Not so long ago I got a 1/18th scale HPI mini Recon and talked about it was for remote video use and not just a camera stuck on the bonnet but a full Nano FPV (first person flying) kit on it and even a pan/tilt system to move the camera both left/right and up/down!
The standard 2.4ghz radio that comes with it is a 3 channel, 2 regular channels and a 3rd on/off switch channel spare. I need 4 channels, so I opted to install one of my Futaba fasst 6EX receivers and use my own proper transmitter.
For the pan/tilt system I used 3.7 micro servos, the first left right is on the bottom screwed into the body shell. The up down is a little more tricky, first I CA glued 2 servo arms into the position needed, then to make it secure I used heat-shrink pipe over and cut holes for the screws to go through. Once cooled I CA glued inside the heat-shrink pipe making the whole thing rigid.
Here you can see the set-up isn't super complicated but normally need to think about stress load on the servo. Seeing the camera weighs 3 grams + the up/down servo 3.7 grams = 6.7g static weight. These micro servos can push in excess of 80grams so stress load? what stress load!
A mock up to show how I planned to install it using a bracket on the back of the servo with 2 bolts through to secure it in place.
The camera now mounted in place, if your doing something similar then remember to leave enough servo lead slack for when it moves around!
The transmitter is UHU glued onto the shell to give shock and vibration protection, the wires are just taped down for the time being until I get a spare shell when I will build everything in properly.
I went to a car dealership not far from here at night to test it out, as it was raining a little I kept my field-box inside the car! So the following video was recorded from a stream transmitted through a metal object Totally impressed, watch out for my couple of high speed flips and also driving under lines of cars!
