Stabalised camera gimbal for drone.

Have recently finished a gimbal to mount a sony nex5 on an airbourne platform with printed parts and carbon.


Also many parts on the octacopter were also made on the printer.


More info on gimbal here.
Camera gimbal
And octacopter here.
[diydrones.com]

Example of video from stabalised gimbal shot on Dartmoor.
Dartmoor

Does it do stuff with the motors to avoid vibration or does the frame somehow do that, or does the copter really not vibrate much? I think the first of those? If so how are those motors controlled?

Those are 'big' questions.
The multicopter 'drone' community is constantly searching to reduce vibration, both for camera equiptment and because the flight control units can be affected by too much vibration. I have built my (4 so far) machines using silicone o ring suspension systems. I am getting some of the lowest vibrations ever recorded but still get a little shake sometimes. More work to be done. This electronic camera gimbal will remove the movement of the copter but not much vibration. I am currently printing another one with a seperate suspension system but soft mounts can sometimes make it worse. Its all experiment.
There are a number of Flight controllers. on the market from about £40 to £1000s. I like the APM from 3DR from diydrones which is about £150. They sense the copters movement and control the motors to keep it stable. You can use them for a totally automatic flight (programmed via PC) of you can fly it like a normal RC helicopter, and many other modes to make flying it very easy. You can use them on a normal plane with wings or on multicopters.
It can be very confusing at at the beginning.



Vince

Quote
Jasper1984
Does it do stuff with the motors to avoid vibration or does the frame somehow do that, or does the copter really not vibrate much? I think the first of those? If so how are those motors controlled?

To answer your question directly, a gimbal keeps the camera in what ever position you point it, regardless of copter position. It does that with a controller involving gyros and accelerometers. Vibrations are a separate issue.

I am currently building my first printer for use with my Quad. This looks like an awesome gimbal, have you or will be making the stl files public?