Navigation:

--Project Write-Up

--Completed Videos

--Future Revisions

--References

Physical Modifications to the Camera

For a full tutorial of how to physically crack the camera, see the following websites:

• http://www.gideontech.com/content/articles/285/1
• http://www.mrbill.net/cvscamera/

Before proceeding, pull out a multimeter and do a continuity check on all of the leads and their adjacent leads to make sure you havent crossed anything.

Software Cracking

In order to actually begin downloading the files via the USB cable/port, you will need the following files. NOTE: We won't link directly to the files; they can change around. This configuration worked fine for us. The files that we used are located here: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=145193.

• Camcorder Kit 21 - The Interface
• CVS Cam Quickinstall 2.13 - Installs the drivers properly

Testing the Camera

Now comes the time to test your work. Plug your camera into a USB port and cross your fingers. Hopefully Windows will reward you with a happy little jingle signifying that it recognized a new USB connection. Fire up Ops (after loading your cracking key - see cronus key readme) and open and unlock your camcorder. Success? If not, the camera hacking forum is a great place to go for questions/problems: http://camerahacks.10.forumer.com/index.php?c=5.

Once you have checked that everything is working correctly we need to test out the two leads that you soldered on. You may be wondering why we did this. The camera is normally powered by 2.5 - 3 volts of AA batteries contained in the battery pack. The camera has a one minute auto-shutoff feature: after a minute of inactivity it will automatically shut down. When supplied with five volts through the USB port, the camera will stay on indefinitely. Powering with five volts means no fumbling around with the power buttons to keep the camera working while you're setting up on the aircraft. We are unsure of the overvoltage limits on the camcorder, so be careful. Wire up a connector and a switch onto these two wires.

You will need a five volt battery of some sort. Our first version of this camera used four AAA batteries in a pack, but look around in any old electronics for some rechargeable batteries (cordless phones are usually a good place to look). Radio Control/Hobby Shops will also carry batteries that will work, though they may be expensive. Remember! It must put out 5 volts!

Another alternative is to use a 5 volt voltage regulator chip to bring the voltage down to a stable 5 volts from, say, a 9 volt battery.

Now we are ready to make the camera airplane ready.

Removing Unecessary Stuff

The first and most important part is weight and size reduction. I just went ahead and lopped off the entire battery compartment and battery circuitry. This circuitry isnt required since we are going to power the camera through the USB connection. There is a lot of extra circuity on the camera that isnt necessary for our application... a braver soul than I could remove circuit components if he wishes.

The entire enclosure is wholely unecessary at this point: pitch it into the nearest trash can. If you want you can keep it, but it is just dead weight.

Making the Camera Useful

Now, this camera has one issue: the camera is mounted perpendicular to the circuit board. We could mount the board vertically so that the camera is pointed straight ahead, but that would severely affect the airplane's performance. This leaves two options: mirror the camera or desolder it, attach it to a cable, and re-orient. The camera is mounted directly to the circuit board, and there is not a lot of margin for error when soldering leads with so much circuitry around... we decided to go with the mirror approach. The only down side to this is that the video comes out... mirrored. Left becomes right, right becomes left. An unfortunate side effect, but it is easily corrected with various software.

We found a small lightweight plastic tube that would fit over the camera to mount the mirror on. To be exact, the tube was the center of a roll of adding machine paper. The mirror has to be put at a 45° in order to change the direction of the picture 90°, so bust out a mitre box and start cutting the tube. You want to size it so that one edge of the cut is right at the level of the camera once it has been mounted, else you will see the tube in the video.

Next, cut a mirror to the proper size (be careful not to scratch the surface). Cut a hole into the side of the pipe so that the camera can actually see out. This will take some trial and error to get it fully right... Cut a hole, hold the mirror on, take a video, check the quality and repeat. If it isn't large enough, the outline of the pipe will show up in the video (see the test one video below). Next, cut a mirror to the proper size (be careful not to scratch the surface) and mount it to the pipe. Finally, mount this assembly on top of the camera, with the mirror oriented in the direction that you wish to take video. We used a hot glue gun, which worked well. Be careful not to heat everything up too much, and whatever you do... DO NOT get hot glue on the camera lens by accident.

Mounting on an Aircraft

Mounting this camera onto an airplane is fairly simple, but if it is done wrong then there will be catastrophic results. The camera must be mounted onto the airplane in such a way that the center of gravity does not change much. Find the center of gravity of your airplane by finding the point where the entire airplane can balance on your fingertip and place a mark exactly where it is. Next, mount the camera in such a way that when it is on the airplane, the center of gravity is very close to the original point. This can be done by mounting the camera and battery directly onto the center of gravity location OR spacing them out so that they balance each other out. Once you know how you are mounting the camera and the battery pack, wire on a connector onto the battery leads to connect to the camera. More on weight and balance here: www.auf.asn.au/groundschool/umodule9.html

Testing

Make sure the camera is running and do some glide tests to make sure she is working. Congratulations! You should now have a fully operational onboard video system

Test Video One - Short Glides

Initial tests to ensure that the aircraft and camera would fly and... survive. Short distance, low altitude, over grass. Success!

Test Video Two - Sweet Flights

Long distance test flights to check the gliding range. Fired off of a large hill, with excellent results!

Redesign the system for use with a wireless transmitter.

This will allow the system to be much more modular, and could be used as a towed drone, mounted on the sentry turret, or other applications.

Gimbal setup for larger aircraft mounts

Convert the sentry turret project to be a mount for this camera. Coupled with a wireless transmitter, it could be controlled from a remote location to view a location from a UAV.