Phantom 1 Gimbal Rebuild for SJ4000 Action Camera

thingiverse

There are times that I wish I could just buy something and use it as is. Then I remember half the fun is tearing it apart and making it better. This little project is a good example of that. I purchased a cheap camera gimbal for my Phantom. Looked OK, worked very well, but was super heavy and drove my flight time down to 3-4 minutes. Being the tinkerer I am, I tore it apart. I found that I could buy this gimbal cheaper than I could buy the controller and motors separately so it made me feel better about throwing away the heavy CNC metal parts. I then designed lighter 3D printable components to replace them and this is the end result. So far I am very happy with it. After tuning it is rock solid, much more responsive than the original, and my flight time is back up to about 7 minutes when fully loaded with the FPV transmitter. Some of this is due to the weight reduction but this rebuilt version is much more balanced than the original and allows me to turn the power way down on the gimbal controller which helps too. Please note that this is specifically for the SJ4000 camera since I don't trust my piloting skills enough yet to send up a $300 GoPro. Note: I realize that the lens is off center in this arrangement. This was a trade off for me. I leverage the video out capability of the SJ4000 for my FPV video source. With the USB port that carries the AV signal on the right side, I had to orient the camera as designed to allow the AV cable to be plugged in.