maandag 10 februari 2014

Arduino Pan & Tilt with Wii Nunchuk - hardware


I made this pan & tilt system to control the movement of a DSLR Camera or a video camera. Its purpose was to make it strong enough to hold any camera including a large lens. It can be mounted on a standard tripod and can hold any camera that supports a standard tripod connector.
Mancave article


The servo's are driven by an Arduino mini and I added a Wii Nunchuk controller so the camera follows the movement of your hand. I wrote an Arduino sketch that drives the servos by using the joystick or by using the internal movement sensors of the Nunchuk.

This video shows some tests I did mounting all kinds of equipment. The purpose was to see if these servos can really take a lot of weight.

Well, they can !



The servo's (Tower Pro MG995 - link is in dutch) are the powerful kind you find online for really low prices. I did this test some time ago to check if they can really take the 13 to 15 kg cm troque that the supplier claims. It's not an accurate test, but I calculated that it should at least hold a bucket of water (10 kg) on a lever of 1 cm.




The construction itself is a bit of a DIY job using two servo's, a bracket set (the black parts) that I bought online, some metal and screws and a part of an external video lamp that I didn't use anymore.

This is the part where you connect your photo or video equipment on top and slide it back and forth.


The hardware is pretty straight-forward. I use an Arduino mini only because it was available, but any Arduino will do. Actually, it made it a bit more complicated because I need 3.3V on the Nunchuk, which the mini doesn't supply (I had a 5V version). That's why I added an external resistor and a 3.3V zener diode. When using a regular Arduino, you can skip this and just use the 3.3V power from the Arduino pin.

The only tricky part was connecting the Nunchuk to the board, but this type of experiment board has these vertical pads at the end which you can shape an solder just the way you want. Cutting the wires of your Nunchuk is also an option, as is using this seperate Nunchuck Arduino Adapter by Sparkfun.

This is the layout I used to connect the parts. It's important to check that pins AD4 and AD5 (analog pins 4 & 5) are used by the I2C interface of the Arduino. The Wii Nunchuk uses this interface, so you don't have any choice there. Pins 3 and 5 were used to drive the servos, but any pin can do that job if you alter the sketch on the next page.


I'm using battery power of 7.2V for the servo's and for the 9V connector of the Arduino. Be sure never to connect the power lines of the servo's to the 5V regulator of an Arduino, it will be toasted!

Next: the software page

6 opmerkingen:

  1. Hello. Nice work.
    Could you please send me the arduino code.
    Regards
    Marco
    quaresma.marco@gmail.com

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  2. Hello please the code, fernandomolleja@gmail.com saludos desde Venezuela!

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  3. hello i really like this and i would like to try it, can you please send me the arduino codes.
    o.constant.mofford@gmail.com
    cheers.

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  4. vorrei solo il link per comprarlo assemblato o da assemblare cioè 2 servi e le relative staffe. grazie sigfrid883@gmail.com

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  5. could you send me the code?
    moll1500@nhl.nl

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  6. Hi guys, for those of you who did not find the code yet, it's right here on the software page of this article: http://www.jangeox.be/2014/02/arduino-pan-tilt-with-wii-nunchuk_11.html

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