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Allsteady 6 and Gimbal Modes
  • melf31melf31

    Hey everyone, thanks in advance for your answers. I'm currently in the market for a 3 axis gimbal and the AllSteady 6 has come up as a potential good option for me. I'm also eagerly awaiting the Ronin M but once you've added the joystick its going to come in about $800 over what I can get the Allsteady 6 for.

    There aren't many review (or any really) for the all steady but from what I can tell it seems pretty limited in terms of having access to different modes. There are 5 modes which are pre-programmed to:

    User Setting 1: Lighter configurations with full follow. (e.g. Panasonic GH4 and the Sony A7S/A6000) User Setting 2: Medium configurations with full follow. (e.g. Canon 5D Mark ii/iii camera with up to 24-70mm & 24-105mm lenses) User Setting 3: Heavier configurations with full follow. (e.g. Canon 5D Mark ii/iii camera with up to 70-200mm & Red Scarlet/Epic/Dragon which requires optional extension brackets or cage upgrades.) User Setting 4: Lighter configurations with disabled joystick under multirotor or with optional wireless joystick to work on top of tripods or under crane. User Setting 5: Medium configurations with disabled joystick under multirotor or with optional wireless joystick to work on top of tripods or under crane.

    Their idea being that once you receive the gimbal you'll never have to adjust any PID settings since they have presets that should have you covered. However what this means in reality is that you only really have 2 modes to use - "full follow" and "Wireless joystick". Your other 3 modes are taken up with presets for cameras you may or may not use. And if you're operating a heavier camera then its just one mode!

    I called Turbo Ace about this and they said they would pre-program any mode(s) you needed for your order, but that would take up one of the 5 slots. That would be fine if you knew what camera you'd be flying for your duration of your ownership of the gimbal but if, say 6 months down the line, you change cameras and you go up or down a weight bracket you'd have to send the gimbal back to Turbo Ace for them to re-program the gimbal. They'd charge for this a rate of something like $150 per hour.

    Now I've never owned or operated a gimbal before but it seems a bit strange to me to be kinda locked in to what ever you have when you order the gimbal, unless you're willing to pay up. It would be great to know from other Gimbal owners if the "full follow" mode is enough. The gimbal comes with a thumb joystick btw.

    Are any AllSteady 6 owners who can give some feedback on their experience so far?

    Thanks

  • 11 Replies sorted by
  • ManicdManicd

    They appear to use a their own slightly modified controller version of the SBGC 32bit controller also known as alexmos. It's fully programmable but if you change any settings you appearently void turboaces 1 year warranty. Turboace even links to alexmos/simplebgc software download. Regardless of this there have been a few complaints in another thread about turboace.

    Edit: Nevermind, you only void the warranty if you upgrade the firmware. You can still change any setting/modes through the simplebgc software GUI.

  • melf31melf31

    When I spoke to them the guy said that it would be a bad idea to change any settings as they're already fine tuned (and it would be easy to screw them up). Therefore you would need to send the gimbal back to them and have them reprogram it for you. Which would be an extra charge.

  • ManicdManicd

    The software does have a learning curve and you could screw some things up if you just go and start changing things. Plenty of people have given up/quit trying to use the simpleBGC/alexmos controller. But there have been plenty of people that have been successful with it. You just have to take the time to learn the software. You might learn most of it in a day or two or it could take 4 weeks trying to understand it. Depends on your ability. Although actual tuning a new camera setup from scratch could take forever the first time around but it sounds like you don't need to do that.

    Modifying one of their preset modes to simply change the follow/joystick modes should be able to do in a day or two.

    The software has the ability to save profiles to your computer before you change anything. I don't see why turboace wouldn't offer the ability to just email you any profiles you want or offer a list for downloading. I believe other companies do this for their models.

    From what I gather turboace has poor/slow support. It really depends on how much time you have and how self-sufficient you are. Otherwise their model design/quality looks good enough for the price. But if you are willing to learn the software then that basically opens the door to any quality gimbal you would want.

  • B3GuyB3Guy

    See the DIY gimbal thread for my experiences dealing with Turbo Ace. I'm not saying mine is the only opinion you should consider, but their customer service was more akin to customer disservice in my case. Their gimbals are probably ok, if you're willing to learn how to tune the gimbal yourself and maintain it as you would a DIY gimbal.

  • melf31melf31

    Thanks for the input guys! RE customer service the other gimbal I'm thinking of is the DJI Ronin M. And DJI have a pretty bad rep as well! I'm going to call TA again and ask weather there is any option for downloading alternative profiles.

  • B3GuyB3Guy

    I'm looking currently at the Letus. Its design is different and has several advantages that I feel might sway me into spending the extra money.

  • melf31melf31

    I just had a good conversation with one of the guys at TA which helped a lot with my concerns. Their aim is to basically give you a gimbal that works out of the box without you having to tune any software settings. Thats why modes 1-3 give you follow mode for light, medium and heavy cameras, and modes 4 and 5 are for remote operation with light and medium cameras. This apparently was based on user feedback of what people wanted the most - a ready to go system that worked with a variety of cameras. BTW Light cameras are considered anything below 3.5lbs (they recommend at least 2-2.5 lbs to work best), medium is 3.5- 5 lbs and heavy is 5-8 lbs.

    For me I explained that I would rather have more functionality (lock modes) but I wouldn't want to have to have to send the gimbal back to be retuned (which would cost $$) and he said that it would be possible to tune it myself if I were willing to learn the software, its just that they've had many calls from customers not getting it right when they've tried to do this themselves so the gimbal is designed so that people don't get themselves into that situation. They also keep your original settings on file and can email those back to you at any time.

    His suggestion for me was to have follow and lock-with-panning modes (the two most used apparently) for light and medium cameras over modes 1-4 and then use mode 5 for what ever else I felt like.

    If I want to change this in the future I can either learn the software (with my original settings backed up) or send it back to them for proper tuning (at a cost). At Manicd says above it takes time to learn the software and it might just be more beneficial to pay up.

    Regarding support - I've never owned anything from TA. But I have called a couple of times now and spoken to someone straight away. And they've been very forthcoming with information.

  • B3GuyB3Guy

    Their actual support staff are great, but the rest was a train wreck. I won't rehash what I posted already elsewhere but it was bad. At the best, there's some severe disorganization and my gimbal got lost in the shuffle. At worst, it took almost two months for them to "repair" it.

  • StammisStammis

    Melf31 hi! Check this and tomas anton review of moza

    http://www.gudsen.com/moza-pro.html#Powerful

    I got mine allsteady6. Not practical to set up. You must send back it and pay 100$ for using and preprogram the modes on joystick!!i live in Greece for the moment... I use different cameras. How do they think...that we send back and forth for different cameras..

    Its not a finished product. And you must buy extras to mount the red epic and not so easy to set up.

    Custome service.... Just go to kickstarter and search the allsteady. B3guy knows what he talks about. Very very disappointed. A lot of money waste, customs fee, time, emails phonecalls and ..time again. No money can give it back. I try to sell it. Again time ,stress and start from the begining.. Anyway

    Dont make same mistake Moza Dji ronin m For now

    Thanks

  • melf31melf31

    I really feel like a dodged a bullet with this! I was actually going to take the place of a kickstarter who needed the cash. His place was gonna cost me $1400 and I was about to take over the order. This was at about 11pm one night the other week. Had my conformation email written and everything ready but just decided to wait until the morning. Woke up to the DJI Ronin M price announcement. Needless to say that was decision made! Now reading through the kickstarter comments I can't hep but feel so sorry for anyone who backed the project. Looks like their quality control ain't great either.

  • MikeLinnMikeLinn

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