BigB
Mr Honda #849
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2003
- Location
- Mountain View
- Moto(s)
- 14 CBR 1000RR Street, 09 CBR 1000RR Track
- Name
- Bryan
- BARF perks
- AMA #: 2743740
Let me know your Sunday plan. I want to ride both days this weekend.
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Building a Gyro Cam Mount
- Thread starter llenta
- Start date
llenta
Professional Newbie
ok so this is the first "real" update in probably 2 months. I had to take some time away from this project because I was busy with other things. Now that things have settled down, I had spend the last few weeks reflecting upon what has worked in the past (almost nothing) and what needed to be improved upon (everything 
).
I had completely disassembled my last "unit" (which I had posted pictures of, but no video) that I had built and started over from scratch. I knew that the 2 biggest hurdles to solve were figuring out how to support the camera so that the servo doesn't break, and dealing with the gyro drift.
I had built a nice tilt mechanism in my last unit that completely supported the weight of the camera so that the weight wasn't on the servo, so I knew I had to go with that (or something similar). I sat down with all my parts that I had collected (and not broken) and put together a new system from my spare parts. No new parts were purchased this time (except a few dollars at the hobby shop for some extra wire, that doesn't count).
I went back to my original gyro/servo unit that I had tweaked to fit this application. I was able to fit it into the tilting camera mount perfectly
. Then I tucked the battery pack and controller mechanism under my seat with the wires daisy chained through the fairings so you don't see them. All you actually see is the camera mount and camera on the tail. With the Contour camera attached it's only 4" tall and 2" wide, so really, its not that much bigger then a normal camera. Ok, so maybe it is, but with everything else tucked away, its not that bad. No more screwing things into my sub-frame for support, the rear cowl is on and the bike is still poser worthy. 
So I had put everything on the bike, a little duct tape to hold things in place temporarily and a zip tie or two for safety in case it takes (another) leap of faith in front of (another) car. I have no idea how many times a Contour can get run over and still work, but I don't want to find out with my camera So I get home from work today and figure "why wait until this weekend, its still early, let take this sucker for a test ride now". So I did, but I forgot to SECURELY mount the thing to the bike 
The camera didn't actually go anywhere, it just shook real bad (duct tape did its job). I had forgot to take some time and make sure it had a solid mount. I didn't realize this until I peeked back at the camera a few minutes into my ride just to see if it was still working. I saw it shaking real bad and realized what I had forgot to do. "F-it" I'm going to continue on and see if the thing stays put. I'm glad I did.
Even with all the shaking, the darn thing worked flawlessly!!! I have to warn you this video is hard to watch, but it does show that even with the whole unit shaking pretty bad, the gyro worked about as good as I imagined.
[youtube]OBFXHdEHJZU[/youtube]
Honestly, I couldn't be happier with how it performed. It worked exactly how I wished it would, I just need to remember to secure it properly to the bike.
So after I got home, I took everything back off the bike. I knew that since, in its current state, everything worked mechanically. All I needed to do was figure out a good way to securely mount it to the bike. I know that I will never get a perfect picture as the tail of a sport bike is about the worst place to put a camera for a smooth picture, but that's just the way it is. I had found an extra piece of ABS that I used to put together the tilt mechanism and I drilled a few more holes and attached it to the bottom of the camera mount. The gave me a flat surface to attach to the bike. A few pieces of 3M double sided tape AND duct tape (with zip ties for good measure) and this sucker is much more secure then it was before.
I'm out of town on Saturday but I will take this for a spin again Sunday and hopefully have a more watchable video. (got to remember to change the batteries).
).I had completely disassembled my last "unit" (which I had posted pictures of, but no video) that I had built and started over from scratch. I knew that the 2 biggest hurdles to solve were figuring out how to support the camera so that the servo doesn't break, and dealing with the gyro drift.
I had built a nice tilt mechanism in my last unit that completely supported the weight of the camera so that the weight wasn't on the servo, so I knew I had to go with that (or something similar). I sat down with all my parts that I had collected (and not broken) and put together a new system from my spare parts. No new parts were purchased this time (except a few dollars at the hobby shop for some extra wire, that doesn't count).
