camera pan tilt head

hi guys, im hoping for a little guidance/help if someone can at all.

i would like to control 2 motors one for forward and backward and another for left and right, i would also like to have a single pot that can change the speed one for each

i am hoping to be able to control this with a single analogue joystick or similar.

can anyone help?

Kind Regards

Marc

What sort of motor?

something strong and that can go either direction easily, like a larger stepper or poss a dc ? am sure about the dc as dont know the capabilities of them

Start with servos. There's a lot available in different sizes to suit the (unspecified) weight of your camera.

Brushless gimbal motors are another possible option but they are a lot trickier to drive properly. Either you need a complex driver module off-the-shelf or you need some real electrical engineering understanding.

got ya,

one other thing that i didnt mention before was that i would like it to be able to go a full 360 on both axis,

camera lens and platform is going to be somewhere in the region of 3.5 - 5kg max, however this is fully supported as part of the frame

It all depends on balance...
If you can balance the cameras centre of gravity correctly then only a small motor is needed.

In the attached image is a pan/tilt camera head and I have circled the tilt motor for you to show how small it is. As the image says it will drive a (properly balanced) 22kg load.
The motor is a Maxon 12V DC (40mm diameter x 45mm long) and drives through a small reduction gearbox.

the frame and balance part, i pretty much already have, i just need to stawrt adding the electronics to it now

are there any recomended posts on using the 2 ( joystick and dc gear motors )

im just stuck on finding how to get the joystick to control the 2 axis

any links or good reads you can suggest?

marcjwebb:
got ya,

one other thing that i didnt mention before was that i would like it to be able to go a full 360 on both axis,

Model servos that do this are available.
Not continuous rotation though once you reach limit you have to go backwards to continue in the same direction.
Have to any way to unwind the camera cable.
There are servo driver routines in the arduino library.

The rest is just learning to programme although a search may find someone who has done it before.

Yeah from what I can see I am gonna have to go hard here with the code.

I can price together parts separately but converting the analogue reading from the joystick to then turn the motor into movements the bit I seem to be struggling with

marcjwebb:
Yeah from what I can see I am gonna have to go hard here with the code.

I can price together parts separately but converting the analogue reading from the joystick to then turn the motor into movements the bit I seem to be struggling with

Others have done similar , the forum search does not work well, anything more than one word ime.

Try using google with "arduino forum" plus what you are looking for.

Here is a post on the Moteino forum that might help you a little.

Pan/tilt cam setups using servos are fairly simple to make. The "knob" servo example in the arduino IDE is a place to start. One issue that comes up often is that the person wants the cam to stay in position when the joystick is released and returns to the neutral position. Below are some previous discussions concerning servo pan/tilt setups.

https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=joystick+servo&btnG=search&domains=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.arduino.cc&sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.arduino.cc&gws_rd=ssl

Wicked. Thanks for the link. I'll have a rwad

The only problem from what I have read so far is the when I let go of the joystick the servos jump back to centre. And that something I don't want. I need it to be able to just stop and then carry on once I move the joystick again.

marcjwebb:
The only problem from what I have read so far is the when I let go of the joystick the servos jump back to centre. And that something I don't want. I need it to be able to just stop and then carry on once I move the joystick again.

You should find some possible solutions in the listing of previous post. As I previously mentioned, the spring return is a typical issue.