Kite aerial photography rig

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montagdude
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:04 pm

Kite aerial photography rig

Post by montagdude »

I used FreeCAD to design this frame for kite aerial photography. It will be radio controlled, with tilt, pan, shutter control, and video downlink. The wood parts will be laser cut. The whole thing hangs from the string about 50 - 200 ft down the line from the kite. The cross on top is for creating a "picavet" suspension, a self-leveling arrangement. I also used a FreeCAD macro to estimate the weight and center of mass, which is represented by the black point a little bit above the main camera. That's important, because it's necessary to make sure the whole thing can be balanced along the pan axis.

I'll post updates once I get it built and flying.
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joachim520
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Re: Kite aerial photography rig

Post by joachim520 »

That's really cool!
Will love to see it when made.
Joachim520
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Kunda1
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Re: Kite aerial photography rig

Post by Kunda1 »

joachim520 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 1:56 pm That's really cool!
Will love to see it when made.
Agreed.

An aside @joachim520, please remove your FC version from your signature per our forum guidelines (since a signature is dynamic it could potentially confuse users looking at your older posts)
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joachim520
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Re: Kite aerial photography rig

Post by joachim520 »

Kunda1 wrote: Tue Feb 23, 2021 2:28 pm please remove your FC version from your signature
Thank you for the notice, I should go over the guidelines more thorough
Joachim520
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montagdude
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:04 pm

Re: Kite aerial photography rig

Post by montagdude »

I got it built and had a chance to fly it. It works really well.

Operations overview:
phpBB [video]


Video downlink from the onboard FPV camera:
phpBB [video]


Some aerial photos:
Image

Image

Image

Some more information at the two links below:
https://somdkap.com/radio-controlled-rigs/
https://somdkap.com/2021/03/06/first-ka ... n-r-c-rig/
chrisb
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Re: Kite aerial photography rig

Post by chrisb »

Great project taking great pictures. The difference between the video and the uploaded images shows clearly the advantage of a higher quality camera.
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montagdude
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Re: Kite aerial photography rig

Post by montagdude »

Thanks, Chris. I have to say the CAD part of this was quite simple, but it still does its job effectively. One thing I like about this hobby is that it is DIY, but it can be as simple or complicated as you want it to be. Before this, I just used a rig with a fixed camera angle, and the camera took pictures automatically with an intervalometer.
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