FPV gimbal for zoom camera

It’s nice to fly around with your copter or plane, watching the surrounding area with a live view. Anyone who tried FPV knows that feeling. There is much to see with the regular equipment, but if you want to see some detail from a higher altitude, there is a problem. Normally it’s good to have a wide angle camera, to see the surrounding space. But what if you want to watch a particular spot, like your house, or something interesting happening few miles away in detail, without making a lot of flying with your drone?

We found very little neat solutions for that, that’s why me and my buddy Jacob are working on a low cost project of a FPV gimbal for zoom camera.

This is an early 3D printed prototype of a simple to use FPV zoom gimbal. It is designed to get along perfectly with almost any coper or plane.

If you want to zoom on something while flying it’d better be stabilised, thats why 3 axis gimbal is put to work. The body is designed to work with most of FPV zoom cameras, analog or HD. As a controller we are using AlexMos, slim version to cut the mass. All of the cables are hidden inside of the body which makes it really nice and handy.

The whole gimbal with camera weighs 305g, we think thats really nice result.

For now we are making some iterations to reach optimal body design, but later we’re going to test things like object tracking with Raspberry pi and OpenCV, and a HD Light Bridge transmission.

What are your opinions on this? Do you think it would be useful for your FPV needs?

If you’re interested in this project write a comment or send me a private message on DIYD, we’d love to hear some feedback!

Soon we should have some footage from an actual flight!

Cheers!

So Kefta what model are you using? and you are satisfied with your current gimble or would you rather be able to buy one of Greg's prototype gimble. I will say that I agree with Klaus Heinrich on keeping the drone steady while zooming. I can see distortion or jello as he zoomed farther it became more prevalent. For where I live or the reason for wanting this on my drone is SAR or locating missing animals ir issues dealing with farming. Could just auto launch and hold at 400 feet and without the farmer doing any flying he could just look around for his missing animal/s. may be able to search faster than flying all around the area looking for something if you can see it higher and zoom to confirm. Same for winter here in Wisconsin, US in the winter. Many times somone leaves their car burried in the snow only to be found blocks away in some ditch dead from the cold. Some of these have IR options availible. I did see they made a mini FLIR cam but that is $3k. Now thats something that could be sold to local fire departments or cops (to be used within the legal limits, just like us little people have to). Its safe to say that everyone of our lives is worth 3k. Would almost want to make it a requirement for local govts to be equipped with a thermo cam. Throw a zoom on that thermo and you really have something nice. I know a Canada had a mountie with a dragonflyer in his trunk did pull it out looking for a missing person out of a car in the winter. The camera had some thermo or IR ability and you could see the heat signature of the man in the snowbank 500 feet from the car. I'm a fan of the camera technology but not Dragonflyers drones or prices. Additional thoughts or coments/suggestions keeping in mind the desire to find a solution for the idea. And Greg, you plan on selling any of the gimbles after fine tuning and testing?

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Comments

Greg Dronsky March 22, 2015 at 5:19am

@Santosh Sharma http://vertigofpv.com, but we are out of stock. Please write me an email i will see what i can do - vertigofpv@gmail.com
Santosh Sharma March 22, 2015 at 5:15am

Hi Greg I want this gimbal from where I can buy it.
Greg Dronsky March 2, 2015 at 5:07pm

For all of you who didn't have the chance to catch the latest blog post about Vertigo FPV 27x, there is a newer blog post here:

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/fpv-gimbal-for-zoom-camera-firs...

If you are interested in buying the RTF gimbal please let us know by mail vertigofpv@gmail.com

Cheers!
Moderator

Jost Laznik February 26, 2015 at 11:09pm

Sorry guys

My purpose was not to spam. Disregard the post and delete it please

best regards
Kefta February 26, 2015 at 1:37am

Joscht : seriously!!!
You could have chosen a low profile ceiling camera ! At least ! Before spamming us
Hans Miller February 26, 2015 at 1:09am

If you could stop spamming us with your gimbal, Joscht, that would be great.
Moderator

Jost Laznik February 25, 2015 at 11:37pm

If anybody is interested in this gimbal check here. If you are interested please contact me on atmolab1@gmail.com

best regards
Kefta January 28, 2015 at 11:51pm

Vibration at high zoom should be first solved in the drone before blaming the Gimbal.

1- Quality frame (arms and everything tightened) I use a tarot CF frame with excellent build quality and robustness

2- Quality motors and bearing and all leveled nicely (I use Tiger Motors 3110)

3- Well balanced quality props ( I use Tiger Motor props 14/4.7 )

4- make sure the the load (batteries) CoG is in the intersection of the arms.

5- a good gyro / compass is a must with calibration it's essential

6- Solve any compass/gyro interference

7- did I forget anything else ?

You need a lot of tuning in order to have a very stable flight, once that done you can start blaming your gimbal and tuning it.
mark sahf January 27, 2015 at 8:32am

So Kefta what model are you using? and you are satisfied with your current gimble or would you rather be able to buy one of Greg's prototype gimble. I will say that I agree with Klaus Heinrich on keeping the drone steady while zooming. I can see distortion or jello as he zoomed farther it became more prevalent. For where I live or the reason for wanting this on my drone is SAR or locating missing animals ir issues dealing with farming. Could just auto launch and hold at 400 feet and without the farmer doing any flying he could just look around for his missing animal/s. may be able to search faster than flying all around the area looking for something if you can see it higher and zoom to confirm. Same for winter here in Wisconsin, US in the winter. Many times somone leaves their car burried in the snow only to be found blocks away in some ditch dead from the cold. Some of these have IR options availible. I did see they made a mini FLIR cam but that is $3k. Now thats something that could be sold to local fire departments or cops (to be used within the legal limits, just like us little people have to). Its safe to say that everyone of our lives is worth 3k. Would almost want to make it a requirement for local govts to be equipped with a thermo cam. Throw a zoom on that thermo and you really have something nice. I know a Canada had a mountie with a dragonflyer in his trunk did pull it out looking for a missing person out of a car in the winter. The camera had some thermo or IR ability and you could see the heat signature of the man in the snowbank 500 feet from the car. I'm a fan of the camera technology but not Dragonflyers drones or prices. Additional thoughts or coments/suggestions keeping in mind the desire to find a solution for the idea. And Greg, you plan on selling any of the gimbles after fine tuning and testing?
Euan Ramsay January 27, 2015 at 5:37am

The DIY version ;-)
https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3701922362?prof...

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