Can you recall or re-test in which modes (SERIALx_PROTOCOL) have you tested your gimbal and whether it worked?
I need more info to decide whether I have a defective piece of the gimbal, missing some setting or if the gimbal support in AP is generally not working… Thanks!
Ok, I dug out the heli with the gimbal on in. I set this up on 4.5.7 so neither caddx or xf had support at the time. It looks like I set mine up as an sbus servo out SERIALx_PROTOCOL 15 going to the 5 pin from VCC for sbus control. I never got FC control of the gimbal working right just rc passthrough but that was all I was going for at the time.
I think this should work though to set it up as a servo gimbal using the sbus servo out. Its not ideal for a few reasons like the roll overide drift issue xf talks about. The advantage is that you can use the built in to the gimbal modes instead of just direct control through the FC.
Ill try to switch this over to mavlink or one of the other protocols that caddx and xf have in their directions and see if I get get it to work with ardu.
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I have now successfully set the C20Dv up on ardu 4.6.2 with mavlink as per the instruction in the xf manual. This responds as servo control just like it did on sbus and needs some limits set to it.
Note this is not as per the ardupilot docs for making a caddx of xf gimbal. I will try that next. It works with out jitters on mavlink though.
Side note, xf gimbal option appears to be in 4.6.2 as well.
I assume the difference between caddx mount type and xf mount type has something to do with xf private protocol but dont really know.
Note, this is still setting the uart to talk directly to the gimbal and does not set it as a gimbal so ardupilot is un aware that it is a gimbal.
Test the exact same configuration for the GM3 and works as expected. As in just plugged in the GM3 instead of the C20Dv.
|SERIAL4_BAUD|115|
|SERIAL4_OPTIONS|1024|
|SERIAL4_PROTOCOL|2|
As per XF manual here
& here
Note: both gimbals where tested here on gimbal firmware version 3.4
@rptacek This might be a good option to at least test the gimbal and figure out if your gimbal works or not. You will see when you do it that its just straight channel passthrough to the gimbal for what ever the FC receives so for testing you could even use control sticks.
Thanks for testing! Yes, this way of controlling the gimbal works for me, just it’s not what I need.It’s jumpy (is is for you too?) and you can’t set endpoints and slewrate in each plane. I mentioned it already in this post.
Have you set SR1_RC_CHAN to 0Hz according the manual? I guess maybe not, otherwise it wouldn’t probably work.
What I’m interesting is to make it working in the “gimbal” mode (SERIAL2_PROTOCOL =8) where I expect it will better suits my needs.
Both gimbals also work in caddx type as per CADDX Gimbals — Copter documentation
Though in that mode I dont seem to have my mnt controls setup and working properly as it only response to RC control or locked to some random direction.
In this mode if I connect to the gimbals with the xf tool I no longer see the channel passthrough and can not use the built in gimbal modes so I am sure it is working as an ardupilot mnt.
It was not jumpy at all for me using mavlink or sbus. I guess thats what I mean by working is usable and smooth. I did miss that you had already tested this. I also didnt have to change any of my SR4_ perams. Presumably those where just default.
However I also got it to work set as a gimbal. When in the gimbal configurator it does not show the rc channels moving at all when its set to a gimbal and mount time caddx.
I still have yet to update either of my gimbals to 3.8 but its on the list for tomorrow.
I have attached my params incase that helps. The gimbal is on SERIAL4.
08Oct2025 AdruCopter4.6.2 XF Caddx gimbals working as mnt.param (29.8 KB)
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@rptacek Playing around with the gimbal more today. I have updated mine to gimbal firmware 3.8 now too. I noticed that in caddx mnt protocol if I set the mode cannel to 1 as per the directions the gimbal is set to its mode 3 so you will want to make sure mode 3 in the gimbal configurator is a mode you want to use. I set mine to the FPV mode.
Tested with my friend on his gimbal and corrected few things, now mostly working with some limitations:
With AP 3.6.2 and gimbal V3.8 it now works in caddx gimbal mode ((SERIAL4_PROTOCOL 8, MNT1_TYPE 13).
Limitation is, that mode is set only to M2 and can’t be changed by RCx_OPTION 163 (Mount Lock).
Changing this channel has some effect to the YAW axis but I don’t undestand its exact logic.
Also MNT1_RC_RATE is not what I hoped (limiting speed of the response for RC control) but it is for rate (button like) control.
-I test compiled AP 4.7dev with XT gimbal enabled and set MNT1_TYPE 14 but in XF robot mode my gimbal wasn’t working. Maybe this code is not yet completed?
-I tested again to control gimbal in Mavlink mode (SERIAL4_PROTOCOL 2) and this need me to set SR1_RC_CHAN >0, otherwise it didn’t work. Fortunately I don’t need it anymore, a “gimbal” mode is definitely better for me.
On the oscilloscope I can see that gimbal is once/second sending some data packet to FC (supposed RC_CHAN packet rate request) but with SR1_RC_CHAN 0 FC doesn’t start sending it anyway.
@spova Regarding SRx params please note that SR4 is not dedicated for Serial4 - it’s a bit more complicated.
SR1 is for Serialx set to the Mavlink protocol with the lowest nuber. (can be e.g. Serial 2 or 4…) Look at the description to avoid confusion.
I started another thread about how the modes work on the caddx/xf gimbals when I was testing this and found the same thing you did.
What I did was just set the mount mode to the FPV mode on the gimbal its self and ignored the rate setting in ardupilot.
I also struggled with how the gimbal lock mode works and had it only intermittently work with things like pointing the camera to a GPS target. I cant figure out how to change the earth reference that the gimbal wants to point to in “lock mode” but it seems like there are much more useful ways for that to work.
I think the XF mode (MNT1_TYPE 14) is for XFs larger gimbals that are similar to the siyi ones not the smaller ones they make for them selves and caddx but not totally sure.
Thanks for the tip on the SRx settings. Ill look in to it more as that might be causing a different issue unrelated to gimbals that iv been trying to figure out.