Within the past few months I've seen post in some social media groups showing a type of hand-held gimbal setup for the DJI Mini-Series of drones.
These hand-held gimbal gadets are made for those drone owners who want to record with their drones without actually having their drones in the air as they're recording.
I've attempted this on a few occasions by simply holding my drone in one hand and my RC Controller in the other. I got less than desirable results but even still, I can see the benefit of being able to record video without actually having my drone in the air.
If I recorded for long enough, inevitably my drone would begin to over-heat especially in the Arizona summer temperatures so, I decided to come up with a way to mitigate the over-heating issue and this is how I did it.
This is still a work in progress so right now it's in the testing phase. It includes the use of two 3010 x 10mm USB cooling fans, a small pocket sized USB power bank and my own modeled and 3D printed proof of concept Prototype.
The 3D printer I've used is a Flashforge Creator Pro printer. The resolution of this printer isn't the greatest but, it's good enough to allow me to print my prototypes.
This first 3D printed prototype was configured to fit my Mini 4 Pro with all four arms expanded for my first round of tests. I can simply reconfigure my models and print them so as to wrap around my Mini 4 with all the arms folded in if I find this to be a better way to go about it.
I'm thinking that if I mount my drone cooling fan while all four arms are expanded like one would do if the drone was actually in flight, I might be able to turn off the sensors and use all of the features available for this drone as if it were actually in flight, except that it would be on a hand-held gimbal setup in stead.
I don't know if this is really possible or not. That's where the testing comes in. It would be nice if I could use my drone for recording drone in flight shots with matching hand-held gimbal shot footage from the same drone.
My 3D printed prototype model has quarter/twenty threaded holes on the upper and lower sections of my 3D print, and it's sturdy enough to hold the weight my drone with the cooling fan prototype mounted.
Right now I'm modeling a pivoting mount that I can attach to my RC controller that will allow me to be able to secure my Mini either above or below the hand-held RC controller.
I'm thinking it's going to work once I've worked out the inevitable bugs. Wish me luck.
Thanks everyone for taking the time to post a comment.
There are still several things I'm needing to learn as I move forward with this Drone-Cooling-Project.
The first is: Will my Mini 4 still function using any of the features of my RC controller while hand-holding my DIY gimbal setup?
I configured my cooling gadget so that there is plenty of room for the drone camera to be able to have full range of motion. I'd like to be able to use the "Follow-Me" modes within the limitations that a hand-held recording session might offer.
If I happen to veer outside those preset RC controller and onboard camera movement limits, I have yet to determine if this will cause automatic shutdowns or if I'll just get warning or something like that.
At any rate, I'm still in the process of designing the bracket that I'll use to attach to the back of my RC controller using the four small screw holes that are located on the back and bottom of the controller. Once I get that done it will be possible for me to mount a telescoping extension so that I can attach my drone either above my RC controller or below the controller.
lvl.2
Captain
New
Core User of DJI
