Progress with the addition of the yaw axis!
I’ve taken a standard C mount used in SLR photography and modified it. The C mount allows one handed operation, is self-balancing, and compact. I’ve had to modify it somewhat in order to be able to account for the height of the gimbal.
Most of the work so far has been in researching and sourcing parts. Its hard trying to get all these parts to work together, especially when they are designed for a different purpose. I’ve ended up machining a number of parts from 2mm carbon fibre and also 3mm black acrylic plastic.
Finally this morning the laminate parts I made are all dried and got a final trim/sand before being all bolted to the C mount and 2 axis gimbal. was sceptical at how well this would hold, but its very strong and easily takes the weight of the gopro and all electronics either at 90 degrees or inverted.
The balance of the gimbal is great – a good test for this is to shake the device and see if you can get the camera to swing. I can’t make it swing in any direction- it just flops around in all 3 axis. There is a slight weight bias in the yaw axis, but the yaw motor here is oversized and should be able to account for the ~10 grams off balance.
This time round I’ve decided to go for AlexMos controller boards. These are closed source, but the configuration utility gives that many options theres no real need to delve into the code anymore. An interesting new development is the ‘follow pitch’ mode which makes the camera follow the tilt of the gimbal whilst removing shake.
The only challenges I have left are where to mount the battery and electronics!