Mounting a Fat Shark Camera

stevevm

Junior Member
I recently got the Fat Shark Predator kit from HK and am looking for a good way to mount the camera on my 2.5 tricopter. The problem is that the Fat Shark camera does not seem to have any obvious mounting hardware. I currently have it sitting on some bubble wrap and have it pull tied to the tricopter.

Long term i will switch between this camera and a gopro. The tricopter already has a gopro sticky mount on it and I would like to find a clean way to mount the Fat Shark camera using the gopro hardware.
 

FlyingMonkey

Bought Another Trailer
Staff member
Admin
I made a mounting plate with some light plywood. I drilled a hole the same size as the lens, and took the lens off, and threaded it back on through the hole in the plywood.
 

RoyBro

Senior Member
Mentor
I'm not familiar with the camera that comes with the Predators. A picture would be helpful.
 

FlyingMonkey

Bought Another Trailer
Staff member
Admin
fatshark-600tvl-cmos-front_1.jpg
 

stevevm

Junior Member
As you can see the camera doesn't have any holes or places to easily mount it. The only option seems to be a pull tie around the lens or a bit of double sided tape on the bottom (though the surface is not very large)
 

eagle4

Member
what about putting some paper clips through those little holes on the side and using that to tie it to a mounting plate. with a bit of velcro maybe, this should make a pretty sturdy bond i'd imagine.

i am getting my predator's hopefully this week (or next week) myself, so i'll have a better idea once i get it. if you work something out i'd love to see it
 

RoyBro

Senior Member
Mentor
Assuming the back is flat and has nothing that needs to be accessed, you can always get some 3M outdoor mounting tape and stick it on a piece of light ply larger than the camera. Then you can drill holes in the ply to mount it to the plane.

But I also like FM's method. Maybe he will post a picture of the mount.
 

eagle4

Member
I just came up with this simple backpack design. its really nothing flash, there is a U shape of foam at the front, i guess this would be better made from plywood. i have a verticle piece of popsicle stick behind the camera to wedge it in, and a horizontal piece at the front so i can wrap a rubber band around it. i placed two popsicle sticks under the whole backpack to add some rigidity. a small piece of velcro between the backpack and the transmitter, and a rubber band to hold the cables together. my plan is to velcro this to my plane and try to see if i can use a rubber band over the top to hold it all down.
fpv backpack.jpg
 
the easy solution (which i did) was to put some velcro on it. I just put velcro on the back of the camera and some velcro on my Easystar II and attached it. Then i used some tape to tape the cables to the cockpit so they wouldnt pull on the camera. Same way i attach the battery in the plane and the receiver in the plane. No need for any special mounts.

Edit: my transmitter is also mounted on the outside of the fuselage with velcro. The same kind used for batteries etc, that is with a "sticky side" that glues to the transmitter and one velcro side.

Edit2: using velcro to attach it to quads seems to be what they do on DJI phantom for instance. Just a piece of velcro on the phantom and one piece on the camera and you have instat camera mount without any special "building".
 
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Thanks flyingmonkey. I would like to do a scratchbuild for FPV myself. Something with more space in the fuselage than i have now. Im actually thinking of modifying my plane by removing part of the original fuselage (the front part) on my easystar II and replace it with a plastic bottle so it becomes more roomy and easy to access. Now its hell to put in stuff there. It barely fits now with the OSD and GPS even tho the GPS and videotransmitter is mounted outside the fuselage.

/Carolus Rex
 

Andre

Fly yes... land no.
Admin
I've lowered the camera after stuffing the plane into the snow :)
I felt it was interfering with the air flow but I'm also hoping to install my pan tilt setup once I get comfortable flying the plane.
 
After careful consideration i think i will just cut some foam off the front of my easystar and mount the go pro there. The fatshark i have mounted with velcro on the cockpit. So the gopro would be below it and infront it for a unobstructed view. Also mounted with velcro. I will make the mods to the plane today. It is too windy to fly now.. way to windy and has been so for a week or more. Like 10-15 m/s storm winds. During the weekend it was suposedly going to be calmer and colder. So with a bit of luck i can go FPV:ing then :). These mods should keep the plane pretty much "unmodified" when it comes to drag and so on. Many of the mounts i have seen so far must have pretty spectacular drag and thus shorting down the flight time because the engines have to fight to pull the plane forward. Imagine if your cross section of the plane hull seen from the front is 2 inches and you add something above the plane hull that is also 2 inches cross section then you have all of a sudden doubled the drag. Many people dont seem to think about that at all. But im sure it will not be good for flight caracteristics or battery time.
 

Andre

Fly yes... land no.
Admin
Having some fun with my Bixler 2 and FatShark hardware.

Pan/Tilt unit from FS and a spare cap for the Bixler
IMG_5059.JPG

I used magnets to lock the P/T unit in place. So I can move it from plane to plane.
IMG_5061.JPG

Results.
IMG_5068.JPG

If I have a chance I'll get some shorter wires to clean all of this up.
IMG_5069.JPG

I used a slow down function on the ER9X to reduce the fast move from left to right.