CarolusRex
Member
The short story about how to mount cameras:
To make a long story short a few general principles of mounting cameras that i learned from FPVing most of the 9 planes and 2 quads i got:
1. Mount the FPV camera forward and looking down a bit (gives you a much more enjoyable FPV experiance on airplanes). Use hot glue for mounting. Put tape on the airframe if you want to protect it from hot glue.
2. Mount the Go Pro using the original casing if possible. It protects it. If your purpose is taking pictures rather than long range flying the extra drag and weight does not matter. Mount it a few CM back onto the fuselage so it is not the first thing that hits the ground. 5 cm (2 inches) is enough on my wing. Usually the catastrophic crash damage does not go further back than so.
3. Mount mobius WITHOUT the original mount since it sucks balls. If you crash the camera flies into the ground i promise you this. Instead scratch the bottom of the camera with a knife or something to get the surface so something sticks to it. Put hot glue on it and ont he plane where you want to mount the camera and stick the parts together. I mount it on a piece of foam and it removes all jello. I use foam from a HK swift box i had laying around the foam piece is same size as the mobius and about 2 cm thick.
Now the long story:
I started flying with a Easystar 2 for FPV with a fixed 600 TVL fatshark camera and 250mW 5.8 GHz tx. I had the notion that the FPV camera should look straight ahead. I fixed it on the plane and actually it turned out it was tilted a bit up. Which actually ment a horrible FPV experiance. Altough i thought it was awsome at the time. Specially my first flight it felt so incredible.
After that i got a phantom quad. Damn it was so incredibly boring to fly. It felt like it was not moving at all. And FPV:ing with a quad was also horribly boring, incredibly short range also. I only got like 60-100 m. Yeah i know you can fiddle with stuff to improve the range. I did not want to it was a pain in the ass to fly. For this setup i used go pro hero 3+ silver edition as flight cam.
Then i got myself a skymule and a flying wing. I actually got the wing before the skymule. But i wanted something that could comfortably carry a go pro. Skymule was exactly that. Anyhow it was not until i moved the camera on my flying wing so it pointed downwards a bit that i got a truly enjoyable FPV experiance.
My tips on mounting FIXED FPV cameras from my experiance
Mount the FPV camera as far forward as possible (a tiny amount of fuselage is ok) also i recommend pointing it downwards. I never had problems with jello on my FPV cameras. Not on the wing, not on any of the aircraft actually. I never balanced a prop. The only craft i have had jello problems on is the Wing (mobius) and the Phantom (Go Pro hero 3+)
Do not mount the camera pointing straight forward, rather point it a bit downwards. Do not point the camera UP at all that is a big no no. Will make it incredibly hard to orientate yourself and land. Worst case you only see sky. Thats when your truly fuckced unless your a master of inverted flying. How to attach it ?
In the beginning out of respekt for the model and foolishness i used velcro. Velcro sucks for mounting cameras. I had to use tape too and that made it look like frankensteins monster anyhow. So now i just hot glue the camera to the fuselage. If you dont like to hot glue it directly you can coat the plane in packing tape and then hot glue the camera to that. Then it wont leave you with a "cavity" when you detatch the cam. In my case i dont care that much since i will just reattach another camera with hot glue. But tape on the fuselage as protection is good if you think you will move the camera to a different spot than you originally put it in.
My tips for mounting Fixed cameras for filming.
Of course it would be wounderful to have the the go pro mounted far forward on the craft. This can be achieved on wings and on airplanes. However i dont recommend "full frontal" mounting. This is simply so your camera wont be the first thing to hit the pawment. On my flying wing the camera is 5 cm back from the front of the wing. Still it does not show any part of the fuselage in the film. It is because its mounted a couple of cm up (one inch almost) from the fuselage (test it on your own to see how high up it needs to be). Anyhow on the popwing the mobius on it made the flight so much enjoyable. Perfect CG. I hotglued the mobius directly to the foam. The plastic of the mobius is "Fat" so it doesnt stick very well. I scratched the bottom surface of the cam to get it to stick. Its still easy to remove but sits hard enough to not detatch in a crash. I tried full frontall full trottle into the ground. Nothing happend to the mobius, or the battery or the FPV cam. When it comes to Go Pro i use the original waterproof case.
I mounted the Go Pro on the Phantom using the original case. I changed it to a more light weight skeleton case to increase flight time (no point since there is no noticable difference in flight time). If you increase the FPS you decrease the effect of jello. To do that you need either to lower the resolution to increase the FPS or buy a better camera. I lowerd the resolution on the Hero 3+ Silver. Jello disapered.
