Beholder Lite - $175 Brushless Gimbal Build - Part 2

In the last post we finished building the hardware of the Beholder Lite Brushless gimbal.  it is time to wire it up and understand how to install it on the Phantom.

Join me as we finish the build,  today Im plugging the motors in and powering the gimbal up,  then Im cracking open a Phantom to show you where to get power and where to plug the gimbal pitch cable.  As always Im talking way too much, so make a cup of coffee, get comfortable, grab a screw-driver and your gimbal, then we can start on the install.

QUICK LINK - Beholder Lite for the Phantom and 300 series quads BUILD PART ONE

 

My review version of the Beholder Lite gimbals did not ship with pitch operation enabled, but FlyKAM made a cool post with how to enable pitch operation.. check the post here on RCgroups.com
NOTE - the correct channel for the pitch signal out of the NAZA is F2.  

LOST YOUR FIRMWARE SETTINGS.?
Two ways of dealing with that.. option 1. click the "set default" option in the firmware setup on the computer. or simply type in the settings in FlyKAM's screen shot here. check the post here on RCgroups.com 

The two important points inside the Phantom. first to the left the AUX power cable, RED is positive. connect that to the RED cable on the JST plug.   Second and more importantly maybe, to the right is the NAZA box itself.  the two plugs we are interested in is F1 and F2. which is roll and pitch.  I used servo extention cables which I attached to the outside of the shell for easy access.

My phantom with the TWO gimbal control axis mounted on the outside of the Phantom so it is easy to plug in / out different gimbals.

 

With the external F1 and F2 plugs, its easy to connect the gimbal to the NAZA controlled Phantom.

Flying video review.?
For what its worth.. the last two weeks I have been absolutely blown away with some of the great videos people have been shooting with this gimbal..   so I have decided not to do a flight-evaluation, it is already proven beyond any doubt that this gimbal flies well,  some users find some lateral vibrations getting through and have dampened them by stuffing the dampers with earplugs or by applying a ziptie loosely / not too tight / to some of the dampers, try a few, like two, first.

PHANTOM on the BEACH with the Beholder Lite by FlyKAM  
Click through to see FlyKAM Video's channel on YouTube  -  or coment on the video on RCgroups

FlyKAM is ripping and shaking around the Phantom here, that is why you sometimes see the arms popping into the video.  clearly if you were shooting video for a indie movie, you would be shooting in long smooth paths and none of the issues seen here would ever remotely affect your video.  

Link to the official Beholder Lite manual.

Here are some links to Beholder Lite videos flown on Phantoms.

Mounted on a ADS400Q by Scott in Arizona  GREAT VIDEO

Boosted's monster climb test.. yes it shakes at top.. but hey what ya expect when climbing that hard.

HDflyer.com put up a teaser for a longer test video.. more great stuff. 

 

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Components

Beholder Lite - $175 Brushless Gimbal Build

Comments

[Bo Lorentzen]

@Heath, I don't have a link here, in the end I have had pretty poor results with that GoPro Backpack. I do not recommend it.

[Heath]

Is there a link where i could buy the fpv transmitter bacpac from?

[Bo Lorentzen]

@ED
VTX is video transmitter the downlink for the video.. the industry standard right now is immersionRC 600mw
ESC is electronic speed controller, that is the gizmo that regulate the power to the motor. there is a fat red and black cable going to it, tap into that power.
JST is a little red plug standard for 2 wire plugs, they are made to only attach one way to avoid accidents. and is also used on small 1 and 2 cell batteries. good for hooking up power to things like gimbals.

