Showing Off A High-performance Brushless Motor Camera Gimbal

gopro-brushless-motor-gimbal

Here’s [Tom Parker] showing off a brushless motor gimbal stabilizer for his GoPro camera. We saw a similar project a couple of weeks back that featured a 3d printed quadcopter mount. This offering is meant to be held in your hands. It keeps the subject in frame even if the cameraman’s hands pitch and roll (we figured aeronautical terms were best here). This image shows him demonstrating a level camera as he quickly rolls the frame from one side to the other. It doesn’t compensate for yaw, which is something he may change in the next iteration. We already like the results he’s getting with it.

About 3:15 into the video demo below we get a very quick description of the build itself. He started it as a project at University. Fabrication included work on a 3D printer, laser cutter, and vacuum forming machine. The grips are bicycle handlebar components. To overcome the stabilization system the operator has access to a joystick. Without this you’d never be able to aim the camera up or down because of auto-leveling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA_4hGNlGsk

30 thoughts on “Showing Off A High-performance Brushless Motor Camera Gimbal

  1. Hate sites that are blank when you block scripts, it’s pathetic and dumb in my view.
    And shockingly there are even professional and even commercial sites that are like that.

    1. javascript is part of the internet. deal with it. that’s like blocking jpg images and complaining about web pages looking funny. it’s enough to have to cater to idiots using some old ie browser. make it work for the 90%, and the rest will eventually get their siht together.

      1. It’s like blocking images, and not being able to see your website because because it was just pictures of text. But at least it looked like it was drawn in crayon.

      2. Don’t forget the idiots (like our OP here) that insist blocking all scripts makes the internet a better place. It’s like killing all the insects in an area just because mosquitoes annoy you. Congrats, you’re destroying the entire ecosystem in order to remove a few pests. This example could be continued (and get more melodramatic) but you get the idea. You want to remove what is now a fundamental part of the internet and have it still work like you did nothing. Can’t be done.

        There’s only so far you can go to accommodate such people, and in the case of sites such as the one for this article that relies heavily on dynamic content & animation you would have to write an entirely separate site to expose similar functionality without JS. Ain’t gonna happen. Seeing as you disabled JS entirely, there’s no static content for you to see; it’s not an intentional block on their part, just your blinders working against you.

        Do you use IE6 too?

          1. Or a use of javascript-only web frameworks like AngularJS, which work great for making responsive sites without having to handcode JQuery.

            Face it, Javascript is a part of the internet, and it’s a good thing.

          2. javascript sucks in anything browser-related. leave it one the industrial side and write better code. I can’t think of anything that javascript has added to the internet that’s been a meaningful, unique contribution… something else less prone to attack could do the same things better. It’s time to move past js.

      3. A blank page is really an insane result when blocking script, sure you might expect to lose functionality when you block script, but a blank page? I mean how do they even manage that…?
        And frankly before I enable scripts on a site I like to know what kind of site I am dealing with, and to achieve the required trust I expect more than a blank page without a single letter (or picture).

        There’s using script and then there is not using any normal sane HTML

        And incidentally yes blocking script protects you from a hell of a lot of crap, that’s simply a fact, and denial only makes you identify yourself as being delusional. (Unless you are a person who benefits from script him/herself to exploit visitors of course, in which case you’d certainly argue for people to not block it and how it’s perfectly alright and innocent I expect.)

      1. Hah, well then I admit that I did actually enable scripts on it, and was a bit underwhelmed, but not SUPER annoyed.
        And I actually avoided to go too specifically for the guy’s throat, I tried to put my annoyance in a more general setting and tend to give private individuals some leeway compared to corporations that mismanage the use of scripts.
        I mean I made some awful sites myself in the past, albeit not through script but through poor design :) I’m not talented in design at all.

        And talking of scripts, I also find it annoying if people run scripts in the hosting company namespace, since when you enable scripts then you enable them for another thousand sites, and in those circumstances it becomes attractive for some assholes to exploit that.
        I think history has shown that with big sites like facebook and myspace and such who had that kind of thing go wrong when they were relatively new.

      1. Oh well, we all look at things in our own way, and get annoyed by our own choice of annoyances.
        Nice that you pitch in your view though, makes my post less ‘bullying’ – which is always a risk when you express an annoyance.

    2. I’ve noticed local news sites tend to do it more than any other site. There is no need for it. They need to realize that people who are going through great lengths to avoid advertising aren’t going to buy anything even if you can find a way to make them see your ads. We are not your target demographic, just get over it and hope that we at least share a link to your page to our friends who might click your advertisements.

  2. i am curious, it seams to react real fast, could it be combined met tracking software, so it would for example always point to a persons face no matter how you turned it.
    ( Currently it keep its starting position, following something is something else )

    If possible, could it be made to follow anything (not only faces), folow for example a car that drives away

    1. It’s become common for people to refer to servos with brushless motors as just “brushless motors”. I don’t much like the trend.

      Probably the same people who use servos for everything, and even buy special “continuous rotation servos” instead of normal motors, because that’s what they’re accustomed to and it works for them.

      1. In this case these are not RC Servos, these are the raw brushless DC motors used for airplanes that would be driving props unlike traditional brushed permanent magnet motors that used to be used in the past. Brushless motors allow better positioning control without adding an additional tachometer to the motor to help close the servo loop.

  3. OK, enough p*ssuy whining about whatever is wrong with his site in someone’s eyes.
    I WOULD prefer to block ALL advertising, and go back to surfing like its 1995-96.
    I can block-unblock ScriptSafe with a click, so no whining here.

    Very cool ‘hack’, music too. I don’t have a use for one as I don’t take many pictures/vid’s, except of my dog…so I guess I do have to have to pay more attention as this would be great for more amateur filming. Would have liked to have seen some detail on the brains of the thing.

    Nice job, what was your final parts BOM?

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