CGO3pro gimbal controls not working

[pete c]

The green light is status of the camera. Not the status of the gimbal. At least not under the normal start-up circumstances. First caution is don't mess with updates anymore for now. It's probably not a firmware issue, and the only possibility would be to make things worse. We can come back to firmware later if other troubleshooting doesn't help.

Does the gimbal stabilize itself (points itself forward and level)?
Do you hear any beep codes coming from the camera?

Do you know how to remove the gimbal enclosure to check some stuff if we need to?
It involves two of the screws in step 3, then Step 4 and step 5 of this article:

CGo3+ Slip Ring Replacement.pdf

Shared with Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Hi. Yes, it does stabilize and point straight ahead I will have to check if it makes a noise I don't remember if it did. yes, I can do that . cool, I will check that out thank you.

 

[h-elsner]

I have a working cam and one that refuses to tilt or spin. Connections from drone till the gimbal board are OK. I'm still on to investigate that but I think the UART pin from the gimbal processor is burned. There no other thing in between except a 1k resistor, also measured as OK.

During this I followed the UART connections from drone to camera. A part taken from @WTFDproject ...



br HE

 

[WTFDproject]

I have a working cam and one that refuses to tilt or spin. Connections from drone till the gimbal board are OK. I'm still on to investigate that but I think the UART pin from the gimbal processor is burned. There no other thing in between except a 1k resistor, also measured as OK.

During this I followed the UART connections from drone to camera. A part taken from @WTFDproject ...

I don't know much about how UART works or even all the things it does on the CGo3+. I had assumed the connections to the Wi-Fi board were more about firmware updates and ID than gimbal control. This drawing is clumsy but is something I have used to check the path I thought was gimbal control.

 

[Vaklin]

A small eradication of illiteracy about CGO3+ will be welcome for all members.

Let us start with the simple. UART. Can be listened to with any terminal program. 57600-8N1 if I didn't miss something. Both UARTs use the same speed and the same protocol. Any logic device has its number. The main uplink is via ZigBee, redundancy is via 5G. Of course, all redundant information goes to the FC.

 

[Vaklin]

This is valid only for H Plus. H480 works primarily via ZigBee. When this link is lost, it uses the same data but obtained via the camera. This situation is visible in the logs. If no data at all, it tries to perform RTH. Where the Home is, is dependent on the precision of the ST16 GPS fix. Doesn't matter if the ST16 sends its position all the time, home, as I remembered, is where the copter was armed.

 

[Vaklin]

On the other side, the H Plus tries to use primarily the WiFi link for all purposes. So it looks for fresh data periodically. H520 has the option to use without any camera.

 

[Vaklin]

@WTFDproject add your message back, please. Now looks like I have posted nonsense.

 

[WTFDproject]

@WTFDproject add your message back, please. Now looks like I have posted nonsense.

@Vaklin's posts are not nonsense. They are a response to a post I had made stating observations about redundant flight control as it applies to HPlus and asking for comments. Then I realized the thread was about Typhoon H and CGo3+ and deleted my post.
The problem is @Vaklin was already making his replies when I deleted the post. Again, his posts are not nonsense. They are a result of my error and some bad timing.

 

[Vaklin]

@WTFDproject add your message back, please. Now looks like I have posted nonsense.

Now is clear enough where my opinion about control links comes from. It is true and almost near to the discussion in the thread.

 

[h-elsner]

My first impression was that the serial connections goes through from flight controller directly to camera. But this is not true. The UART connection between FC - Gimbal - camera is used for different purposes.
For example, the sensor data in the flight logs will only be filled when camera is connected. That means the sensor data will be sent from FC over UART to gimbal, from gimbal to camera and from camera via WiFi to ST16.
Automated flight modes like POI, Ornit and so on are only possible when connection to gimbal is established via UART.
FW versions will be transmitted via WiFi to ST16. When camera is not mounted, no FW version is shown. But if camera is mounted and serial connection is broken then camera FW will be visible but for the other FW versions a timeout message is seen. This is the case where all is working (video, camera control) but not tilt or pan.

Here are my thought about the information flow and different connections.

br HE

 

[WTFDproject]

.........r pan.

Here are my thought about the information flow and different connections.
View attachment 29340
br HE

This is a great piece of work. I had noticed the FW versions were not present when the camera is not mounted on the C23 /E90 but did not realize it was the same way on CG03+. I had not noticed the sensor data missing at all. This is a very good organization of thought.

 

[h-elsner]

When wiring is OK and the camera sets up WiFi access point but still not tilt or pan then a downgrade of the gimbal FW may help. After a lot of tries and tests a found a procedure that brought me back my camera to life. In short:
- downgrade gimbal FW to V1.22 ... pan & tilt will work (connection between FC and gibal back to work), but connection between cam and gimbal is still broken
- upgrade camera FW ... get back connection between camera and gimbal
- upgrade all to get back gimbal FW to V1.25 ... get back all latest FW versions including gimbal.
After that all was working with my camera.
I'm on to write a detailed procedure tomorrow (with a lot of pictures ). Please be patient because here is then min before midnight.

br HE

 

[h-elsner]

I could not downgrade gimbal FW for a camera that has only one UART broken. FW list of this one looks like this:

For those the procedure did work:

Attached a first try to describe the procedure.

br HE