I mounted the Go Pro on the Sky scout behind the cockpit just infront of the wings in order to keep the CG on the right spot. It didnt become a enjoyable flying experience with the sky scout. You have to keep trottle high and trim it up so it flies straight and doesnt dive into the ground. I fixed the original go pro mount to a piece of foam on top of the fuselage as described. No jello or anything. It was horrible to fly tho (or so i thought then). I purchased a lighter mobius for use ont he sky scout. Never got around to use that as flight recorder on the sky scout. The original waterproof mount for the go pro also is a pretty solid caseing. This mounting solution also made me crash the skyscout, tip stalled and full frontaled into the ground. The camera flew off and bounced a few meters on the ground but nothing happend to it. After that i decided to use the original case on my airplanes and get a airplane that could comfortably carry it.
A note about go pro: They have this insanely priced mounting plates. Am i going to buy a bag of these plates for 30 euro or 40 dollars in the store ? No fucking way in hell im paying that. I only use the go pro for my planes. I think i got 2 mounting plates (one flat and one curved) with the go pro. I also got the "plate" it was mounted on in the package. That gives me 3 mounting plates. Do i have 3 planes that carry the go pro ? No. So i re used the mounting plate and hot glued it to the skymule. Worked like a charm. No jello. Yeah i left the original "sticky foam" under the mounting plate and put the hot glue on that before sticking it onto the plane.
Notes about mobius mounting: With the mobius i removed the original mobius mount. It is total crap. It is ment to slide out forward... so if you crash into something the camera is garanteed to smack into the pavement. So what ever you do do not use the original idiotic mobius mount on a plane without any modification. It will cost you in the first crash. The mobius i scratched the bottom put hot glue on the plane and hot glue on the mobius then stuck the parts together. I imagine they stuck better that way than when i just put glue on the airframe and stuck the mobius to it. Perhaps it had time to cool off a bit.
Skymule setup:
I love this twin engine craft it is so stable in the air and you dont feel the go pro on it. Cons: Possibly very expensive crashes or losses if i lose this setup.
Stocky V2 skymule (aparently it has bigger engines than the first version)
2700 mAh flight bat flight time approx 10 min with stock props
850 mAh 2S fpv bat
G-OSD
Go pro hero 3+ silver editon mounted just infront of the wings pointing a bit forward and down (not optimal alot of fuselage in picture i didnt want to mount it on the FPV pod and risk dropping it...)
Micro FPV cam on the nose with tape pointing forward (should be angled more down now that i have seen the wonders of that)
250mW 5.8 GHz VTX, with clovererleaf and fatshark v2 goggels range approx 1 km
Frsk receiver with range 1.5 km
Stock easystar 2 PNP (Hitec Skyscout)
Original folding prop
2200 mAh flight bat flight time about 30 min max
850 mAh 2S fpv bat
G-OSD
Fatshark 600 TVL FPV cam on the nose with tape pointing forward (should be angled more down now that i have seen the wonders of that)
250mW 5.8 GHz VTX, with clovererleaf and fatshark v2 goggels range approx 1 km
Frsk receiver with range 1.5 km
Stock popwing 900 mm ARF
I love this wing ! Flies like a dream and incredible FPV feeling when you fly it. Pros: Extremly nice and easy to carry. Extremly sturdy. Extremly easy to repair. Cons: Eats servos on crashes.
Prop 7x5 stock engine 1260 KV
3S 1200 mAh flight bat also used for FPV flight time approx 12 min at half trottle
No OSD
Mobius HD camera mounted on a piece of foam so it is above the battery mounted looking forward.
Fatshark 600TVL FPV cam mounted to the right of the battery pointing downwards and forward on the slanted portion of the wing edge.
250mW 5.8 GHz VTX, with clovererleaf and fatshark v2 goggels range approx 1 km
Frsk receiver with range 1.5 km
Flight time so far about 10-15 min with this setup.
Ill add pictures and some links to video later.
Carolus rex: ranting today instead of flying. Its a bit too windy now. I had to be "friendly" with the family when the flying weather was perfect. So no maiden today with my HK skipper.
My flight conditions:
I mostly fly in vinter time. On snow and Ice. I have actually not flown any of my current airplanes over "grass" or anything green for that matter. My "field" is a frozen lake. I walk with the plane or planes to the lake and handlaunch all of them except the skymule. Now im thinking i will get a bungy for the wing just to make it even easier to launch. Its not difficult but it takes some getting used to. But it truly flies like a dream now. I have modded the popwing so nothing is uncoverd of the electronics, the battery is moved to the top of the airframe and added a plastic covering to the bottom so the receiver and esc are protected from water, crashes and snow.
