Anti Vibration mount

[Crash]

That's a good idea balancing the motors and props. OK I have a prop balancer and that is no problem, but how do you balance a motor with out a strobe light?

Cheers

One way: http://www.mikrokopter.de/ucwiki/en/VibrationTest

The downside is that you need a Mikrokopter V1.3 FC or you will need to change some surface mount caps on the newer FCs.

I actually surprised that somebody hasn't already made an arduino board that drives an ESC and measures RPM, volts, amps, and vibration.

 

[RTRyder]

According to the tracking info, the ebay mount is at the local USPS sort facility which means I should have it in my hands either later today or tomorrow afternoon. Good timing as I just got the Droidworx Hexa sorted with the new motors, as soon as I have the mount I'll give it a go with the Canon Vixia and see if it works as advertised.

Even if it doesn't help the Vixia I'm hoping it will at least make the video from the SX 200 useable, the anti vibe feature of that camera isn't quite as shake prone as the Vixia is under the Hexa.

Ken

 

[Droider]

Hel fire is that the one you ordered from Israel?

If it is its take a while to get to youaint it?

 

[RTRyder]

Hel fire is that the one you ordered from Israel?

If it is its take a while to get to youaint it?

That would be the one and it just arrived, it shipped on 2/24. It and the Vixia are all mounted up on the Hexa, as soon as this little snow squall that's happening right now stops I'll go outside and give it a try.

Ken

 

[Droider]

So what are your first impressions? I was made aware of an app for the iPhone taht records vibration I just down loaded it and will give it a try soon.. Iposted so much this weekend I forget who made me aware of it.. Fox222 perhaps

 

[RTRyder]

So what are your first impressions? I was made aware of an app for the iPhone taht records vibration I just down loaded it and will give it a try soon.. Iposted so much this weekend I forget who made me aware of it.. Fox222 perhaps

Well, interestingly enough it actually does work, I was able to get decent useable video from the Vixia with it sitting on the anti-vibration mount. It's not perfect though, the way the mount is built is a channel of aluminum sandwiching 4 doughnuts of a very soft rubbery foam like material between itself and a flat piece of steel that bolts to the platform. Problem is the foam material is a little TOO soft and the camera has a tendency to flop sideways a bit when there's any amount of lateral force happening. Not that much of a lean, but enough that it's noticeable in the video.

The fact that it does work has me encouraged that it is a solvable problem and I'm looking at it from that perspective it was worth the $24 or whatever it was I paid to have this as a testbed for building another anti-vibration mount that will do the job I need it to. I've got a couple ideas that were formulating when I ordered this mount and now all I need to do is gather some materials and spend a little time on the mill making some parts to build it out of.

Ken

 

[Droider]

Good.. glad the find has spurred you on

I got some of that Align jelly and have cut it in to blocks for the bottom of Nex5. I shot some video early morning yesterday of flowers and frosty grass in my local park and the video look brill.. no vibe but I had not really noticed any on the Nex5 any how..

 

[RTRyder]

Good.. glad the find has spurred you on

I got some of that Align jelly and have cut it in to blocks for the bottom of Nex5. I shot some video early morning yesterday of flowers and frosty grass in my local park and the video look brill.. no vibe but I had not really noticed any on the Nex5 any how..

I made a mod to the mount last night and it helped with the sideways sway so I then took it a step further though I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see what, if any, difference that will make. If it does what I think it may, then this mount may be useful for flight video after all. Basically what I did yesterday was fill the doughnut holes with quick setting RTV and that firmed up the support without adding any vibes back into the video. After today's test flight I added more RTV to the sides of the dougnuts to hold them firm against the mount plate and hopefully stop the sidways flex without adding vibration back into the equation. If that works then I'll use this mount for now, if not I know what I'm going to build to replace it that should do the job.

One thing I noticed, the Vixia video looks absolutely stunning on the camera display screen and played back on a TV monitor, rendering it into a computer suitable format with any of the software I currently have on hand makes it look no better than what I get from the GoPro with the Sunex lens. My conclusion is that if I use the Vixia for flight video it needs to be kept in the native format for viewing on NTSC devices, or I'm probably going to need some expensive video editing software to preserve the quality of the recording while rendering it into lesser formats.

Ken

 

[Droider]

Now, post flight processing is a TOTALLY new ball game.. You cannot expect the quality of the camera to be fully exploited by a freebee or a two bob software. If you are PC based then Adobe Premier is the industry standard, Mac based its Finalcut.

Looking at your stuff on the TV is always better than a computer screen coz thats the way the cameras are designed, for the punter to play his family sunday afternoon tea footage back as they are eating the cakes! Even when edited in Final Cut my stuff always looks better on the TV or a projector. Unless you have a full BBC editing suite always check it out on the TV! Some computers if they are older PCstuff just cannot handle the refresh rates required to see just how good the footage is....

Ahh shut up dave!

I am sure that will open the flood gates for criticism but thats the fact of the matter.

 

[RTRyder]

Now, post flight processing is a TOTALLY new ball game.. You cannot expect the quality of the camera to be fully exploited by a freebee or a two bob software. If you are PC based then Adobe Premier is the industry standard, Mac based its Finalcut.

Looking at your stuff on the TV is always better than a computer screen coz thats the way the cameras are designed, for the punter to play his family sunday afternoon tea footage back as they are eating the cakes! Even when edited in Final Cut my stuff always looks better on the TV or a projector. Unless you have a full BBC editing suite always check it out on the TV! Some computers if they are older PCstuff just cannot handle the refresh rates required to see just how good the footage is....

Ahh shut up dave!

I am sure that will open the flood gates for criticism but thats the fact of the matter.

I've pretty much come to the same conclusions, the inexpensive software I currently have makes low quality formats look better but higher quality formats look worse, you get what you pay for! The only exception is my purpose built desktop computer with the high end GeForce graphics card and 22 inch flat screen monitor, almost everything looks good on that! The true test is to copy it over to this laptop and then watch, if it looks good here it's acceptable, if not it goes in the bit bucket.

I have to say I'm not a huge fan of Adobe software so I don't know what direction I'm going to take at the moment. My ultimate goal is the same as DennyR, to not need to post process or at least keep it to the bare minimum, and thus my quest for ridding the recordings of vibration and the ultimate in smooth camera mounts, though I'm beginning to think 99% of everything available for hobby use is below the capability of what I'm after. I guess that means it's time to clear off the workbench in the garage, stock up on materials, and get to work on the machine tools. If no one sells what you want, make it yourself!

Ken

 

[Redhotpearl]

Ken you are right, no one makes the mount we all want yet. I've had very good experiences with Sony Vegas 10 editing software. I'm currently using a crap software and like you said it def. degrades the video from the camera. Sony Vegas did not do this, I'm about to get it again, I was using the month trial but that is over and I guess I'm gonna have to bite the bullet. It's pretty easy to use too...well at least easy to edit, I've not messed with all the bells and whistles yet.

 

[williamroy]

Anti-vibration mount are designed to reduce the noise level from the vibration of machinery and equipment. They are attached with the help of using big bolts and they are usually fixed under the machine. They absorb the vibration produced in equipment, thereby minimizing the effect of the running engine and friction and reduce to smooth humming.