I went back to my original gyro/servo unit that I had tweaked to fit this application. I was able to fit it into the tilting camera mount perfectly
. Then I tucked the battery pack and controller mechanism under my seat with the wires daisy chained through the fairings so you don't see them. All you actually see is the camera mount and camera on the tail. With the Contour camera attached it's only 4" tall and 2" wide, so really, its not that much bigger then a normal camera. Ok, so maybe it is, but with everything else tucked away, its not that bad. No more screwing things into my sub-frame for support, the rear cowl is on and the bike is still poser worthy. So I had put everything on the bike, a little duct tape to hold things in place temporarily and a zip tie or two for safety in case it takes (another) leap of faith in front of (another) car. I have no idea how many times a Contour can get run over and still work, but I don't want to find out with my camera
So I get home from work today and figure "why wait until this weekend, its still early, let take this sucker for a test ride now". So I did, but I forgot to SECURELY mount the thing to the bike The camera didn't actually go anywhere, it just shook real bad (duct tape did its job). I had forgot to take some time and make sure it had a solid mount. I didn't realize this until I peeked back at the camera a few minutes into my ride just to see if it was still working. I saw it shaking real bad and realized what I had forgot to do. "F-it" I'm going to continue on and see if the thing stays put. I'm glad I did.
Even with all the shaking, the darn thing worked flawlessly!!! I have to warn you this video is hard to watch, but it does show that even with the whole unit shaking pretty bad, the gyro worked about as good as I imagined.
[youtube]OBFXHdEHJZU[/youtube]
Honestly, I couldn't be happier with how it performed. It worked exactly how I wished it would, I just need to remember to secure it properly to the bike.
So after I got home, I took everything back off the bike. I knew that since, in its current state, everything worked mechanically. All I needed to do was figure out a good way to securely mount it to the bike. I know that I will never get a perfect picture as the tail of a sport bike is about the worst place to put a camera for a smooth picture, but that's just the way it is. I had found an extra piece of ABS that I used to put together the tilt mechanism and I drilled a few more holes and attached it to the bottom of the camera mount. The gave me a flat surface to attach to the bike. A few pieces of 3M double sided tape AND duct tape (with zip ties for good measure) and this sucker is much more secure then it was before.
I'm out of town on Saturday but I will take this for a spin again Sunday and hopefully have a more watchable video. (got to remember to change the batteries
).
llenta
Professional Newbie
I took the camera set-up for another test today. I remembered to have everthing secure really well and that there were fresh batteries in the unit and in the Contour. All looked well and I got some decent footage. The only thing I forgot to do was empty space on the camera's memory card 
Oh, well, I shot for about half the day and got enough video to know that, for the most part, it works.
I put together some clips for you guys here. Nothing crazy, its all at posted speed so there is nothing crazy. Don't get your hopes up.
[youtube]BnpbyRm4mHE[/youtube]
Some parts of the video came out real smooth and some had more vibration. Obviously some parts of the road are smoother then others. But for a camera mount that supposed to move by nature, keeping the camera still while moving it at the same time doesn't always go so well. I think I can still tweek it a little bit, but I think for the most part this set-up is almost ready for some track time. The track will be smoother then most of our public roads anyway, so no worries there.
I guess I need to start checking my schedule for next track day. I'll try to get the camera out and take some pictures of the unit on the bike because I forgot to do that when I put it together.
Oh, well, I shot for about half the day and got enough video to know that, for the most part, it works.I put together some clips for you guys here. Nothing crazy, its all at posted speed so there is nothing crazy. Don't get your hopes up.
[youtube]BnpbyRm4mHE[/youtube]
Some parts of the video came out real smooth and some had more vibration. Obviously some parts of the road are smoother then others. But for a camera mount that supposed to move by nature, keeping the camera still while moving it at the same time doesn't always go so well. I think I can still tweek it a little bit, but I think for the most part this set-up is almost ready for some track time. The track will be smoother then most of our public roads anyway, so no worries there.
I guess I need to start checking my schedule for next track day. I'll try to get the camera out and take some pictures of the unit on the bike because I forgot to do that when I put it together.