The power consumption is very very little (compared to the power to keep the quad in the air) kinda like the power a microphone sip from a camcorder.
To get a good idea of the put-together of a quad, check out my longish budget FPV build video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPDjXhPvF7U

[Ed Gazel]

Bo Thanks I will try again and have my friend who knows electronics helping. I am such a novice at this. I do videography and editing for a living and am not much of a tech. I am not sure what the abbreviations stand for... VTX, ESC,and JST. I have seen that you attached the power connection internally to wiring within the Phantom and I assume that is what you are suggesting. How much power is required for the gimbal? I saw you tested yours using a battery...what is the model and specs? Thanks for spoon feeding a babe in the woods on this. Love the videos that you have taken where you live in Cali. I live in the Adirondacks of New York State and want to show it's beauty.
Regards, Ed

[Bo Lorentzen]

@Ed, I don't actually have a Phantom2, but I have "build" a couple of video rigs based on Phantom2 for other shooters. I installed a power tap for the VTX and the gimbal, it was not "perfectly clean" but quite easy, I very carefully removed a bit of isolation from the wires to one of the ESC's then soldered a JST pigtail to the exposed wire and then wrapped it again to make sure it is perfectly isolated. be INCREDIBLE gentle as you do not want to damage the wires, just plug in and get a little juice. The reason for the backwards approach was, I did not want to mess with the solder on the distribution board.
hope this helps.

[Ed Gazel]

Hi Bo, I love your video for the Beholder. I have the Phantom 2 and it is different than what you are using. I don't know if there is a lot of difference however after following the manual, following video how to's including your own I have failed to have the gimbal function properly. One thing I am unsure of is the power connection. I have a friend assisting me and he had us connect the power source from the bundle of wires I see is reserved for the ios and transmitter for video. The other bundle of wires is for the Zen Muse. When the gimbal is powered up the roll function causes the gimbal to roll up and then go up and down unceasingly. Any ideas? Where do I go to get help? Ed Gazel USA

[Michael]

Is there something on how to mount it on the x350?

[Bo Lorentzen]

WOW. Kevin, THAT is a serious piece of research, I would NEVER have guessed that was the case, Im going to copy-paste your explanation up to the body of the post so others easily can find that.. WOW.. thank you for sharing.

Bo

[Kevin]

I finally got my gimbal control to work... I had to update my radio. I went to the dji website and downloaded the radio assistant software. It is under the Phantom 2 in the downloads section. I then took my radio apart, hooked it up to the computer via the USB on the board, and updated the firmware for my radio. I have the new radio used for the newer phantoms. It has the 2 antennas on the quadcopter and an extra metal box on the radio PC board. It says Phantom II 2.4ghz on the PC board. After updating the firmware of the radio I was able to now turn the gimbal control on and have it control the x1 channel. Man if only DJI would post that to the website in the notes... I have had a tough time getting the gimbal set up but at least I can control it. If anyone has some numbers for a good set up for the gimbal it would be nice to post.
Kevin

[Derek]

After much effort of updating my Phantom TX, enabling Gimbal in Naza, my tilt still didn't work for my Beholder Lite.
I switched the pins in the gimbal board, and then I could control roll.
Is there a way to switch roll and pitch in the Gimbal tool software so that I can adjust tilt?

Thanks!!

[Kevin]

Bo my first problem is that when I turn on the gimbal control in the Naza software I cannot see any response from moving the top potentiometer in the software. I'm going to try to download the driver again and see if that helps? Now I seem to have a vibration in the gimbal when powered up.

As a side note I have a phantom bought in November and the throttle has the spring installed to self center. There is no extra power wires on the inside, the red and grey. It sounds like Sean has the same one. I'm curious to see what he found out. The split wire hook up he is talking about is for pitch and roll. Beholder has a cable now that has three wires coming out of one plug, two wires go to a plug and one goes to another. You plug the two wires in the F2 port , black on top for pitch and the single plug goes into F1 bottom for roll. If you can control roll? I am using the stock dji controller so I cannot control roll therefore I did not hook that wire up. I'm wondering if the update for the Naza has anything to do with my problems? When I hooked it up it wanted me to update to the most recent 4.02.

