Onboard Cameras ?

[SteveAndBelle]

Hi,

I'm only new to all this but the 'RC bug' has hit VERY hard since I first pulled the trigger on my DF-02 chassis Tamiya in mid February this year (yes, only three months ago). It's now loaded up with alloy parts, has huge wheels & tyres and a MambaMax 5700 package so it absolutely flies. It also hits things very hard too which is why it spends most of its time on the workbench getting new tougher parts made for it and only a day or two here and there out getting thrashed around on and off the road before I write it off again ;) Brilliantly fun stuff though.

Anyhoo, when I bought the car I also bought a small wireless camera setup as I really wanted to get some good onboard footage of it as it flew across parks & footpaths and over jumps etc. If it didn't work out that was fine too as I've got plenty of uses for a small wireless camera (insert evil laugh) but I ended up getting one of these (http://www.jaycar.com.au/ShowLargephoto.asp?id=9842&IMAGE=) setups from a local electronics shop. The camera is the perfect size for this kind of thing as it's only about half an inch across, a couple of inches long and has its own built-in rechargeable battery to boot ! The receiver just plugs into a USB port and records direct to your hard drive in AVI format. Perfect !

Well, the camera itself works OK. The range is limited but I was prepared for that. I was also prepared to get a fair amount of interference too as I know it's not an expensive camera nor is it high quality but that was all OK ... just as long as I could make out that I was on a road & not inside a darkened room I was fine with that. I used double-sided tape to attach it to various places on the car and managed to get some great shots when it was stationary and even when it was moving slowly however as soon as you pull the trigger to get some real speed it's basically useless as there is far too much interference.

I'm guessing this is from the RFI created by the motor (especially because it's a brushless setup) and possibly also a bit from the fact that the camera probably isn't supposed to be vibrated, bumped, shocked & thrown around that much so what do other people use to get decent onboard footage on their 1/10th cars (or any other scale for that matter) ?

I'm done a couple of basic searches on this site and can't find much about how others have done this but I do know there are some amazing onboard videos so someone has come up with some kind of way to do it properly ... so please let me and everyone else know how to do it too !

I was contemplating buying a cheap $150 digital camera with movie mode to record direct to SD Card but they're just too big & bulky to be strapping onto the top of the car ... or maybe they're not, I just don't know. I'm even prepared to rip a cheap camera apart and separate the pickup from the rest of the camera so I could keep all the 'electronics' in one box under the shell and just have the lens and the sensor mounted somewhere on the shell. Not sure if that's really possible or practical until I actually get a camera and rip it apart.

I think I'm after something sleek & lightweight but not neccessarily wireless so if anyone's got any ideas or links to what other people have done (including any nice videos you know of ) please bring it on !

[rocknbil]

Here ya go Steve, Sportwerk Mayhem Buggy Cam (http://forums.radiocontrolzone.com/showthread.php?t=215126). These were shot with a lesser cam than yours, scroll down to the heli cam post too.

The 2.4 Ghz one you have is a bit better, but the glitches and wavy video is a result of the CMOS, not a whole lot you can do about it except get a better camera. I spent weeks trying all sorts of things to isolate the interference and no go.

High Flying BCX (http://www.rc-resources.com/images/testvid/high_flying.wmv) - higher than a BCX should be allowed to go. :D
Details on setup here (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=495088)

Lots of guys have been having good success with a different version of the same CMOS, but with a memory stick, look around and you should find them. The downside is you don't get a remote monitor. One of the projects on my list :rolleyes: is the unit you have has DIP switches in the back for up to 4 cams, with an auto-rotate between the 4 channels - mount one on the hat and two on the heli. :D

[SteveAndBelle]

Thanks Rocknbil, that's all very impressive indeed. I'm amazed those cheapie cameras con do such a good job on your heli ! Well done.

Seeing proof that the cheaper cameras can do that I decided to investigate what the problem could be with the setup I bought so last night I ripped open the camera and checked it all out. It's all really well designed inside, all nice & compact HOWEVER there's absolutely no shielding ! The tiny case is plastic and there's no metal covering any of the PCB's so no wonder it's being overrun by interference when the motor is running. Add to that the fact that the antenna is about an inch long and runs horizontal to the ground when on the car and I'm guessing this could also be a contributing factor too.

Silly me then remembered that I had snapped up a bit of a bargain last year in the form of several wireless colour security cameras. They had been drastically reduced from their ridiculous original RRP of $199 (which no-one in their right mind would pay) down to a very cool $8.00 each on clearance ... and no, that's not a typo ! I bought one to test it out as they were actually an optional add-on part of a larger system sold through an eletronics retailer and I wasn't sure if they would work with the 2.4GHz receiver I bought with the tiny camera above. Well, they didn't work in any other transmit/receive channel combination except for one but when I discovered that combo I was amazed at how good the PQ was ! I decided to go all out and snap up all the old stock from all the stores in my local area and ended up with 12 of them :) Lucky me. I packed them all away with all my other surplus bargain electronc bits and pieces I've managed to pick up over the years and nearly forgot about them ... until now :)

I pulled one apart last night to see what made them tick. They're an older design and aren't anywhere near as small as the tiny one I bought in the pack above however they still work very well so I might look into decontstructing them, boxing them up in slimmer cases and testing them out on the car.

I'm at work at the moment so I dont' have any pics with me however here's a basic description of what they're like. The camera is on it's own small-ish PCB (approx 1 x 2") that talks to the main transmitter PCB via individual wires which are all labelled accordingly on one of the PCB's (Power, Video, Audio and IR LEDs even though the LED's aren't actually mounted on the camera PCB ... but who cares :). The transmitter PCB is large (about 4 x 4") which is a bit of a hassle but it includes a fully shielded transmitter module plus a few external voltage regulator components which are rated for 12V input so I should be able to connect this direct up to the main car pack without too many problems. The 5V voltage regulator also has a bit of filtering too in the form of a small electrolytic capacitor so that's a nice bonus :) The transmitter PCB also has power & channel switches on it plus an antenna wire comes out the side of the transmitter module and goes to one of those flat semi-directional antennas about 3 x 3" in size.

So, it's not a small device but it's VERY lightweight and I'd say it should be OK to use on the car as it's so very well shielded. I'll re-box the camera into its own tiny enclosure and I'll do the same for the transmitter PCB linking the two with a short milticore cable. This will allow me to put the camera box in one place and the transmitter in another however I'd say going by the size of the transmiter PCB the only place for it might be to tuck it under the rear wing ... but that may also be the best place for it as I can then just poke a small unidirectional rubber-duck type antenna out the top of the slimline box for it to beam its signal to the receiver ... or I could just use a piece of wire so when the car slides across the ground on it's lid I wont wreck a good antenna :)

So, that's as far as I've got with it but my head's now full of ideas for this. I'll lety ou know how I go.

[Endurance]

Camera, head mount display, head tracker, steering wheel and pedals...

http://www.endurance-rc.com/realdriver.html
http://www.endurance-rc.com/driver_log.html