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!
Comments
these cameras can do well too.
http://www.goodluckbuy.com/pz-1-fpv-sony-1-3-ccd-30x-zoom-optical-c...
http://www.goodluckbuy.com/fpv-1-4-sony-700tvl-hd-30x-zoom-camera-m...
Andrew,
Thanks for the information, I think I am good to go with what you have given me, but if you want to document for others feel free!
Andrew, thanks for the link and that would be great if you already have some code!
Really nice Greg,
Been thinking about incorporating zoom also.
Really nice camera you selected and like how you stripped the factory case and integrated it into your own.
Of course any vibration problems get a lot worse at high zoom, so effective damping is even more necessary, so even with the gimbal, effective damping is going to be really important.
I really look forward to seeing some of your videos from this setup.
Best Regards,
Gary
@Jim G i'm glad the post helped you out.
@Justin Stiltner, Jacob designed the communication board with a friend form polish rc forum, they pulled it through trial and error process with good results. I don't know much about this module, all i know its very light and works fine.
We are still developing this equipment, and when it's ready we will put more info for sure. The gimbal is universal so it can hold many different cameras. We are thinking about offering a plug and play set at a sweet price spot, so it would cut the need of spending a lot of time on trial and error, and calibration for FPV pilots. Just hook it up, and fly with a new quality of FPV experience ;)
Jim,
If the camera that I linked and the controller board it comes with will fit in the gimbal listed here you should be good to go.
Andrew or Greg, Do you have a good reference for the communications protocol for these cameras so that a person could implement their own controller board?
To clarify for others, you cannot hook your RC gear directly to this camera to make the zoom work. you need an interface board that will convert your rc signals over to the proper serial commands that will then make the camera zoom. This was not very clear in the initial description and I did not want folks to buy this camera thinking they can just hook it up.
This camera has been talked about on RC Groups and apparently is now working for folks, and lets you directly connect your RC gear. http://www.surveilzone.com/fpv-10x-zoom-sony-ccd-700tvl-camera-for-...
@Justin, we have made our own controller, and we don't use Sony protocol.
@Greg Dronsky
Are you sure you linked to the correct camera? The 66 dollar one does not have the controller board on it so you can feed it RC channels.
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