I haven't messed with my setup for a day or so as I am frustrated and needed some time to research and think about it. It's driving me mad.
Kevin

[Bo Lorentzen]

Kevin, sounds like you done everything right, just for fun, try plugging the cable into 8 instead

[Kevin]

Hello- I have the gimbal mounted and hooked up correctly. My problem is that I cannot get the 7th channel on my stock dji controler to work. I have gone into the Naza software and turned the gimbal control on but there is no response from the x1 channel... Any help?
Kevin

[Bo Lorentzen]

Sean.. WOW... I did not have issues there. but seems you have some great info here. are you putting up a description of this, I will be happy to put a link at top of the post for the hook-up info you just explained. (gotta say Im still a bit puzzled with the split port hook up..? but I take your word for the setup)

I personally did not seem to have much of a vibration issue with the phantom, but I do suggest balancing the motors and props, that do wonders by reducing the energy the dampers have to deal with.

[SeanLynes15]

Dude...

I spent hours trying to find out if the servo plug is F1 or F2 (contradictory in the build videos and text above) only to find out that I needed to use the weird cable they provided with the Beholder Lite gimbal. DON"T use a normal connector as you show. But instead the single wire plug goes into F1 and the double wire connector into F2. Thank god I found an obscure reference to something similar because the no videos, manual, or info above shows how to hook up the pitch control.

Note: The Phantoms are now coming with the tilt control installed, spring on the throttle, and self-tightening props. That was all well and good, but I spent two days trying to get help because my radio wouldn't talk to the Phantom. Well...they are no longer PPM. The "Receiver Type" must be set to "D-Bus" now or you'll have no control.

Wow...kit or no kit...sure seems like a DIY project. But can't wait to do some test flights tonight with the Beholder Lite. My guess is that I'll be fiddling with the ear plugs to get rid of vibration with the way things have gone so far LOL

Sean.

[Reyton]

Dear chuck,
I have the exact same problem also with my beholder lite gimbal manual pitch not working, and I also connected it up the same as you. please post any findings you have that will correct this problem.

Thanks a bunch bro and Aloha from Hawaii

[Chuck Moloney]

One step ahead of you, waiting for reply... Thank you for your help though, and great videos!
I will let you know what I find out... I have several feelers out right now.
Chuck

[Bo Lorentzen]

You are giving me too much credit, unfortunately Im the guys who get hopelessly lost in this kinda menus, I had to struggle with mine and am not entirely sure how I did it. (the software settings) ;-) shoot a email to James [email protected] he is really good with these things.

[Chuck Moloney]

I have saved them, save then save to flash, many times...It is really weird. I notice you said that the tilt was not enabled for you when you installed, but besides slider controls I do not see a "Enable Tilt" function in the software...

Am I missing that?

Thank you for the fast reply too!

[Bo Lorentzen]

Hey Chuck, It sounds like you have not saved the setting to the beholder, try connecting it to the computer again and make sure the settings is saved.. with that in place it should work.

[Chuck Moloney]

I have the Beholder Lite attached to my Phantom and everything works perfect, except the manual tilt. Everything is setup properly on the Naza and I can see the movement in the Naza assistant, the wires are hooked to F2 ground top, pitch bottom but the gimbal does not move.

Anyone have this problem? I made all adjustments in the Beholder software as described in the above post, but still no movement.

[Bo Lorentzen]

@Alan - thats pretty easy. in the NAZA assistant, turn on Gimbal and set gains to ZERO. then only your stick input will be transmitted to the servo port. Have fun.

[Flyguy58]

I need to know how to set up my beholder gimbal pitch in the DJI phantom in the naza assist software. I know how to connect the wires and turn on the gimbal, but do I need to update firmware and then what else need to be set? Gain, x1 setting. It works great right now, don't want to mess it up, just want a nice tilt from the gimbal. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Like your vids.

Alan

[Flyguy58]

Mounted my beholder lite gimbal on my phantom, made a special top mount plate out of carbon fiber flat stock to mount my Gopro 2. Turned it on and it works flawless. I will be setting up the tilt in the near future, now just enjoying the view and vids with my fat shark predator FPV.

[Bo Lorentzen]

Steve, I would suggest making a simple isolation box between the quad and the standard replayXD mount.. that will give you clean video with balanced props/ motors - the x350 is remarkable calm compared to the vibrations going on in the phantom