Halteres and Video Vibration

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
I have a Foxtech V3. It's one of the smallest 1080P cameras on the market. It does amazingly well for it size. It's limited to only 30FPS at 1080P, but if you don't pan too quickly and ensure there's plenty of light, it compares well to the GoPro3 White Addition.

However, one of its 'issues', it being so small, is it's incredibly sensitive to higher mechanical vibrations. And as we all know, higher mechanical vibration translates to the notorious "jello effect".

I have a rather gangly and large wood quad, and have had issues with jello with my V3 for quite a while now. I've gone the whole route, prop balancing, bell balancing, foam, bubble wrap, and several other that didn't work quite as well.

I have also been experimenting with a downward looking mirror during FPV.

16onV3.jpg


And although the mirror would work in theory, I found it to be incredibly difficult to use in practice since everything is opposite to what I'm seeing as my 'main view'.

Moving on. . . I've since removed the mirror, giving in to the conclusion I simply couldn't master the concept. Once removed, the occasional jello returned. It was odd how much reduced the jello seemed with the mirror attached. This was strange, and I didn't make the connection for a week or so, but later I happened to recall an entomology course I had taken at university several years ago. Many flying insects have counterbalancing structures called halteres They are knob-like protuberances on stalks to help counterbalance and stabilize the wings in flight, not unlike a heli flybar.

crane-fly-halteres.jpg


I have since attached two skewers with small nuts on the end, and attached them to the floating enclosure I have for the V3. After several flights I have "tuned" (length of skewer, position, size of small nut, etc) my configuration for the 'sweetspot' of maximum vibration absorbtion and now have virtually no jello.

halteresmall.jpg


In conclusion, if anyone is having trouble ridding their multirotor of the last jiggles of jello, I would invite them to try it. :)
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
Good idea! That I haven't tried!

As I visualize the workings of the Halteres, you have balanced vibrations along the X axis once, along the Y axis once and along the Z axis twice. Adding another vertically might help reducing vibrations even more.
 

Craftydan

Hostage Taker of Quads
Staff member
Moderator
Mentor
Wow - it's like a high frequency steady cam!

With some good nylon thredded rod and 2 metal nuts you could really dial this in. Neat Idea!
 

FlyingMonkey

Bought Another Trailer
Staff member
Admin
THIS needs to be an article on the main site. What a great write up. I love the connection with natures solutions to engineering problems!
 

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
I thought I would do that, but I want to refine the physics a bit more and possibly work up some math. What have here is very crude.
 

FlyingMonkey

Bought Another Trailer
Staff member
Admin
Sounds great...

Just don't publish on a Monday or a Wednesday. Those darn Flite Test guys always publish on those days, and get all of the attention. :D