Please leave your comments and experiances of mounting. Im very curious to learn more
Carolus Rex - End of rant
To make a long story short a few general principles of mounting cameras that i learned from FPVing most of the 9 planes and 2 quads i got:
1. Mount the FPV camera forward and looking down a bit (gives you a much more enjoyable FPV experiance on airplanes). Use hot glue for mounting. Put tape on the airframe if you want to protect it from hot glue.
2. Mount the Go Pro using the original casing if possible. It protects it. If your purpose is taking pictures rather than long range flying the extra drag and weight does not matter. Mount it a few CM back onto the fuselage so it is not the first thing that hits the ground. 5 cm (2 inches) is enough on my wing. Usually the catastrophic crash damage does not go further back than so.
3. Mount mobius WITHOUT the original mount since it sucks balls. If you crash the camera flies into the ground i promise you this. Instead scratch the bottom of the camera with a knife or something to get the surface so something sticks to it. Put hot glue on it and ont he plane where you want to mount the camera and stick the parts together. I mount it on a piece of foam and it removes all jello. I use foam from a HK swift box i had laying around the foam piece is same size as the mobius and about 2 cm thick.
Now the long story:
I started flying with a Easystar 2 for FPV with a fixed 600 TVL fatshark camera and 250mW 5.8 GHz tx. I had the notion that the FPV camera should look straight ahead. I fixed it on the plane and actually it turned out it was tilted a bit up. Which actually ment a horrible FPV experiance. Altough i thought it was awsome at the time. Specially my first flight it felt so incredible.
After that i got a phantom quad. Damn it was so incredibly boring to fly. It felt like it was not moving at all. And FPV:ing with a quad was also horribly boring, incredibly short range also. I only got like 60-100 m. Yeah i know you can fiddle with stuff to improve the range. I did not want to it was a pain in the ass to fly. For this setup i used go pro hero 3+ silver edition as flight cam.
Then i got myself a skymule and a flying wing. I actually got the wing before the skymule. But i wanted something that could comfortably carry a go pro. Skymule was exactly that. Anyhow it was not until i moved the camera on my flying wing so it pointed downwards a bit that i got a truly enjoyable FPV experiance.
My tips on mounting FIXED FPV cameras from my experiance
Mount the FPV camera as far forward as possible (a tiny amount of fuselage is ok) also i recommend pointing it downwards. I never had problems with jello on my FPV cameras. Not on the wing, not on any of the aircraft actually. I never balanced a prop. The only craft i have had jello problems on is the Wing (mobius) and the Phantom (Go Pro hero 3+)
Do not mount the camera pointing straight forward, rather point it a bit downwards. Do not point the camera UP at all that is a big no no. Will make it incredibly hard to orientate yourself and land. Worst case you only see sky. Thats when your truly fuckced unless your a master of inverted flying. How to attach it ?
In the beginning out of respekt for the model and foolishness i used velcro. Velcro sucks for mounting cameras. I had to use tape too and that made it look like frankensteins monster anyhow. So now i just hot glue the camera to the fuselage. If you dont like to hot glue it directly you can coat the plane in packing tape and then hot glue the camera to that. Then it wont leave you with a "cavity" when you detatch the cam. In my case i dont care that much since i will just reattach another camera with hot glue. But tape on the fuselage as protection is good if you think you will move the camera to a different spot than you originally put it in.
My tips for mounting Fixed cameras for filming.
Of course it would be wounderful to have the the go pro mounted far forward on the craft. This can be achieved on wings and on airplanes. However i dont recommend "full frontal" mounting. This is simply so your camera wont be the first thing to hit the pawment. On my flying wing the camera is 5 cm back from the front of the wing. Still it does not show any part of the fuselage in the film. It is because its mounted a couple of cm up (one inch almost) from the fuselage (test it on your own to see how high up it needs to be). Anyhow on the popwing the mobius on it made the flight so much enjoyable. Perfect CG. I hotglued the mobius directly to the foam. The plastic of the mobius is "Fat" so it doesnt stick very well. I scratched the bottom surface of the cam to get it to stick. Its still easy to remove but sits hard enough to not detatch in a crash. I tried full frontall full trottle into the ground. Nothing happend to the mobius, or the battery or the FPV cam. When it comes to Go Pro i use the original waterproof case.
I mounted the Go Pro on the Phantom using the original case. I changed it to a more light weight skeleton case to increase flight time (no point since there is no noticable difference in flight time). If you increase the FPS you decrease the effect of jello. To do that you need either to lower the resolution to increase the FPS or buy a better camera. I lowerd the resolution on the Hero 3+ Silver. Jello disapered.
