Blogs

A quick and dirty AC camera stabilization setup

Posted by John C. on May 5, 2011 at 10:30pm

HELI-MOUNT.jpg

FPV Tilt Camera Mount with Landing Gear

 

I saw one of these a few weeks back, and got to thinking...

How can I easily mount this to a stock AC without making any drastic mods, getting the CG close, and having tilt and roll stabilization possible?

This is what I came up with...going to see if it will take off in the morning.

 

P1010058.jpg?width=750


Mechanically, the pieces are in the right places. It moves well. It's probably not super robust, but we'll see if it gets the job done.

Three metal pieces bent for the roll hinge with nylon washers.

Easystar rudder horn, control rod and clamp.

Random thumbscrew from Ace that clamps into an alum. bar underneath the two plys of balsa and squeezes the fiber frame. Pretty secure actually.

The kit was $20.  I got it as a weight filler with a 9x from Hobby King. The rest is scrap.

It at least gets the concept going cheaply, we'll see how long it lasts.

Here's the battery outrigger from previous static camera setup.

P1010059.jpg?width=750
Ideas for improvements are always appreciated...


JC

E-mail me when people leave their comments –
Follow

You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!

Join diydrones

Comments

  • John C. May 10, 2011 at 9:41pm

    Changing the roll multiply to 2 fixed it.  I honestly would call this pretty successful.

     

  • John C. May 10, 2011 at 3:55pm

    I think that pitch is working really well.  Roll is not.  I've just changed to multiply the roll calculation by 2, and the response seems much better than what is in this video.  A little windy right now!

     

     

     

  • Developer
    Jason Short May 9, 2011 at 6:56pm

    Any Channel can be an output channel, even channel 8. Just don't use channel 8 as an input.

    Jason

  • John C. May 9, 2011 at 6:47pm

    Roll and Pitch work great.  Should be able to get it in the air in the morning.

     

  • I.S. May 9, 2011 at 1:40pm
    ups, I mean hexa copters (not hexa quads!!)
  • John C. May 9, 2011 at 1:36pm

    I got the roll working on CH_6, just had to multiply by a -1 to reverse the servo.

    Add: "ENABLE_CAM 1" to APM_Config.h
    This is the chunk to reverse if need be.
    g.rc_camera_roll.radio_out);g.rc_camera_roll.servo_out = dcm.roll_sensor * -1;
    g.rc_camera_roll.calc_pwm();
    APM_RC.OutputCh(CH_6, g.rc_camera_roll.radio_out);
    Good question on the hexa, I saw the big red X on CH8.
  • I.S. May 9, 2011 at 1:06pm

    @Jason

    what if we are running an Hexa? Is camera control incompatible with hexa quads?

  • Developer
    Jason Short May 9, 2011 at 1:05pm

    Right now The camera control will output pitch on CH 6 out and Roll on channel 5.

    Jason

  • John C. May 6, 2011 at 3:41pm

    Oh boy....put that battery in front of the bar, and she is ready to rock.

     

    Need the SW piece now.

  • John C. May 6, 2011 at 12:45pm

    Well, the AC can pick it all up.  Definitely needs some tuning, maybe just moving the battery to the other side of the rail.  Uploading video now.

     

    I'm running the ACM code out of the SVN....I'm wondering what my best code option is to get the stabilization actually working?  I'll take a look at the pirates code and see.

     

    JC

This reply was deleted.