Tuesday, September 22, 2015

GS3 / SurfaceCam Multipurpose Adapter

It's been a while since I've made anything purely mechanical, so I had a bit of fun this weekend putting together a multipurpose adapter for my Grasshopper 3 camera.


The primary function of the adapter is to attach the camera to a Microsoft Surface Pro tablet, which acts as the monitor and recorder via USB 3.0. I was going to make a simple adapter but got caught up in linkage design and figured out a way to make it pivot 180º to fold flat in either direction.



Some waterjet-cut parts and a few hours of assembly later, and it's ready to go. The camera cage has 1/4-20 mounts on top and bottom for mounting to a tripod, or attaching accessories, like an audio recorder in this case. There's even a MōVI adapter for attaching just the Sufrace Pro 2 to an M5 handlebar for stabilizer use. (The camera head itself goes on the gimbal inside a different cage, if I can ever find a suitable USB 3.0 cable.)

Anyway, quick build, quick post. Here are some more recent videos I've done with the GS3 and my custom capture and color processing software.


Plane spotting at SeaTac using the multipurpose adapter and a 75mm lens (250mm equivalent).

Slow motion weed trimming while testing out an ALTA prototype. No drones were harmed in the making of this video.


Freefly BBQ aftermath. My custom color processing software was still a bit of a WIP at this point.