GoPro Camera Mount on 3DR Tilt Gimbal

[Stefan78]

I have been wondering about how to mount my GoPro camera to the 3DR Camera Tilt Gimbal and found a solution so simple yet so ingenious (if I may say so myself) that I thought it would be worth sharing.

 

This is my second GoPro camera. The first one broke as it fell off the Gimbal during rough "landing" and I did not have it in its protective housing (duh!). It fell lens-down on the concrete, cracking the glass lens causing some swearing on my part. Needless to say I wanted the new GoPro to be attached including the protective case.

 

Problem however is that the protective case plus attached base are together too tall to mount on the 3DR Cam Gimbal. When you have a battery fitted as well, there is not enough room for the gimbal to tilt without the Camera case getting stuck underneath the battery space.

 

However, after some contemplating I found a solution! The Gimbal is now mounted rock-solid without using any extra parts.

 

What to do: Take 2 minutes!

 1. I used a simple pair of pliers, actually a wire-cutter to cut through some of the holes in the gimbal to make the opening a bit wider as you can see below.

 

2. Then take the mount of the GoPro case and disassemble it like so:

You just need the long bolt/screw.

 

3. Then take the case and place it on the base of the gimbal, through the hole you had widened.

 

4. Now put  the screw in place and make sure you push it as far as you can, use tools if necessary.
By doing so, you are wedging the case in place.

 

5 . The result is this:

 

6. And this:

 

7. Here you can see the wedge caused by one side of the screw being bigger than the other.

 

If you have wedged it properly, the result should be that the case is tightly fitted to the gimbal. I used it already for recording a video and that confirmed that it is solid as there is no jittering and after flying it for some time, the case is still firmly in place.

 

All without glue or tape or tie-wraps and in 2 minutes! I was pleased!

 

P.s. Apologies for the out-of-focus images :-)

P.p.s. It's not my habit to leave the propellors on the quad while tinkering but this was just for the photos as I was about to go outside and fly. Certainly I do not connect the battery inside while the props are on. Trust me, it went wrong once.

[Jason Hilton]

Where did you purchase that gimbal? I don't see it on the 3dr site

[John Maffetone]

Looks to be a Hobbyking gimbal at recommended in the gimbal setup page?

Nice setup! How much distance is between the battery and the bottom plate of the gimbal?

[LanMark]

I did something similar and got really shaky video as it seems to flex just a bit at that screw/bolt joint.  I may not have had it screwed down tightly but it sure shook.   I went with a sandwitched approach instead, with foam padding .. the gimbal and landing gear protect the gopro very well so keeping it in the heavy plastic shell doesn't seem to add all that much protection.  For me all the pictures also turned out blury due to the shaking.

Have you flown it?  Smooth video?

[Stefan78]

@ Jason Hilton / John Maffletone

 The gimbal was purchased together with the Quad via UDrones. I bought my Quad as an RTF kit originally as I had no prior experience with this hobby. Though, since then I have fully taken it apart and rebuilt it as a learning exercise and of course have had to replace several parts over time. See gimbal in picture below, top right.

Interesting that it is not being offered via 3DR directly, as Udrones and 3DR have the same owners.

It is a very good camera mount and allows for pitch stabilization as well as manual pitch setting if you set this up correctly via Radio Channel 6 in the Configuration section of the Mission Planner.

I see via the Udrones site that the camera mount is on Backorder status for a while now, maybe that's why it's not offered for sale?

This is what my Quad looks like today, I have also added an Optical Flow Sensor for greater stability.

@Mark Lanning I have no issues with shaky videos at all, the videos are smooth.

[Stefan78]

@ John Maffletone: The total amount of room from the top of the gimbal to the bottom plate is roughly 11 cm and with the battery attached it is roughly 8 cm.

[criro1999]

It looks to me that gimbal from JDone is a copy from HK (as FPV gear for heli), see below the pictures and the link.

You can buy the gimbal for $19.50

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__16343__FPV_Tilt_Camera_M...

[Stefan78]

Admittedly, that does look a lot like the gimbal I have, only I paid a bit more :-p

[criro1999]

sure, it is identical. they buy from there and resell to other, just an impression.

But it does not have the rolling side, just the tilting. Rolling is important for quads.