My UAV build has officially started. In order to make the whole process easier, I am taking one system at a time. First up is the camera setup. Not necessarily a logical starting point but I have the camera and I can always use it on an RC aircraft until the UAV is done. Also, this gives me a chance to practice with it and tweak.I used a Webbie for the camera. Just remove three screws and carefully pop the back cover off to gain access to the photo and video buttons.
You can see the four wires on the left side of the Webbie (bottom of pic) for the focus and shutter control of still pics. On the right side of the Webbie (top of pic) are two wires for the video control. The "goop" you see is hot glue. I added it to keep things in place and allow the Webbie to function normally if necessary. The hot glue detracts from the surgical soldering job I had to perform in order to add the wires to the small surface mount components. Very tight in there.
I bought the switches I used to control the camera here.
Here I have the camera temporarily mounted to my EZ-400G for testing. I thought testing as many systems as possible on a reliable aircraft was a good idea. This aircraft also happens to have an FMA Copilot on it. It is a very stable platform.
