Rough draft- Clear view, roll/tilt, waterproof GoPro gimbal

I've had this idea in my head for some time now, finally got serious about sketching it out.

Yes, I know that all the props are pushers ; ) I couldn't find the tractors and wanted to get some pics up anyway. First flights will all be with gemfan carbon plastics, but I'm stoked to use these wooden props once everything is verified to function in flight. She looks a little fat in the rear I admit, but that is 5.6 Ah 4s in a hard case. All up weight is 2.71kg.

Spindly landing gear fills in for top-secret next gen gear that can't be shown yet. This configuration has some Klingon Bird of Prey in it, that's obvious.

The goal for this project is a clear view, roll/tilt gimbal that utilizes the waterproof GoPro housing and is positioned coplanar with the motor mounts.

I'm using a pull/pull set up for both axes. It works well, but a little more dialing in will be needed. I'll get a video up tomorrow after I clean my shop.

Tilt control and video out are fed down the central rotating axle. This axle and gopro housing are the only moving parts, both riding on nylon bushings. Tilt pivot is vibration isolated from airframe. "Manually printed"- pivot sockets, control horns, and video out connector are attached to waterproof gp housing.

Stiffen and lighten this yoke, increase the diameter of the axle, print some proper gopro attachments (Rostock-Kossel in the works!!) The camera housing is easily opened without removing from the yoke.

Belly up view. Remember, this is just a rough draft, plenty of little changes to make for MkII, starting with a completely different frame. I'm done with the hub and spoke form. Multi-copters are basically just a packaging exercise, and I keep wishing for a different shape while trying to integrate all these sweet-ass robot parts. The next frame will be a folding Roman five, a "V" with horizontal bars top and bottom.

I can remove a lot of weight from this of course, the motor mounts, arms, wiring, etc. I like to make things heavy and adjustable at first, then begin to lighten and lock down everything.

The important part is the parallel rails and the gimbal arrangement, that's what i want to develop a bit more. The roll axis motivation could come from any number of sources, I've used pull/pull for it so the servos could be grouped and positioned optimally for weight balancing.

Here's some footage of the first test flight. Mostly a bust due to a small oversight on my part, I left a loose component on part of the gimbal assembly after doing some adjustments late the night before : /

I also tested a head cam rig with one of my old GoPros, this ends up being the main point of the video. I wanted to go through the process of capturing and compiling a test without the benefit of a camera operator on the ground. Sorry for the small amount of actual flight video.

The gimbal is working pretty well. Fast transitions really highlight the small amount of slop in the roll, should be easy to remedy however.

The quad is flying well, always room for more tuning, and I definitely need to get the real landing gear on her soon!

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Comments

Joshua Ott March 16, 2013 at 1:01pm

Mohd,

I just use the gimbal configuration in Mission Planner to tune things until it worked with the mechanical range of motion of the gimbal.

Have you played around with the gimbal configuration screen in Mission Planner? I found that it was very easy to get it dialed in :-)
mohd fitri March 16, 2013 at 4:24am

Hi Joshua what is your gimble setup like setting and configuration for the Roll and tilt in APM Mavlink software
Dode Maddog January 29, 2013 at 1:25pm

Cool joshua,

Snow makes for dramatic video but the cold soon curbs ones enthusiam!

Looking forward to your developments sir!

:-)

D
Joshua Ott January 28, 2013 at 3:01pm

Thanks Dode,

I'm not abandoning the old one, just evolving it with some better solutions. Stay tuned, I'm about to share some updates on this project. The warm weather is coming and I'm getting really amped up to fly!
Dode Maddog January 28, 2013 at 2:46pm

Joshua,

You should carry on with the old one, I like your project write up style, "wool vs velcro" awesome!

I think we non programmers look forward to the Alexmos electric'ry in a saleable form.

I'd love to see someone open source it though!

D
Joshua Ott January 18, 2013 at 2:05pm

The gimbal is dead, long live the gimbal.

With the fresh opportunity that comes from small disasters, I'm ready to build Mk II. The (admittedly cheap) servos used in the first version are an obvious weak link, but now the great community of robot nerds has revealed a shiny new path from the jaws of defeat, deus ex machina indeed.

Check this out! I think it will go perfectly with my gimbal arrangement.
Joshua Ott January 15, 2013 at 9:14pm

Re-uploaded in 720 this time, D'OH!

It got up to 20F today, and I managed to properly torque all my fasteners. Much better result, but still room for improvement.
Joshua Ott January 11, 2013 at 2:56pm

Thanks Mate!

I don't want 90 degrees either!

Let's meet in the middle, say 68?

: )
Joshua Ott January 11, 2013 at 1:00pm

Here's some footage of the first test flight. Mostly a bust due to a small oversight on my part, I left a loose component on part of the gimbal assembly after doing some adjustments late the night before : /

I also tested a head cam rig with one of my old GoPros, this ends up being the main point of the video. I wanted to go through the process of capturing and compiling a test without the benefit of a camera operator on the ground. Sorry for the small amount of actual flight video.

The gimbal is working pretty well. Fast transitions really highlight the small amount of slop in the roll, should be easy to remedy however.

The quad is flying well, always room for more tuning, and I definitely need to get the real landing gear on her soon!
Joshua Ott January 3, 2013 at 7:59pm

Here's a nice shot of it's beautiful purple brains

With the hood popped

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