Very cool. I purchased a joystick from Hague camera, in the UK, and it overcomes all the limitations of the standard remote. Smooth control of the Bescor pan/tilt head, from a standstill to full speed. They appear to have designed a fairly simple circuit that does a decent job of extending the control of the bescor beyond the standard remote. but at 85 british pounds it is not cheap.
The joystick that they use is a fairly rudimentary CTS Series 252 switch…a ‘mini’ joystick…that does not come close to the smooth control offered by the joystick on a Nintendo Nunchuk…but it does work as designed and gives good measure of control.
Your ‘virtual’ joystick is intriguing (as was your other explorations with the hardwired joystick). My ears perked up when you mentioned a timelapse option. What a great addition that would be…dial in settings X=.. y=… and let the controller pan and tilt for an hour or so with repeatable results. I could see this being very useful with my camtree motorized slider—it would be wonderful to be able to use the bescor on that in concert with a camera in timelapse mode…
Oh, and meant to say, if you get the bugs worked out…then maybe a shot at funding, on something like kickstarter, might be a way to go…unless you’re independently wealthy…!! Wonderful to see your creativity at work and sharing results openly…cheers,
Thank you Michael, I hope to continue this project and see it get better. While I’m still learning Java for Android, the time-lapse option is definitely possible.
Found your blog searching for a bluetooth controller for the Bescor figuring there has to be a tool out there that allows a wireless control approach for that pan/tilt device.
I am pleased that you’re working in this area and also disappointed that there is not greater progress (this is not a criticism of your work but a lament that there has not been more work in this area.)
Thinking about it, though, the use of phones and the capacity of a device to control the pan-tilt device it occurred to me that the use of the phone’s GPS may create a way to do the follow me capability of the soloshot device; possibly with greater capability. (These items depend on line of sight and have issues in direct sunlight because of their use of IR.)
I’m uncertain of how accurate gps may be but I am wondering if a calibration routine could be engineered to fine tune the signals allowing it to automatically aim the camera to something like the controlling cell phone.
There’s a device I’m waiting on to be manufactured called the RFduino, which has an 32 bit ARM Cortex-M0 processor and Bluetooth capability. It’s open source and would make a great candidate for Bluetooth on the Bescor. For the GPS, the accuracy is about 10-50ft, but I’m not sure how accurate it would be considering the frame size, distance, elevation..etc. It’s a cool idea though.
Do you have the pin outs from the remote socket? I would love to build my own wired remote into the case I’m putting this into and that would help tremendously.
I am looking to connect this to a wireless nyko wii nunchuck but what I am reading they say it takes a different input reading. It does not work with the settings you have. Do you have any code or insight for this?
Very cool. I purchased a joystick from Hague camera, in the UK, and it overcomes all the limitations of the standard remote. Smooth control of the Bescor pan/tilt head, from a standstill to full speed. They appear to have designed a fairly simple circuit that does a decent job of extending the control of the bescor beyond the standard remote. but at 85 british pounds it is not cheap.
The joystick that they use is a fairly rudimentary CTS Series 252 switch…a ‘mini’ joystick…that does not come close to the smooth control offered by the joystick on a Nintendo Nunchuk…but it does work as designed and gives good measure of control.
Your ‘virtual’ joystick is intriguing (as was your other explorations with the hardwired joystick). My ears perked up when you mentioned a timelapse option. What a great addition that would be…dial in settings X=.. y=… and let the controller pan and tilt for an hour or so with repeatable results. I could see this being very useful with my camtree motorized slider—it would be wonderful to be able to use the bescor on that in concert with a camera in timelapse mode…
Good luck with your experimenting..
Oh, and meant to say, if you get the bugs worked out…then maybe a shot at funding, on something like kickstarter, might be a way to go…unless you’re independently wealthy…!! Wonderful to see your creativity at work and sharing results openly…cheers,
Thank you Michael, I hope to continue this project and see it get better. While I’m still learning Java for Android, the time-lapse option is definitely possible.
Found your blog searching for a bluetooth controller for the Bescor figuring there has to be a tool out there that allows a wireless control approach for that pan/tilt device.
I am pleased that you’re working in this area and also disappointed that there is not greater progress (this is not a criticism of your work but a lament that there has not been more work in this area.)
Thinking about it, though, the use of phones and the capacity of a device to control the pan-tilt device it occurred to me that the use of the phone’s GPS may create a way to do the follow me capability of the soloshot device; possibly with greater capability. (These items depend on line of sight and have issues in direct sunlight because of their use of IR.)
I’m uncertain of how accurate gps may be but I am wondering if a calibration routine could be engineered to fine tune the signals allowing it to automatically aim the camera to something like the controlling cell phone.
Is that something in your mind worth pursuing?
neomaxcom
There’s a device I’m waiting on to be manufactured called the RFduino, which has an 32 bit ARM Cortex-M0 processor and Bluetooth capability. It’s open source and would make a great candidate for Bluetooth on the Bescor. For the GPS, the accuracy is about 10-50ft, but I’m not sure how accurate it would be considering the frame size, distance, elevation..etc. It’s a cool idea though.
Can you share a parts list, schematic & programming code?
I used the Arduino Pro Mini 328 – 5V/16MHz and the Bluetooth Modem – BlueSMiRF Silver.
This is what got me started
http://bellcode.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/android-and-arduino-bluetooth-communication/
http://english.cxem.net/arduino/arduino5.php
http://code.google.com/p/mobile-anarchy-widgets/
I would like to polish the code before giving out the source.
BlueSMiRF schematics: http://dlnmh9ip6v2uc.cloudfront.net/datasheets/Wireless/Bluetooth/BlueSMiRF-Gold-ChipAnt-v1_rotat2.pdf
Do you have the pin outs from the remote socket? I would love to build my own wired remote into the case I’m putting this into and that would help tremendously.
Thanks,
I don’t have the pin out, but we could check the continuity of each pin using a multimeter.
I am looking to connect this to a wireless nyko wii nunchuck but what I am reading they say it takes a different input reading. It does not work with the settings you have. Do you have any code or insight for this?
See my comment http://protechy.com/bescor-mp-101-hack-part-1/#comment-115
Great Job!
Could you write how to program arduino to communicate with Bescor? For example what should I write if I want camera to rotate right…
Thanks!