the rate of internal multiplier to make measured voltage more precise You need a multimeter to measure the real voltage than enter this value in the calibration dialog e Lowvoltage alarm set the threshold to make alarm when the voltage drops below it e Low voltage stop motors set the threshold to stop motors when the voltage drops below it e Compensate voltage drop set this option to automatically increase the POWER parameter which controls the output power goes to the motors when the battery loose voltage due to discha
54. ux A Yes starting from GUI 2 42b7 But check the note above Q My board has no USB connector but has bluetooth Can upgrade firmware A Yes you can upgrade via Bluetooth the same way as USB Integrated module already configured properly to work for upgrade External modules need to be configured to 115200 baud even parity If you have problems with re connection to bluetooth under Mac OS you can try to upgrade in the manual mode using FLASH jumper as described above Q Tam using external bluetooth module and it works fine with the GUI Can upgrade firmware through it A Yes if you configure module to Even parity To work with GUI it may be both Even and No parity setting but to upgrade firmware it should be configured in the Even parity only Look for instruction for your module how to configure it Q Is it required to disconnect battery when upgrading firmware A No there is no matter if board powered from battery or from USB only Q After upgrade my GUI can t connect to the board What to do A Its important that firmware and GUI both have matched versions Changes in the firmware usually require changes in the GUI so old GUI will not work with the fresh firmware You can download matched GUI from our website Link to matched GUI generally provided in the description of the firmware Q I got error during uploading CreateProcess error 14001 A Some required libraries are missed in your syst
55. ysical model of multirotor to compensate accelerations during flight This option works only when external FC is connected and calibrated e Serial port speed changes baud rate used for serial communication Decrease it when using over the air serial adapters that can t work on maximum speed The GUI can auto detect the baud rate configured in the board e PWM Frequency sets the PWM frequency used to drive motors by power stage Two basic modes are available Low Frequency in audible range and High Frequency 22kHz outside audible range Recommended mode is High There is also third option present Ultra high 30kHZz e Motor outputs you can assign hardware motor outs for any of stabilization axes For example you can use second controller for YAW stabilization and set it up this way ROLL disabled PITCH disabled YAW ROLL_OUT and connect a YAW motor to hardware ROLL_OUT e Sensor O Starting from 2 42 this setting is replaced by Low pass filter in the Filters tab o Gyro high sensitivity Increases gyro sensitivity twice Use this option for big sized DSLR cameras in case if your PID settings are close to upper limits but stabilization still not good Increasing gyro sensitivity equals to multiplying P and D values by 2 This option has no noticeable effect for 32bit boards o Frame IMU set the location of the frame IMU See Second IMU sensor section of this manual e External FC Gain Gain value for matc
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