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I started this project a few months ago to record video at a distance of 18 meters. Most pan and tilt systems I tried were not suited for slower and smoother speeds, but with the modified PT785-S System from ServoCity, I was able to get smoother control.
I used ServoCity’s worm drive to get slower motion and more toque.
Also, sometimes I needed to mount the camera up high. This is the light stand I used. The stand is reinforced with two galvanized steel pipes.
The controller took the longest to build. This is a early picture of the inside showing the motor driver and Arduino.
I have a Ethernet cable running to the motors and servo from the Arduino controller.
That works very nicely.
If this smooth pan/tilt could be modified to be controlled by an FPV video transmitter tracker and the pan and tilt can run faster, this would be fantastic for taking video of flying RC aircraft from the ground. Especially if there was a way to control the video camera zoom with a potentiometer instead of the camera’s zoom control.
The problem with so many ground videos of flying aircraft is that (A) the video is shaky to the point of inducing nausea because the camera operator can’t properly track the aircraft (95% of all RC videos on You Tube! And (B) because the camera operator has trouble both following the plane and zooming in smoothly and at the correct time, when the plane is far away, and zooming out smoothly when it is close.
Your smooth motorized pan/tilt controlled by a video transmitter tracker would make all the difference. The cam’s anti-shake would take care of the rest. I hope you’ll consider doing this in the future. You could sell it to companies that sell planes (Hobby Lobby, etc.) so they could make better plane demos, as well as hobbyists interested in high quality ground video.
You could start off simple with a video cam mounted to a servo controlled pan/tilt controlled by a standard FPV video transmitter tracker to see if the system is tracking the plane closely enough for video. If so, the smoother system would work. Servos don’t have enough resolution for smooth video.
Best regards,
Jeff Thompson
Hi Jeff,
That is a great idea using antenna tracking system. I will definitely consider it. I was working with some object tracking software for the pan/tilt system to try and get the best tracking performance. I’ll have to post that project on the website in the future.
Great project, look like mine a bit, i building a system for record live video on my own, setup 2 pan tilt cams and record these mix and switcht right to harddisk with 50 meters utp sending signals and video signal back to the computer.
Fun it is but timeconsuming to build.
GreetZ Richie
Hi, I’m very interested for your Pan Tilt device.
I’ve search for many affordable solutions but the problem remain the same: the rotation speed is to fast for a smoth panorama.
We are using several Canon camera for covering Live event, so if we can find a solution to control a camera remotely, this will be awesome.
Can you explain how do you made this stuff? Do you sell it?
Wainting to hear from you,
Best regards
EVG media