P3P Camera Misalignment

[PhoenixOne]

Hi PheonixOne, looks like your arm took a hit. Good luck replacing it. I would be curious to know if that resolves the pointing left problem. I really think that in my case, having replaced just the top board, the yaw motor sensor and the gimbal top board are mated and calibrated at the factory. I did a swap out with another camera and P3P and put every combination together and the results were still the same. Next step is to attempt to move the magnet on the shaft.

Thanks for the reply. After reading more of your posts.. i realized inwas definitely out of my league trying to answer your question! Your know way more than me. Lol i might be referring to your post again to fix my problem. Yes my arm is def messed up. She starts up amd levels fine bit when I start flying the bend in the arm causes it to drift it seems and when i turn left the camera turns more.left.them gets out of whack and them eventually levels.itself out. Its mostly in yaw related turns. So im hoping its just the the bend and not something as deep as your issues. I appreciate the best wishes in regards to fixing mine. I hope yours is quickly resolved along with your headache.. lol sorry for chiming in when i was clearly out of my league. Seems you guys have blueprints of these birds haha

 

[dllquad]

We're all in this together. The nice thing is all the experience that comes together on this forum. All good, we all learn together.

 

[PhoenixOne]

We're all in this together. The nice thing is all the experience that comes together on this forum. All good, we all learn together.

Your exactly right. Thats why i decided to finally become a member. I stay away from most social platforms because of all the ridiculousness.. but everyone here is so laidback and helpful and shares their knowledge happily. Im glad to have found a place where others share the same passion for uavs/drones as me.. plus.im bored today.. raining.. lol no flying

 

[Deleted member 120647]

After loosening the glue etc. two brass or aluminium washers, with a bore equal to the diameter of the shaft below the sensor, sawn in half and fitted around the shaft under the sensor ring in such a way that their saw cuts are perpendicular to one another might act as a suitable surface against which match stick wedges could act to 'press' the sensor ring off the shaft. One set of wedges either side of the shaft.
The sawn washers might also support the sensor ring more than say the jaws of a puller.
Alternative, if the ring is not a tight fit, a pair of tapered, non magnetic, tweezers might press/wedge the ring off the shaft. I have used such a pair of tweezers for something similar and they were effective

 

[Deleted member 120647]

With regards to "I did a swap out with another camera and P3P and put every combination together and the results were still the same.", do you mean you took, in its entirety, the top board, its housing and the pivot-shaft/spindle/motor from a 'good' drone and fitted them, in their entirety, to your faultly camera/drone and that this did not cure the problem?
I doubt that the actual housing has any effect but a working top board and pivot-shaft/spindle/motor should, I would have thought, fixed the problem if indeed the problem is a mismatched sensor ring and top board.

I had a 'dead camera' (caused by a faulty top board) and performing the above swap fixed the problem, camera alignment was maintained.

If such a swap DID NOT fix the problem and if you still have the other drone to hand could I suggest fitting the entire camera assembly from the good drone to your faulty drone and then checking to see if the problem still exists.

 

[dllquad]

I took the new top board and yaw motor and fitted them to everything else different. Still the same problem. That's why I think the yaw motor and the top board are mated and calibrated. So just to update you on progress....; I got the miniature gear puller. Unfortunately, it broke the magnet in half. Now I have two halves. However, I set one of the halves back on to the shaft and tried it. I was able to adjust the horizontal angle of the camera by positioning the half magnet on the shaft to various positions. So I think once I get the magnet lined up so the camera points forward, I'll stick it in place with a little dab of RTV, hot glue, or even Loctite. Although, I'm going on another adventure and am going to make a hollow magnet from a piece of magnetic sheet like some refrigerator magnets. We'll see how that works. I've got it cut out and ready to go. Just have to stick it on the shaft and try it. So I think the sensor is like a hall effect sensor but works on magnetic polarization rather than just a magnetic presence. More to follow....

 

[Deleted member 120647]

As I understand what you have done, i.e. you have replaced suspected defective assemblies with known good assemblies from a second P3P ( I do not mean the original replacement top board) without fixing the problem, it suggests to me that the true problem is not in the top board and sensor ring combination/assembly but elsewhere.
With that in mind, your being able to correct the yaw orientation by shifting the remains of the sensor ring suggests to me the correction of a symptom but not the cause.

If it were me I would proceed by checking that the entire camera/gimbal assembly from the presumed 2nd P3P works, and works correctly, on that 2nd P3P. If so I would then move the entire camera/ginbal assembly to the defective drone and then see if it works correctly on the defective drone

 

[dllquad]

So to conclude my exploration...; the homemade hollow magnet from a refrigerator magnet caused the camera to do some dancing and abnormal movements. So I went back to the broken magnet and placed both halves back on the yaw motor shaft. With some trial and error I was able to position the magnet to where the camera would point forward. I then used Loctite to keep it in place. I've flow it and it now seems to be just fine. I go back to my original thinking that the magnet on the yaw motor and the top board need to be calibrated. I would assume that it's done in firmware somewhere in the gimbal top board. Unfortunately, we don't have access to those handles. So there are my conclusions. Thanks to all that have contributed. What a great forum!

 

[csparks]

Sorry I'm late getting here, I crashed and almost burned mine up. Burned the main ribbon cable, gimbal main board and the ribbon cable on the yaw motor. After buying parts from different places I have it mostly working. I had a hard time trying to align the magnetic ring. I've had a 2nd new yaw motor for weeks but just now had time to put it on. I pried it off with 2 fingernails and a thumbnail LOL. Anyway after 7 attempts I have it almost there but now it is doing a tiny chicken dance. I believe I bought the motor off e bay for about $16, I'll look and see if I can verify where I bought it.

 

[dllquad]

If you got that magnet off you did much better than me. I took me a number of attempts to where the camera would point forward. Trial and error. Good luck getting it fixed. It sound like you are almost there.