3D Robotics X8 Tarot gimbal User Manual

QUAD/Y6/X8 TAROT GIMBAL

Tarot brushless gimbal with
QUAD/Y6/X8 mounting plate

Three spacers

Three mounting screws

1 Attach camera

Your Tarot gimbal is compatible with a GoPro HERO3, available from store.3dr.com.

Important note: Make sure that the WiFi on your GoPro is

!

turned OFF at all times when in use with your aircraft.

Remove the two screws securing the blue face plate.

1

Remove the plate, and loosen the set screw.

loosen

remove

Slide camera into housing with the lens nearest

2

the top-right corner.

remove

face plate

Place the blue face plate over the camera, and secure

3

from the back with the two original screws.

Add face plate.

2 Connect

tighten

Locate the black and white two-wire cables protruding from the bottom of your copter and
from the top of the gimbal. Connect the cables together by attaching the black connectors.

3 Power

Connect the gimbal power cable with the red, JST connector to the matching red,
JST connector on the copter.

4 Mount

To mount the gimbal to your copter, add a mounting screw from below the gimbal to each of the
three holes in the gimbal interface plate indicated below. Add a spacer to each screw above the
gimbal plate, and attach the screws to the three holes in the lower body plate indicated below.
The spacers should be between the gimbal interface plate and the lower body plate.

lower body plate

gimbal interface
plate

connect to

gimbal interface plate

Y6 lower body plate

Quad/X8 lower body plate

Operating the gimbal

Start your flight by following the preflight steps described in your copter’s
manual and checklist.

Upon powering your copter, the gimbal will display a solid yellow light while
it is starting and calibrating. Do not touch the gimbal while it is starting up.
When the gimbal displays a blinking blue light, it is ready to fly.

If the gimbal is not connected to the autopilot, it will perform automatic
stabilization without enabled transmitter control, indicated by a solid blue
light.

Calibrating, do not touch gimbal

Ready, connected to autopilot

Ready, not connected to autopilot

If you connected the gimbal to Pixhawk, use the knob shown below
on the RC transmitter to control the tilt of the camera in flight.

Spektrum FlySky

Rotate counterclockwise to tilt the camera up.

Rotate clockwise to tilt the camera down.

Configuring gimbal control for non-3DR RC systems

To calibrate a non-3DR transmitter to control the Tarot gimbal, you
will need to enable channel six for a knob on your transmitter during
RC calibration in the mission planner application. Once channel six is
enabled, the preconfigured Pixhawk settings will automatically
assign gimbal control to the selected control knob on the transmitter.

If you are using a PPM encoder to connect to Pixhawk, you will need
to connect channel six from your RC receiver to the encoder before
calibration.

Configuring the gimbal

Tarot gimbals from 3DR arrive preconfigured and ready to
fly. For information on changing the gimbal configuration
and updating the gimbal software, visit the wiki page here.

Support

For customer support, contact us at [e-mail]
or call our support line at [phone]
Monday through Friday, from 8 am to 5 pm, PST.

Tarot Gimbal for Y6/X8 VB | ©3D Robotics, Inc. | 9 June 2014