UPDATE: I figured it out myself while reading through my text and the doco, and corrections included below
Pixfalcon, X quadcopter, Arducopter 3.5.4
Servo for camera tilt on main servo out 6 (no other servos or camera controls used)
MNT_DEFLT_MODE 1 this was the mistake, see more below
MNT_STAB_TILT 1
MNT_TYPE 1
SERVO6_FUNCTION 7
Wish:
- gimbal tilt is stabilised by the Pixfalcon on main servo output channel 6, no RC input required
- avoid using RC6 for gimbal control, currently RC5 and RC6 channels are mixed in the transmitter for Flight Modes, I don’t have any spare channels at this stage
Problem:
- Tilt servo works OK manually when I set SERVO6_FUNCTION to 1 (RC pass-through) or 56 (RCIN6) but is not stabilised
- Setting SERVO6_FUNCTION to 7 (gimbal tilt) produces no effect what-so-ever, even if I also set MNT_RC_IN_TILT to 6 - I checked in logs too in case the servo wasn’t responding to input
Help please, I’m hoping I’m just missing some parameter…
- Yes, MNT2_DEFLT_MODE needs to be 3 RC Targeting and everything now works as expected. I also have MNT_RC_IN_TILT disabled so RC6 wont interfer
Is it even possible to have gimbal servos on main servo outputs, since the Pixfalcon doesn’t have AUX outputs?
- Yes, even a standard old servo works. As per the doco, critical functions should probably use a digital or high-reliability servo of some description
If gimbal stabilisation is not possible without dedicated RC channels, where is the limitation? (software or hardware?)
- The limitation was human error in this case, no Pixfalcon or Arducopter faults at all
Leaving all this here as a reference for others, might see if I can update the documentation at some point to better explain the MNT_DEFLT_MODE differences.