How do you Install a Flir Vue Pro camera on a gimbal on a P4P?

[Rick26h]

I have a Flir Vue Pro thermal camera I want to mount on my P4P but would like it on a gimbal so that the image is stable. Can anyone give me instructions on how to use a gimbal for this situation? Presently, I mound the Flir directly to the P4P but do not like the picture when I am over a fire scene and get high winds hitting my drone. I have seen products from some overseas companies but are too expensive to touch, I'm the chief drone pilot for my volunteer Fire Department, and develop everything we use my self out of my own pocket. If anyone has the knowledge on how to hook up a gimbal on a P4P, I would appreciate your help, Thanks. Rick

 

[North East John]

I have used some of the commercial solutions on my P4 when I was getting my feet wet in Thermal. Suas and DslRPros both sell solutions. they are pricey though. The biggest challenge once moving into seperate technologies, is that every different component has to have a battery source. I do EMS work and it would be be challenging to use that type of setup in that stressful solution. I know budget are always tight, but it was extremely difficult worrying about the battery powering the sensor, and or the gimbal, and the flySight screen or whatever you are using to live stream the Thermal. Hope you are able to find a solution that is at reasonable cost. At the end of the day, I moved to an XT 336 and Inspire 2V2. The setup is $6000 these days. New sensor and used I1

 

[Rick26h]

Hi North East John,

Thanks for the words, I started using my Flir on my Inspire One mounted on the nose with my battery mounted outside on the tail, the I1 handles the weight with no problem, I also use a Z5 camera with zoom. Just recently my I1 became unreliable losing gps and drifting off scene while covering a house fire in moderate winds. This needless to say woke me up since my flight zones are usually tight with trees and wires. Having my personal Flir camera on the front, $2000, I get concerned about drift away when gps is lost. I came upon a P4P, saw the Flir gimbal mounts which looked great, but the crazy price tag of $1770 was out of my league. I designed my own mount out of cable Panduit plastic, added a 11.1vdc 1.8amp battery and video transmitter to the upper portioned area of the mount and put a go pro mount below that. It fit perfectly, the P4P flies great. Total cost, nothing, since I had the parts. I know that if I add a gimbal, I will need to add a receiver to control the gimbal and add another remote to talk to the gimbal. I use a drum shoulder harness to mount my two screens and remote, it should be a challenge to mount another remote. If I had the funds to buy the commercial mount I would, but somehow I will succeed.