Comment by Rory Paul on March 13, 2012 at 10:00am

Talk about this long enough and our friends at hobbyking will make them for us for under $100...patent who needs a stinking patent...

Comment by james sowell on March 13, 2012 at 10:08am

what size and how much

Comment by Rick Stewart on March 13, 2012 at 10:09am

Has anyone ever considered using a Sony block camera for this?  I am looking to do the same thing with a 36x zoom camera.  If you are going to have an eye in the sky it only makes sense to use a camera that zooms.  I am starting an X8 build in April and this idea is exactly what I am looking for as the airframe doesn't have a landing gear.

Rick

Comment by Rick Stewart on March 13, 2012 at 10:26am

I am looking at something like this. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-FCB-EX780B-Color-Block-Video-Surveilla...

As for infrared some cameras in the above form actor have an IR filter that can be turned off remotely.

Rick

Comment by Hein du Plessis on March 13, 2012 at 10:34am

Ok put me down for the first pre-order of the diydrones opensource turret! !

Developer Comment by R_Lefebvre on March 13, 2012 at 10:49am

Monroe, I can CAD. I'd be interested to see what you've got.  I've been working on my own gimbal, but it's on the backburner.  

I'm planning for a 4" wide camera which opens up the use of some really decent little P&S cameras.

Comment by Rob on March 13, 2012 at 10:59am

I got a 3D-printer here, so could help out. and i am very handy with Sketchup.
I like the block cameras and i would vote to have atleast the gopro be usable, as that is one of the most popular camera used.

Developer Comment by R_Lefebvre on March 13, 2012 at 11:16am

Would love to see a copter version.  Doesn't need to retract, or be spherical.  But it would be nice to have something compact and that doesn't look like a bunch of bolted together carbon fiber.

Comment by Grips on March 13, 2012 at 11:27am

I think that before anyone really goes ahead with making anything commercially related to this '40mm turret', there needs to be a critical examination of the patents which are available, and the descriptions which are provided to describe the parts. If it is something like, "a camera that can be concealed, spins on two axis and has closeable doors", you are pretty much SOL I would think as it encompasses so much.

People like the idea of fighting back against 'the man' and an open source community could be a way to develop it's own products to do so. But I would be interested to see how many people actually start utilizing such a product on their airframe. It has a cool factor, but there are pan/tilt fpv systems that already exist for a small ccd camera. And larger 3-axis gimbals for anything larger.

Like anything, the hardest parts to source are the gears, chains, pulleys, etc. When trying to develop a diy camera gimbal, that was the hardest part.  i.e., a small shaft which is strong enough to support the mass of a camera, that uses a smooth circular bearing which can be mounted with screws, to provide smooth movement on that axis... Those are the parts that need to be identified on a website in order to produce a 'rotatable camera unit' reliably.

If it does come to fruition, utilizing a service like ponoko.com to cut the parts would be ideal. An individual can just scroll the website, look for the drawings and then have them cut on whatever material they wish.

Comment by Joseph on March 13, 2012 at 11:30am

I am all for the block cam... but my airframe will not carry it. can we make up a low cost version that will work with a 1/3in sony pcb cam. Thats what I have coming in the mail. I am glad i started the blog to get the juices flowing...

I am hoping that the smaller less expensive version will go for 150.00-200.00. I think that would be a fair price.

Thanks guys.

Comment

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• …
• 8
• Next ›
• Page