Control dual axis FPV camera cradle with Joystick module
Hello everyone,
Today we gonna see the full tutorial on how to control the 2-Axis FPV camera cradle with joystick module, the camera cradle comes in a little package containing some acrylic supports and pieces, some screws and two servo motors.
Requirement: Please before you proceed, if you’re not familiar with the joystick or the servo motors, here are two tutorials for you:
Here we’ll use two methods to control the servos: the first one where the servos follow the position of the joystick and they move while we move our stick, the second one the servos start moving toward the direction where the joystick is pointing and they stay there until we move the stick again or change direction.
This is a demo of what we gonna have at the end:
Wiring:
In the tutorial video I went step by step while wiring or calibrating also step by step while coding, but here I’ll give you the whole wiring which is not a problem because no module or servo is affecting the others.
To not be confused by the joystick axis my joystick has (X axis on top then Y axis) here in the picture they are inverted and named otherwise but I let the wiring as I used you can change it as you like (servo pins, joystick inputs, directions …)
Codes:
So not to confuse you because I’ve actually used a lot of codes in the video, but they are very basic (servo positioning, reading analog value from joystick…) I’ve did this before you can check my other tutorials, so here I’ve only uploaded the two codes for the two final versions as seen in the video.
You can also check the “demo video” to know the difference between the two codes.
Here are the “.ino” versions to download: Download here
Code 1: version 1 as in video
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//This code is to use with dual axis fpv camera cradle that uses two servos, adding a joystick module //we control the position of the cradle by moving the analog stick, the cradle follows the joystick movements //Refer to https://surtrtech.com/ for more information #include <Servo.h> //Servos library and declaration Servo myservo1; Servo myservo2; int YAxis = 1; //Declaring where the X axis and Y axis of the joystick pins are wired int XAxis = 0; //Of course analog inputs void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); //Setting the Serial monitor baude rate and launching pinMode(XAxis, INPUT); //Declaring the pin modes and servo pins myservo1.attach(8); pinMode(YAxis, INPUT); myservo2.attach(9); } void loop() { int X=analogRead(XAxis); //Reading from the X axis potentiometer X=X*0.1756; //Converting the range of the potentiometer from 0-1023 to 0-180 limits of the servo you can change them if you have a 360° servos X=180-X;// This is used so the servo turn to exact position otherwise it will be inverted myservo1.write(X); //After adapting we inject that value to the first servo int Y=analogRead(YAxis);//Reading from the Y axis potentiometer Y=Y*0.1466; //Here we did conversion that suits the servo limits so we went from 0-1023 to 0-150 myservo2.write(Y);//And we inject to our servo } |
Code 2: version 2 as in video
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//This code is to use with dual axis fpv camera cradle that uses two servos, adding a joystick module //We control the position of the cradle by moving the analog stick, the cradle move to the direction where the stick is pointing //until the limits and stay there //Refer to https://surtrtech.com/ for more information #include <Servo.h> //Servos library and declaration Servo myservo1; Servo myservo2; int a,b,X,Y; //Variables needed later int YAxis = 1; //Declaring where the X axis and Y axis of the joystick pins are wired int XAxis = 0; //Of course analog inputs void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); //Setting the Serial monitor baude rate and launching pinMode(XAxis, INPUT); //Declaring the pin modes and servo pins myservo1.attach(8); pinMode(YAxis, INPUT); myservo2.attach(9); } void loop() { a=myservo1.read(); //Reading the previous servos positions is an important step so we can know where they should position next b=myservo2.read(); X=analogRead(XAxis);//Reading the joystick values Y=analogRead(YAxis); if(X>550){ //Here we didn't do any calibration so the joystick has three positions (Left|Resting|Right) a=a-1; //it depends on the value we read we can know in which direction the stick is pointing and I left the resting position big actually it's just 1 value myservo1.write(a); //we inject the new value delay(50); //You can make the delay big or short or act on a=a-x to make big steps or short steps } if(X<450){ a=a+1; //Here we did the opposit operation to move to the opposit direction myservo1.write(a); delay(50); } if(Y>600){ //Here we didn't do any calibration so the joystick has three positions (Up|Resting|Down) ditto b=b+1; myservo2.write(b); delay(50); } if(Y<450){ b=b-1; myservo2.write(b); delay(50); } } |
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Yassine View All
Automation and Electrical Engineer, Electronics amateur trying to share my little projects.
Hi great video can this code be modified to run 4 and 6 dof robot arms I what the servos to stay in the postion when I let go of the joystick thanks
Hey, as I told you, you can control every 2 servos with a joystick, you can use the same code I used just add elements, it’s the same way, and later when you’re familiar with the system you can make the controls more smooth and associate two servos with one joystick for some cases, like keeping the same level of the arm…
do you have the file for the part the servos move and that holds the camera?