Aerial Video Cam
Here's a 3.4 I picked today. I sliced off the battery compartment and installed a servo plug so the camera can be powered by my plane/helicopters receiver. Works great.

Pretty cool. I might suggest removing the camera from the case though. It's lighter that way.

True...but it only weighs in @ 2.65 oz. The way I fly, I need the extra protection. :)

I was fooling around with another pilot trying to get some good air to air shots with my Easystar. He was flying a foamy 3D profile plane. We had a mild midair, but his prop wacked my camera's case and put a pretty deep gouge in it. I'm sure it would have destroyed the camera if it wasn't in the case. The minor weight penalty is worth it to me.

Good point Rob. I've got mine currently mounted on a 17 ounce aerobatic plane though. Even one additional ounce is costly. With the board removed from the case, and powered through the receiver, I'm still adding about 1 1/2 ounces to the total weight. And I could tell a big difference in flight performance right away. Especially in vertical power. So for me, I'm willing to make it as light as possible. If I can ever figure out how to edit these avi/mjpeg movies with Sony Vegas, I'll post a link to it. Cool stuff... loops, rolls, inverted flight, spins, etc.

aerial videos
Here are some videos taken with the CVS cameras on my model jet. Enjoy Jetboy www.bar-stormers.com/video.htm

Hi Ursine, I see only 3 wires going to the Cam, where did you hook them Up, any pix's? and did you use Optocoupllers are what? good job, looks good thanx Tinhorn

Tinhorn: I have mine hooked up the same way, so I can probably answer for him. Although if he has it set up differently, I'm sure he can correct me. :) There should be only two wires connecting to the camcorder... Positive 5V and Ground. The three wire connector you see is a standard wire connection between a radio control receiver and servos. The three wires are: Ground, +5V, and Signal. Signal being the voltage signal that tells the servos what to do, and this is not needed for the camera. Receivers normally operate on a 5V source and provide this power to all the servos that are connected to it. So by connecting the camcorder to the receiver, he is powering it via the Receiver. Thinking about it again, the Signal wire COULD actually be used to possibly trigger the record function! One could program a switch on the transmitter such that it operates the recording (eg: Turn ON Record, or Turn OFF Record). There may be additional electronics required to incorporate this function. But it's something to think about. Hmmm...... :)

It would be awesome to be able to trigger the record button remotely. With higher resolution and frame rate, I only get 12 minutes of video, and for high-altitude work, 5 minutes is spent climbing and that video is useless.

dbl post

Thanx, I may have misunderstood, I thought he meant he powered the cam up then hit record, using his receiver Looking at the schematic posted awhile back, I could see no "Common" wire between the power switch and the record switch and could only see using 4 wires to do the power up/record thing thought maybe I wasn't reading the schematic right or something thanx guys Tinhorn

The 3 wires you see are from a servo extender, I'm not using the yellow (signal) wire...just the black and orange power ones. While it'd be cool to remotely start recording, with 20 minutes of 320 x 240 and video editing software it wasn't a priority right now. If I decide to up it to 640 x 480 it might be something to thing about. As soon as I get it on my plane I'll post a video. (both helicopters on the bench right now :( )

I'd love to have a heli with a camera on it. I'd probably put my CVS on there and then my cheapo $30 wireless cam for a "live preview". Can't tell if yours is electric or not (I think I see the motor). Be cool to fly in a large gym!

the camera only powers down after "X amount of time AFTER the memory has been filled. Sometimes I continue flying long after my 12 minutes of recording time has passed, and the camera greets me with a black screen, but has recorded the full amount.