Last Wednesday I prepared and attempted something that needs to go back to the drawing board for a minute. I have a DJI Phantom 3 Pro flying machine and I have a Ricoh Theta S 360 degree camera, so in my head I decided to combine the two. I have a 3D printed gimbal guard on between the landing gear legs which has rectangle holes going across it lengthwise. For the camera I have a tripod screw with a lanyard hook at the opposite end. I fed the lanyard hook through the hole in the gimbal guard and secured it with garden twist ties until it was solid. Then I went to the park, attached the camera, and took off.
My mistake...I didn't take into account the amount of vibration that would be going through the landing gear and the gimbal guard. While 90m/300ft in the air my 360 degree camera fell to the ground. I didn't notice it and continued to fly around the empty park until I looked back down at my tablet to the Phantom camera that was pointed straight down -- that is when I noticed the 360 camera was not longer attached. I landed and packed up the multi-rotor and scoured the field for hours trying to find it. Based on my flight path it could have landed in a pile of mulch or a 3 inch deep puddle without me noticing, but I still had hopes. After not finding it, and coming back a few hours later to try again, I posted on a Facebook group called Bunz (which is a bartering community) and within 28 minutes I was contacted by someone who's neighbour's daughter had found the camera earlier in the day. I was reunited with my camera that fell from 90m and it had almost no damage to it, just a slight nick at the top of one of the lenses.
My question for all of you guys who got this far...have you ever attached anything to your multi-rotor and how did you counteract the vibrations? I was thinking of using something like Loctite Blue or even just electrical tape around the screw mount to made it a more rubberized fit. This experience is exactly the reason that I don't fly when there are strangers mulling about the area and don't fly over anything that would suffer from something falling from the sky. Safety first! Now I have to learn from this and find a better way to mount my camera and give it another shot!
Here is the article in the local Metro newspaper:
Toronto drone flyer recovers lost camera thanks to Bunz Trading | Metro News
And here is one of the full 360 images taken while the camera was still in the air:
Post from RICOH THETA. (2016/04/21)
My mistake...I didn't take into account the amount of vibration that would be going through the landing gear and the gimbal guard. While 90m/300ft in the air my 360 degree camera fell to the ground. I didn't notice it and continued to fly around the empty park until I looked back down at my tablet to the Phantom camera that was pointed straight down -- that is when I noticed the 360 camera was not longer attached. I landed and packed up the multi-rotor and scoured the field for hours trying to find it. Based on my flight path it could have landed in a pile of mulch or a 3 inch deep puddle without me noticing, but I still had hopes. After not finding it, and coming back a few hours later to try again, I posted on a Facebook group called Bunz (which is a bartering community) and within 28 minutes I was contacted by someone who's neighbour's daughter had found the camera earlier in the day. I was reunited with my camera that fell from 90m and it had almost no damage to it, just a slight nick at the top of one of the lenses.
My question for all of you guys who got this far...have you ever attached anything to your multi-rotor and how did you counteract the vibrations? I was thinking of using something like Loctite Blue or even just electrical tape around the screw mount to made it a more rubberized fit. This experience is exactly the reason that I don't fly when there are strangers mulling about the area and don't fly over anything that would suffer from something falling from the sky. Safety first! Now I have to learn from this and find a better way to mount my camera and give it another shot!
Here is the article in the local Metro newspaper:
Toronto drone flyer recovers lost camera thanks to Bunz Trading | Metro News
And here is one of the full 360 images taken while the camera was still in the air:
Post from RICOH THETA. (2016/04/21)