Nearly there!
The replacement IMU arrived the other day. I ordered it from Little Bird Electronics – great for all these little projects. So long as the IMU is a MPU6050 with I2C output it seems to work fine. I’ve connected it up to the gimbal, and instantly the readings are looking much better. ‘ve now reverted to the default version of the _048 code for Martinez.
I’ve also set the gimbal settings back to default, then changed my motor poles to 15. The default settings are a great base to work from, and the response seems fine.
The shock absorbing plugs that come with the Martinez board are waaay too soft and are actually inducing some shake into the camera, so I have squashed these flat by putting a couple of bolts through the plate. They now act as solid rubber shock absorbers.
Rather than use header pins on the IMU, I’ve soldered a 5 pin cable directly to the pin holes that I need, then plugged this into the board. The cable wire is very stiff and the tilt motor has trouble in overcoming the resistance of bending the wire, so I may seek a more lightweight wire or wireless option.
The frame was built using some PVC pipe and T/L fittings, and everything sits bolted to a piece of 5mm plywood. Battery is secured with velcro and is from my RC helicopter, 3s 2200mah.
Here’s a video of the device in action: