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Mechanical gyroscope to stabilize a GoPro camera (gimbal)

Posted by Bernardo M. A. on June 24, 2013 at 4:00pm

Using a homemade mechanical gyroscope, i created a gimbal to stabilize my GoPro camera.
In this first test, my gimbal has just one axis (pitch) so if i change the roll angle it will happen the gyro precession (it will not stabilize correctly). Precession is what happens when a spintop is desacelerating and doesn't stay in the vertical orientation anymore.
In the beginning of the video I didn't pay attention to this, but later on, I could move forward and backwards, and the results were interesting! Check it out
Next time i'll try with 2 axis to see what happens ;)

gopro, gyro, homemade, stabilization

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Comments

The Sun June 25, 2013 at 3:08am

It depends on the rpm of the system.

This a pretty damn neet experiment, but I second the advice for coaxial, counterrotating setups.

I actually used an old hard drive to do something similar awhile ago.....
Steven June 25, 2013 at 1:24am

Would a small 2.5" drive motor and disk have enough mass to balance a gopro ?
Mike T June 24, 2013 at 9:56pm

put a shirt on
eduardo June 24, 2013 at 7:12pm

Algum material sobre o assunto.

Com o advento dos gimbal brushless o resto ficou obsoleto.

http://www.myresearch.lt/blog/onboard_camera/onboard_camera.phtml
Garry Qualls June 24, 2013 at 7:11pm

They use mechanical gyros to stabilize big camera rigs for movies...especially when they shoot from helicopters. The expensive ones have the flywheel(s) spinning in a vacuum and usually take several minutes to spin up or down. I think they spin them up above 22,000 RPM so they don't make audible noise. Like most film-related equipment, you can rent them. Don't some of the ESCs for electric ducted fans drive brushless motors up to those kinds of speeds?
Bernardo M. A. June 24, 2013 at 7:08pm

Thanks for the video Andrew, very nice to see it working

PS: i don't know what's jock-clad
Andrew Rabbitt June 24, 2013 at 6:55pm

BTW as fascinating as this topic is, it is still somewhat disturbing to see your jock-clad wobbling form in your bathroom mirror, no matter how convenient it was to do it there...
Bernardo M. A. June 24, 2013 at 6:53pm

Muhammad, if you use just 1 axis it will affect multirotor roll and it will occur precession in the gimbal

Lefebvre, thanks for the tip ;) i've already read some people advicing to use counter rotating gyros, but i've never saw in action.

I was thinking on puttin 2 gyros, side-by-side. Would that be ok or do i need them to be colinear (one on top of the other)?
Andrew Rabbitt June 24, 2013 at 6:53pm

http://vimeo.com/37569622

I can't figure out how to embed from Vimeo. Sorry.
Rob_Lefebvre June 24, 2013 at 6:38pm

Bernardo, if you want to play with this, I'll give you a tip. I never got around to it.

Use two gyros with parallel shafts, running opposite direction to eachother. Gyroscopic precession is gone!

You can also control yaw by doing differential speed variation. And you can even control the tilt by using a servo to rotate the two gyros axes.