Using rudder ch to pan PTZ camera

If i'm flying a plane w/out a rudder, I could hook up the rudder to a PTZ camera(pan). This of course would work just fine for panning the camera.

Question is, if i enable rudder, can i enable it only for manual input? So that when i used ardupilot modes such as stabilize etc. it would not try to use this servo as part of plane control?

I know I could create code to do this, but since rudder already controls a servo, i figure it would be easier to use this to control a ptz(pan only) cam.

Would this be a mod to the mega code, or would it be better to bypass mega altogether and control the servo directly from the receiver?

If I also needed tilt, I'm sure that programming would be the best way, but since I only need pan maybe rudder channel will do this. Eventually I would like to use a toggle switch to tilt 2 positions.

Thanks,
Joel

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

Join diydrones

Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • Developer
    Joel,

    If you want manual control of the ptz why would you even route it through the AP? Just connect those receiver channels to the ptz servos. You don't have to connect all the receiver channels to the AP.
  • Does anyone have any suggestions? Have I put this topic in the wrong section? wasn't sure because I didn't see a software section dedicated to mega board or the new beta release.
  • Maybe writing to code to control both pan and tilt would be the way to go. Can anyone point me to the right code which controls servos? i've looked at the servo dance demo.

    Would this code need to use variables already defined? Do I need to edit the mega code? If so, is there a certain loop I should put it in to not interfere with the most important parts of the program?

    Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!
This reply was deleted.

Activity