I mounted the Go Pro on the Sky scout behind the cockpit just infront of the wings in order to keep the CG on the right spot. It didnt become a enjoyable flying experience with the sky scout. You have to keep trottle high and trim it up so it flies straight and doesnt dive into the ground. I fixed the original go pro mount to a piece of foam on top of the fuselage as described. No jello or anything. It was horrible to fly tho (or so i thought then). I purchased a lighter mobius for use ont he sky scout. Never got around to use that as flight recorder on the sky scout. The original waterproof mount for the go pro also is a pretty solid caseing. This mounting solution also made me crash the skyscout, tip stalled and full frontaled into the ground. The camera flew off and bounced a few meters on the ground but nothing happend to it. After that i decided to use the original case on my airplanes and get a airplane that could comfortably carry it.
A note about go pro: They have this insanely priced mounting plates. Am i going to buy a bag of these plates for 30 euro or 40 dollars in the store ? No fucking way in hell im paying that. I only use the go pro for my planes. I think i got 2 mounting plates (one flat and one curved) with the go pro. I also got the "plate" it was mounted on in the package. That gives me 3 mounting plates. Do i have 3 planes that carry the go pro ? No. So i re used the mounting plate and hot glued it to the skymule. Worked like a charm. No jello. Yeah i left the original "sticky foam" under the mounting plate and put the hot glue on that before sticking it onto the plane.
Notes about mobius mounting: With the mobius i removed the original mobius mount. It is total crap. It is ment to slide out forward... so if you crash into something the camera is garanteed to smack into the pavement. So what ever you do do not use the original idiotic mobius mount on a plane without any modification. It will cost you in the first crash. The mobius i scratched the bottom put hot glue on the plane and hot glue on the mobius then stuck the parts together. I imagine they stuck better that way than when i just put glue on the airframe and stuck the mobius to it. Perhaps it had time to cool off a bit.
Skymule setup:
I love this twin engine craft it is so stable in the air and you dont feel the go pro on it. Cons: Possibly very expensive crashes or losses if i lose this setup.
Stocky V2 skymule (aparently it has bigger engines than the first version)
2700 mAh flight bat flight time approx 10 min with stock props
850 mAh 2S fpv bat
G-OSD
Go pro hero 3+ silver editon mounted just infront of the wings pointing a bit forward and down (not optimal alot of fuselage in picture i didnt want to mount it on the FPV pod and risk dropping it...)
Micro FPV cam on the nose with tape pointing forward (should be angled more down now that i have seen the wonders of that)
250mW 5.8 GHz VTX, with clovererleaf and fatshark v2 goggels range approx 1 km
Frsk receiver with range 1.5 km
Stock easystar 2 PNP (Hitec Skyscout)
Original folding prop
2200 mAh flight bat flight time about 30 min max
850 mAh 2S fpv bat
G-OSD
Fatshark 600 TVL FPV cam on the nose with tape pointing forward (should be angled more down now that i have seen the wonders of that)
250mW 5.8 GHz VTX, with clovererleaf and fatshark v2 goggels range approx 1 km
Frsk receiver with range 1.5 km
Stock popwing 900 mm ARF
I love this wing ! Flies like a dream and incredible FPV feeling when you fly it. Pros: Extremly nice and easy to carry. Extremly sturdy. Extremly easy to repair. Cons: Eats servos on crashes.
Prop 7x5 stock engine 1260 KV
3S 1200 mAh flight bat also used for FPV flight time approx 12 min at half trottle
No OSD
Mobius HD camera mounted on a piece of foam so it is above the battery mounted looking forward.
Fatshark 600TVL FPV cam mounted to the right of the battery pointing downwards and forward on the slanted portion of the wing edge.
250mW 5.8 GHz VTX, with clovererleaf and fatshark v2 goggels range approx 1 km
Frsk receiver with range 1.5 km
Flight time so far about 10-15 min with this setup.
Ill add pictures and some links to video later.
Carolus rex: ranting today instead of flying. Its a bit too windy now. I had to be "friendly" with the family when the flying weather was perfect. So no maiden today with my HK skipper.
My flight conditions:
I mostly fly in vinter time. On snow and Ice. I have actually not flown any of my current airplanes over "grass" or anything green for that matter. My "field" is a frozen lake. I walk with the plane or planes to the lake and handlaunch all of them except the skymule. Now im thinking i will get a bungy for the wing just to make it even easier to launch. Its not difficult but it takes some getting used to. But it truly flies like a dream now. I have modded the popwing so nothing is uncoverd of the electronics, the battery is moved to the top of the airframe and added a plastic covering to the bottom so the receiver and esc are protected from water, crashes and snow.
Please leave your comments and experiances of mounting. Im very curious to learn more
Carolus Rex - End of rant
