Mobius Electronic Trigger

[KenJ]

Just received my wide angle Mobius the other day and have to say I'm quite impressed with the video quality. Haven't flown it yet, but using it as a car dash cam on the ground was very promising.

One question - has anyone come up with an electronic way to remotely trigger/stop a Mobius from recording? It could be configured to record on power up, and that it turn could be managed by a relay off one of the receiver channels. Apparently the best way to provide external power is with a separate battery/BCE though. Just wondered if there was a cleaner way.

 

[rallyman]

switch

Just received my wide angle Mobius the other day and have to say I'm quite impressed with the video quality. Haven't flown it yet, but using it as a car dash cam on the ground was very promising.

One question - has anyone come up with an electronic way to remotely trigger/stop a Mobius from recording? It could be configured to record on power up, and that it turn could be managed by a relay off one of the receiver channels. Apparently the best way to provide external power is with a separate battery/BCE though. Just wondered if there was a cleaner way.

I have a switch that is triggered by my receiver channel to turn my lights on and off - that should work - Dr Mad Thrust at Hobby King. Just a thought - why would you want to turn it off and on in the air?

 

[KenJ]

Ag

The camera will eventually be used for an agricultural survey mission. The photographic triggers would be built into the APM flightplan. It's not essential to have that capability, but would be nice to have.

 

[RoyBro]

So are you wanting to turn on/off the Mobius video? Or are you looking to trigger a still photograph at predefined intervals/locations?

 

[KenJ]

So are you wanting to turn on/off the Mobius video? Or are you looking to trigger a still photograph at predefined intervals/locations?

We would like to be able to start/stop a sequence of still photos.

 

[joshuabardwell]

If the Mobius supports time lapse, and it supports automatic beginning of record/photograph on power up, then you should be good to go. RC-controlled switch/relays are available in the range of $5 to $20, just use those search terms.

I have looked for a still camera that can be triggered to take shots using an RC remote, and haven't found a single thing. Most of that equipment is tailored for video, not stills. The closest I found was to use a small point-and-shoot and set up a servo to physically press the shutter release. If you have a camera that has an IR trigger, they also make IR emitters that can be triggered by an RC channel, but I think that is more for DSLRs that are way too big for most hobbyist craft.

 

[KenJ]

If the Mobius supports time lapse, and it supports automatic beginning of record/photograph on power up, then you should be good to go. RC-controlled switch/relays are available in the range of $5 to $20, just use those search terms.

I have looked for a still camera that can be triggered to take shots using an RC remote, and haven't found a single thing. Most of that equipment is tailored for video, not stills. The closest I found was to use a small point-and-shoot and set up a servo to physically press the shutter release. If you have a camera that has an IR trigger, they also make IR emitters that can be triggered by an RC channel, but I think that is more for DSLRs that are way too big for most hobbyist craft.

Yep - the Mobius does support programmable time lapse and start on powerup, so that is the backup plan. It gets a little tricky getting power to the camera as I've read that running the Moibus off the radio BEC isn't a good idea. That means taking power directly off the battery which takes another BEC to get to 5v for the camera. I've also seen IR setups for various cameras, but Mobius doesn't support that.

I have a 32GB microSD card, so capacity isn't an issue. The internal camera battery is supposed to be good for up to 45 minutes. If that tests true and I can't find an elegant solution I may just manually start recording before flight.

 

[KenJ]

Ordered a Turnigy On/Off switch, uBEC and battery cable splitter. Will see how that works out...

 

[walkmnan1269]

Mobius Power from Carcharger

Since I use 3 cell (11.1-12.60 volts) on everything I use the guts from dc usb car charger. I ditch the housing and I guess you could ditch the usb plug housing to save weight. The one I use has a tiny circuitboard much lighter than a speed controller. I soldered the 12v input to a JST style plug and connect to a one of my JST connector that are on my wire harness that I already have for lights or etc.

I have an Mobius On the Go cable that I can either use the USB style connector or flying leads to connect. I only use it if there's a concern that my battery is low so I don't have to use it. If I had a big enough heat shrink I wouldn't have used tape. I just need something the other day at Flitefest so I sacrificed one of my many car chargers.

Also keep in mind the mobius takes a few seconds to boot up so you would need to loiter at the waypoint to allow that to happen. The DC adapter cost $3-$5 if you shop around and gives 500ma to 1A depending on model you choose and it's 5.01 volts under a load very clean. I've heard of 5.3 volts damaging a mobuis. Shoot I usually have 2-3 floating around in whichever vehicle I'm driving.

 

[DrBones]

I wired my Mobius to my UBEC to power it. It can safely been done. Unfortunately, I can't find the link again. But somebody out there did some power tests on the Mobius and at max it draws 500mA (that with a depleted internal batter), which really isn't much.

 

[loethan]

Hi,
can't it work using the relay function of the APM,
and solder a derivation cable from the shutter button of the mobuis ?
you can configure the mobuis to take photos in red mode, maybe controlable this way.

i'd like to try to do survey mission too soon ^^