Howdy folks- I want to mount a gimbal in a Blue Robotics enclosure that I will install on a small ASV. I need a stabilized video feed so I am looking at GoPro gimbals.
Will this one fit in any of the BR enclosures and dome ports?
Thanks!
Hi,
That looks quite big. Iâve been wondering if a Dji Osmo or similar would work well.
Thanks- yes, I thought it was perhaps a bit too big. I would like to find a gimbal that I can plug into a Pixhawk. I donât know if you can control an Osmo from a Pixhawk
One year ago I asked if it was possible to mount a gimbal-stabilized GoPro in an acrylic tube. Now, I can say that the short answer is âyes.â I can fit a GoPro on a Tarot 3-axis gimbal in a 6 inch enclosure with an acrylic dome. I mounted this on an autonomous surface vehicle, but it could also be used on an ROV. Read more about it here.
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Easier to comment here than on Squirm.
The GPS mast may still leak, since 3D printed layers donât adhere perfectly. 3D printed objects can be immersed in hot water, heated to the âglassingâ point, short of the âliquidâ point of the material. This will melt all the layers together and insure waterproofness.
You COULD just run a wire from the electronics enclosure directly to power the GoPro. Itâs not like your gimbal spins more than 360*âŠdoes it?
The GoPro lens being offset doesnât bother you at all? No distortion from being offset from the center of the dome? You could possibly use a Firefly Q6âŠor whatever the latest model is. I use a Panasonic SDR T55 camcorder with 78X optical zoom. It only has 800x600 resolution, but IMHO, water is usually too murky for HD to be of any use, iâd rather have high zoom. A 10-year-old camcorder that sold for $300-ish, available off eBay used for $40-$50.
I like the LiPo fuses you use. I never thought about a short in one destroying the other. LiPoâs are so finickyâŠi use Li-Ionâs from batteryhookup.com.
BR enclosures were obviously too small for my design, so i went with 7" aluminum 3/8" wall pipe from onlinemetals.com, and had plastic-domes-spheres.com custom-form me an 8" hemisphere with a 1/2" minimal wall thickness. For $140. !! Wow!
Or you could try one of these. Easier to center the lens in the dome, records in 4k while also outputting 1200 lines of composite video. It will probably run cooler than the GoPro.
CADDX Tarsier 4K 1200TVL Dual Lens FPV Camera
Hi guys,
I recently did some experiments with a brushless gimbal but using the BR camera.
I was planning to write a more in-depth post on it, but Iâm currently low on time and sharing it now maybe this is useful to someone.
I used a Storm32 v1.32 gimbal controller, the Blue Robotics Low-Light Camera, and these tiny motors.
I designed and 3d-printed the gimbal body.
The results were pretty interesting:
It works very well in regular use, and you can connect it to the pixhawk to control it with the joystick as we currently do.
I ran into a couple of issues:
- The motors are on the small side, and the startup-routine tries to level with a low current, which often fails (you can adjust the current for normal operation).
- This is an older board. In the newer ones you donât need to calibrate on every start up, which would be better at sea and to prevent the first issue.
- This board (the older one) doesnât know the orientation of the rov itself, and so it doesnât know the full course it can travel. When the resistance is too much, the motors skips (something like 20Âș every second), continuously trying to move to the target orientation even if it is physically impossible. The newer boards have 2 imus, so they should be able to handle this.
It should be doable with slightly larger motors and a newer Storm32 controller. Unfortunately the code is free but not open-source, so we canât tune it as much as I wish. And writing the firmware from scratch would be a huge undertaking.
Some notes:
- I left yaw out, but it should work, except (with the old board) it was unable to center itself.
- I didnât find a way of centering it to the frame. It should be doable, though.
- I replaced the camera wires with silicon wire. Note that the camera is very sensitive to increasing the wire lenght.
PS: I intend to edit this as I remember things. This was done a couple of months ago.
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this is cool @williangalvani ! So, the gimbal board has its own IMU, and its adjusting relative to the gimbal board? i.e its not connected to/moving relative to the Pixhawk?
Thanks
That is correct. it uses only the internal IMU for stabilization.
BUT it is also talking mavlink to the pixhawk, so you can still send gimbal controls to it. Weirdly enough, (IIRC) I didnât find a a way to fix the position if you want to âdisableâ the gimbal for some reason. Iâm also not sure if it is possible to set limits so the camera doesnât hit anything.
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Hi Darrell, I realized that I never responded. Sorry about that. I read your response and had every intention, but then life happened.
Anyway, here goes:
The GPS mast may still leak, since 3D printed layers donât adhere perfectly.
True. To ensure that the mast didnât leak I sanded it down and then coated it with marine epoxy. Then I sanded it down and coated it with marine epoxy. I think I did this 3 times. Not fun, but should keep the water out.
You COULD just run a wire from the electronics enclosure directly to power the GoPro. Itâs not like your gimbal spins more than 360*âŠdoes it?
Also true. I like the JST connector though. Minimizes chances of tangled wires.
The GoPro lens being offset doesnât bother you at all? No distortion from being offset from the center of the dome?
I didnât notice any distortion and it wasnât being used for mapping purposes. It was designed to track a certain territorial fish in very clear, tropical waters.
You could possibly use a Firefly Q6âŠor whatever the latest model is. I use a Panasonic SDR T55 camcorder with 78X optical zoom. It only has 800x600 resolution, but IMHO, water is usually too murky for HD to be of any use, iâd rather have high zoom. A 10-year-old camcorder that sold for $300-ish, available off eBay used for $40-$50
Iâve always wanted to try out a GoPro alternative, but I usually have a GoPro or 3 laying around. One dayâŠ
I like the LiPo fuses you use. I never thought about a short in one destroying the other. LiPoâs are so finickyâŠi use Li-Ionâs from batteryhookup.com.
Thanks. Iâm surprised by how few understand the dangers of connecting multiple LiPos without decouplers. Thanks for the link. I want to try LiFePO4 battery in my next build.
BR enclosures were obviously too small for my design, so i went with 7" aluminum 3/8" wall pipe from onlinemetals.com , and had plastic-domes-spheres.com custom-form me an 8" hemisphere with a 1/2" minimal wall thickness. For $140. !! Wow!
Again, thanks for the links. Great resources to have. I feel the need to start building something again⊠