Masthead GoPro project

[Rumrace]

Raspberry pi which has two awesome camera ports.
I also 3D print a water proof to one atmosphere raspberry pi housing.
I print a two servo 350 degree rotation 140 degree aim Pi camera holder. As Raspberry pi camera took the best quality photo ever of the moon from an earth based camera.
I tried to film us sailing with a drone. They sink fast.

[Rumrace]

6mm 4 pin 3.5V stepper motors I used
Smoother than the 90 servo.

Chassis and housing with cell device.

[markxengineerin]

Brief update: the system is working fully through 75 foot cables, and they're routed through the mast. I learned that removing the battery from the GoPro helps it run cooler, and allows the addition of heat sinks without exceeding the allowable payload of the gimbal. I got a 9" diameter Lexan dome to protect the gimbal and camera, and a few 5V fans to provide cooling (and maybe help evaporate condensation?). Next step is to finish the rest of the mounting system. It's challenging to find a spot that minimizes interference with the wind indicators and the mast head light, but I think I found a decent one. The pictures below are not actual locations, just showing the stuff.

[markxengineerin]

[markxengineerin]

The fans+heatsinks+permanent battery removal totally solved the overheating issue, running 30 degrees cooler.

Everything is mounted and working except 1 remaining issue: the HDMI output cable is too stiff, shown in the photo exiting out the top. The cable stiffness is interfering with the full motion of the gimbal, no matter where I route and fasten it, I can't find a spot that's good for unobstructed full motion of all axes. The axis motors are weak and the thing shuts off if it's forced to strain at all. Looking for ideas... I'm already using the most appropriate cable I can find: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07TJJ7L2G...roduct_details
All I can think of at the moment is to make the cable longer so that it's less rigid, but there isn't any room in the enclosure to take advantage of extra length.
In the worst case scenario, I can either limit the rotation to just the front half of the surroundings, or use the wireless "preview" function of the gopro (no cable needed), but the picture quality is crap, and I have a lot of effort into getting every other part of the 1080p HDMI out working, so must find a way!

All other cables are factory routed through the gimbal itself, so they're non issues, but they never intended for HDMI out to be used with gimbal, so external it must be.

[thesaltytar]

Can you induce some hysteresis into the HDMI cable jacket by wrapping it around a rod and hitting it with a heat gun? Maybe give it some memory to behave like a corded phone? That should give you some reach and minimize internal clutter.

[thesaltytar]

Duttek 4K HDMI Cable, HDMI to HDMI Cable, Extreme Thin Right Angled HDMI Male to Male Extender Coiled Cable for 3D and 4K Ultra HD TV Stick HDMI 2.0 Cord Extension Converter(HDMI Extender) (1.2M/4FT) https://a.co/d/ckqaqpo

Looks like they make something like this.

[markxengineerin]

Interesting, thanks. I think it would need to be just as thin and lightweight as this 2mm cable, but also coiled and with micro hdmi on one end. I will play around with trying to coil what I have and see what happens.

[thesaltytar]

Are you running any software for this? Or do you just plug into your HDMI in port and the monitor displays it automatically?

[markxengineerin]

No software yet. I have plugged the HDMI directly into a TV, and also used a capture card on my laptop. Both work well, as would any monitor, I think.

Longer term plans are to try to detect traffic and set an alarm off, and I'm not sure what software or hardware that will involve yet.

[TiPegleg]

Pass the HDMI over Ethernet with a converter.

1080P HDMI Extender Over Cat5E/6 | Supports EDID Copy, Deep Color, Dolby Digital/DTS by J-Tech Digital https://a.co/d/8Wbaun7

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Montanan

The eye in the sky concept is interesting.

An issue with a revolving camera is the HDMI cable will wind and twist hence making either data or power transmission a huge problem.

One would need to derive signal and power transmission either by wifi or by revolving slide mercury [liquid conductor] contacts or wear prone sliding brush contactors.

Recommend that you just simplify the system to use several fixed cameras each covering a scope of the field of vision and then just cycle through each as a data source with selectivity as to just watching one and zooming in or out.

All the best.

Conceptually the better solution. Or just buy a radar.

[markxengineerin]

The HDMI to ethernet converter seems to do about the same thing as the HDMI to SDI converter that I used, for around the same price.

I have a radar and will use it, but I think the camera is going to be a lot better for most daylight situations.

The "cable twisting problem" has been fully solved. I will be launching the boat in about a month and testing the system for real. I will take some video with and without the gimbal stabilization. Multiple cameras is definitely another solution to look at, but they won't be gimbaled like this one is, at least not without wasting a ton of space and adding severely too much complexity. It was hard to pull it off with just 1 camera. If the gimbal turns out to be helpful, I will have made the right call. If it's useless, well, now you know.

[markxengineerin]

Someone asked about the solution to the cable issue: it was all about getting the right length, zip tying in the right spot (on top of gimbal, you can see the red zip tie), and getting the mass balance perfect. That's what the coins are glued on for.

View from the back, roof off:


With this, >180 degrees of swivel in both directions is now possible on the pan axis that was having issues before. The other axes were/are fine as well.

Testing on water should be in about 2 months

[markxengineerin]

It works, both the "preview" through Iphone and the high definition output to my tv through the SDI cable. I am having an issue where the gimbal (which powers the camera too) shuts off sometimes when I try to pan the view. I didn't see this at all during my testing on land, and think it might be related to voltage drop and the freezing cold temperatures I'm in right now. If the problem doesn't go away in normal temperatures, I will have to figure out a way to boost the voltage, while still allowing the power to the camera to come through the Gimbal. This is necessary so that it can be turned on/off remotely and also to avoid any additional wires to the camera (which the gimbal will struggle to move). I don't have any cool footage yet because of other priorities, but here's a quick view of the low quality phone "preview" that comes in wirelessly:


I also don't like the top of the view getting cut off by the housing lid (I used aluminum sheet metal thinking it was smart to block UV) and the bottom of the view is cut off by where i mounted the cooling fans. I can just see the bow, but would like to be able to see more of the sails and deck. These things could be fixed in a future iteration.