I want a video camera... [Archive]

MasterCrash

09-24-2006, 02:44 PM

something i could mount on a heli and plane. i have no experience with using them. but could you guys reccomend some?

Well I will assume you want a begginners amature setup like me due to the gobs of money it takes for a professional setup. :?:

To save Carpo-Tunnel Syndrome I will point you to my "Putfiles" website that is exclusively for my RC flying related videos/pictures and in your case you will benifiet from the still pictures on how I mounted the cam inside the Cappy of the chopper.
One change I made that YOU do not have to is;, I modefied the 9v battery supply to take a 6-volt "N" type battery to save weight http://f5.putfile.com/5/13321234535-thumb.jpg (http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=2598098) , It is a load of work and tinkering to bypass the power supply voltage regulator only to have a half once chopped off the over all weight of your craft and then to spend alot more money on those "N" type batteries is sort of dumb,, So I now mount the 9V square battery in the tail end and the camera mount unchanged, you will have to extend the wires that supply the 9 volts to the cam with a soldering iron and by all means sheild the wires from IF niose using tinfiol or better yet Netted wire sheild that you can buy from electronic shops. You must mount the battery in the back to compensate for weight distrubution. I also extended my cappy forward by one inch to accomidate my Geeky elect experiments, you may get by without doing that but I can't because, if my cam is less then 1-1/2 " from any of the chopper elects the image gets alot of interfeirence and is worthless, :shock: I also shoved a soft foamy typ material covered in tin fiol behind the cam to sheild it from radio interference, NOTE; If you see lines of distortion when your motor is running but no distortion when your motor is off, emmeadeatly suspect the tinfoil rubbing up against something metallic, THATS RIGHT!! Large surface area of metals contacting other metal objects creat a rapid change of resonent frequency environments around a radio transmitter giving a crunchy and scratchy sound to the TV receiver, I whent nuts trying to find a solid wire connection problem that did not exist!! It was the tinfoil rubbing up against the aluminum body of my chopper Check out the inflight videos, and take NOTE:
This is the cheapest way of in flight videos :wink: , bar none the quality is rock bottom in comparison, BUT!! It does the job real well for hobby uses and personal intrests in airiel videos. Notice in my Flying under the influence crash video the lines of distortion? These are due to my NOT checking the tuning knob on the TV reciever and recording this inflight crash a tad off frequency. AND I over compressed the original video cuasing a great loss in quality, the video "Loose Cannon" is a DVD quality 30 second video that looks good but you may have to download DIVx codec if you do not have a DVD player in your computer, that video is my first 3D attempt at getting inverted. The "Low Res" version is for people that have an older computer system and will play in those situations, though a bigger pic you can see the degration of quality in the old codecs.
Just because the vid looks bad on the internet doesn't meen it is bad, posting these videos efficiantly takes alot of tinkering and understanding of codecs versus 'average' user computer systems.
The camera is a 60 dollar special from Amazon books dot com, 1.2 Ghz is the frequency , I am leary of using Walmarts 2.4 Ghz wireless system due to my Spred Spektrum Radio system is 2.4 Ghz also, If you are using the 73 Mhz band radio system like most out here you will benefiet by the 2.4 GHz Tv system from Walmart granted it is 90 bucks BUT You do not have to "Tune" the receiver constantly like I do because it is Crystal controlled and locks onto the reciever frequency better than mine. The biggest head ake is recording devices, I use my laptop with a capture card $$$ to record these hideous flight misshaps, but a cheap VCR [45 bucks] would due just fine, the disadvantage is with the VCR what are you going to use for a monitor? A clumsy TV, a Sony Watchman [$$$] the computer laptop solves all of these problems but becaomes anal attentive to tinker with out in the feild wile your flying :arggg: :badair: , sometimes I bring a VCR tape recorder and a Sony Watchman and run it off of a Deep cycle Marine Battery using a 110 dc/ac inverter so I can just push RECORD and forget about computer drive space and memory running out. Her is the Link to the video/pix page. http://www.putfile.com/cowboy6591
Enjoy [I hope]
MasterCrash
AKA: Scott