GoPro Hack Delivers Live Video Feed For Piloting Your Quadcopter

May 13, 2013 by Mike Szczys 43 Comments

The GoPro line of HD cameras seem like they were specifically designed for use with quadcopters. We say that because the small, light-weight video devices present a payload which can be lifted without too much strain, but still have enough horse power to capture video of superb quality. Here’s a hack that uses the camera to provide a remote First Person View so that you may pilot the aircraft when it is out of your line of sight.

The camera in question is a GoPro Hero 3. It differs from its predecessors in that the composite video out port has been moved to a mini USB connector. But it’s still there and just a bit of cable splicing will yield a very clear signal. The image above shows the camera in the middle, connecting via the spliced cable to an FPV transmitter on the right. This will all be strapped to the quadcopter, with the signal picked up by the receiver on the left and piped to a goggle display worn by the pilot. You can see the cable being construction process in the clip after the break.

If you’re looking for other cool stuff to do with your GoPro camera check out the bullet-time work [Caleb] did with ours.

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Bending And Printing A Curved Camera Dolly Track

April 25, 2013 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

How lucky is [Transistor Man] that he found the materials for the tracks of this curved camera dolly just lying around the shop? The three rails making up the system are quarter-inch diameter and he was able to bend them by hand with the help of a 55 gallon drum. But to hold them in place so that the camera dolly would run smoothly he had to find a way to precisely space the tracks.

The robot arm you see in the picture above is a 3D printer which ended up being the easiest solution to the problem. With a bit of trial and error he found a design that holds the tracks in place without interfering with the camera sled’s progress. From there he devised a mounting system which uses three camera tripods to hold the track. You can see a test video shot from the dolly track embedded after the jump. It’s the opposite of the bullet time rigs [Caleb’s] been working on lately.

We figure the spacers would work for any track shape, but if you’re going for a complicated route you need some type of pipe bender to help out.

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Hacking A Sigma Lens To Work With A Canon Camera

April 24, 2013 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

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[Martin Melchior] wanted to use an older Sigma lens with his Canon camera. The problem in trying to do so is that the camera uses a different communications protocol than the lens is expecting. But if you don’t mind cracking it open and doing a little microcontroller work you’ll be using the lens in no time.

The hack uses an ATtiny24 chip, two resistors, and a capacitor. You won’t need to do any coding, but you do need to burn the firmware to the chip (you can use an Arduino if you don’t have a proper AVR programmer). There’s plenty of room for the add-on hardware inside the lens so after reassembling the enclosure you won’t even be able to tell that the unit was altered. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like [Martin] took any pictures of the lens with his added electronics, but the schematic he posted should be enough for you to get the job done yourself.

If you’re into these types of DSLR hacks you should try something extreme, like using view camera parts with your modern camera.

Light Graffiti With Servos And Python

April 5, 2013 by Jeremy Cook 12 Comments

Light Graffiti is can be lots of fun if you have a decent amount of artistic ability, and a keen sense of timing. If you don’t have the necessary skills, you can always compensate by using Python-controlled servos to move everything automatically. The Python code can be found here, and makes use of the Python Image Library to process the images into a “drawable” form. A [pyMCU] with firmware capable of simultaneous servo control was used to move the laser fixture around.

One of the more difficult aspects of this experiment was getting the timing correct between each laser pulse. The timing routine involes a bit of geometry, calculating the distance between each using trig. As explained in the article, this may be a bit of overkill. It still didn’t compare to the trig involved in a previous experiment drawing a circle with this laser-servo fixture. Be sure to check out the video of this laser-setup in action after the break. I’ve been quite pleased with the results, and look forward to what can be done with it in the future!

Thanks to [pyMCU] for letting me have a few of these boards to play with!

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DIY $6 Serial Cable For Vintage Apple QuickTake Cameras

March 26, 2013 by Ryan Fitzpatrick 15 Comments

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Knowing he was a guy who liked electronics and taking things apart, one of [Erik]’s friends sent him a vintage Apple QuickTake 100/150 digital camera as a bit of a joke. [Erik] enjoyed the gift, but since his friend hadn’t sent the necessary serial cable he really couldn’t do that much with it. He searched online only to discover the cable is very difficult to find these days, and thus very expensive. So, being the handy guy he is, he built his own.

Starting with an Apple MiniDin8 Male cable, he cut off one end and attached the wiring to a RJ45 connector. That got plugged into a modular adapter with a DB9 Female Plug end and wired up. The procedure required no soldering, and cost less than $6. Awesome.

Unfortunately the lack of serial cable isn’t the only problem he faced. QuickTake isn’t compatible with newer Apple computers that use Intel. You have to either have a much older Mac, or use a Windows XP emulator. If that wasn’t bad enough, the cameras only want to save photos in QuickTake file format. Luckily, [Erik] documents how he overcome all these issues in his post.

[Thanks Erik]

Bullet Time With A Single GoPro

March 20, 2013 by Caleb Kraft 38 Comments

Earlier this week I saw a video that was showing how some guys made some really cool bullet time effects with 15 tiny rugged awesome cameras called “GoPros”(that wasn’t a paid endorsement, they’re awesome). For those unfamiliar, the bullet time effect gained popularity from the first matrix movie. The footage slowed down to slow motion while [Neo] dodged some bullets, but the camera was still able to move around. To do this, they built a massive circular rig and mounted tons of cameras all around. Using these multiple angles, they were able to stitch together the scene in slow motion and “move” the camera.

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Make Your Own Steadycam Mount

March 19, 2013 by Jeremy Cook 13 Comments

[Ryan] wrote in to tell us about his partially 3D-printed steadycam mount on Instructables. In the video after the break, the camera does stay quite steady through some basic tests. The base is a paint roller handle, and the device works by using a long arm on the bottom with some weights to keep the camera upright. This handle is attached to the weights and camera through a 3-axis Gimbal system that allows the camera to stay relatively steady even if your hand isn’t. A full bill of materials and the needed STL files are provided.

Of course if you’re “old school” and like to use subtractive manufacturing methods, you can always check out this [camera stabilizer] from [Do-It-Yourself Gadgets]. The device works in a nearly identical manner, but the BOM seems to be: metal, screws, threaded rod. There are some cool animated GIFs of it in action on the site, or check out the video after the break.

As a “camera mount” bonus, check out this super easy [GoPro] (or any other small camera) clamp mount. Really clever. Continue reading “Make Your Own Steadycam Mount” →