Camera Remote Servo Based Tilt / Pan Head - Any experience? Suggestions?

T

True North

Well-known member
I am looking at getting a Remote controlled Servo tilt / pan head for my Jib crane. No huge rush but I am wondering if anyone has used any of the companies below.

I have found the following companies/products

Camera Turret Company
http://www.cameraturret.com/pantilts.htm#CameraTurret Pan/#Camera Turret Pan/T#Camera Turret Pan/Ti#Camera Turret Pan/Til#Camera Turret Pan/Tilt#Camera Turret Pan/Tilts

Servo City
http://www.servocity.com/html/pan_tilt_roll___accessories.html

Kessler
http://www.kesslercrane.com/motorized-heads-s/113.htm

Proaim (I know, I know)
http://www.proaimshop.com/pas/Pan-tilt-head/

Varizoom
http://www.varizoom.com/motion-control-cranes-and-jibs-s/1477.htm


If you have any others to add to the list let me know, cheers

Rob
 
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I've purchased Servo City parts (motor, controller, gears) to make my own head. The issues I have with heads is:

- Can't get a wide enough pan/tilt speed range. No matter what motor or gears I've used, the range of speeds is not satisfactory

- Can't get a soft start. No matter what motor or gears, there is always a bit of a
'start' to the pan. I know it can be better because servo zoom lenses have perfectly smooth start/stop.

An example of these two points is here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhaY-Lrbfa4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhaY-Lrbfa4
 
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Thanks for the reply. Well that rules out the servo city option. I was watching a video on the Camera Turret company website and I noticed that you could set ramp up and ramp down settings which virtually eliminate the hard start and stop motion you get with these products.

So I need to find controllers that have programmable settings for ramp up and ramp down.

Good advice, thanks
 
Varizoom is the only one on that list I occasionally see in the professional world, if that is a vote of confidence. That is not to discount the others, however.
 
I have the PT2100 head from Servo city and while I agree that there is always an element of start 'jilt' to the pan/tilt, it all depends on your application. I use it on my cable cam and because there is so much movement whilst I'm panning, it can't really be seen. Example here - http://www.submotion.net/#!cable-cam/ck0q

However, if you wanted to eliminate the start/stop jilt, you need to swap out the gearmotors for stepper motors. This would give you that control over the speed ramp. Basically, they are much more precise motors. They are more expensive, but in comparison to the other heads you've listed, it would still work out cheaper. Best bang for buck for sure! And if it's good enough for a big budget production like this (1:46) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uovvrEFdHIg , it's good enough for me.
 
The Servo City controller I'm using has a ramp control. It does not fix the problem. As best I can tell, most controllers are PWM controllers (send a series of pulses to the motor - the wider the pulse, the faster it goes). Motors seem to have problems starting up with this. They need about 15% of maximum before they start moving. That causes the start issue.

Servo zoom lenses I've examined use a straight DC voltage of varying voltage. This is much less efficient, but give the desired control result. I've not found a motor controller that uses a straight DC drive.

Good luck.
 
Prendi said:
I have the PT2100 head from Servo city and while I agree that there is always an element of start 'jilt' to the pan/tilt, it all depends on your application. I use it on my cable cam and because there is so much movement whilst I'm panning, it can't really be seen. Example here - http://www.submotion.net/#!cable-cam/ck0q
Click to expand...

Indeed, this is probably the most-often used method, so the issue I have is likely not going to be an issue for many applications.

Prendi said:
However, if you wanted to eliminate the start/stop jilt, you need to swap out the gearmotors for stepper motors. This would give you that control over the speed ramp. Basically, they are much more precise motors. They are more expensive, but in comparison to the other heads you've listed, it would still work out cheaper. Best bang for buck for sure! And if it's good enough for a big budget production like this (1:46) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uovvrEFdHIg , it's good enough for me.
Click to expand...

The problem with stepper motors is that they are noisy.
 
Paul F said:
Indeed, this is probably the most-often used method, so the issue I have is likely not going to be an issue for many applications.
Click to expand...

Paul, what are you using it for? Do you ONLY need slow movement? If so, a cheap solution could be something like the Orion/Merlin telescope head. I have one for timelapses, but I've used it for panoramic scenic shots and it works well. Just a thought.
 
I'm not really sure, as I'm still running the gearmotors from ServoCity. But for those prices, it's worth a try right? I'm not really the technical guy, but I work with an engineering compnay in the UK that build packaging machines. I will ask them what they think of them. Maybe send the guy on Vimeo a message asking what he uses?

I will be changing to steppers soon, but right now, I just have too many projects to be tinkering with the Cable Cam :(
 
Yes. You need to do some math here to see if the holding power is what you want and then select the motor. They list the holding power as ounce-inches. So for a given head, determine what the lever and load will be and convert that to ounce-inches to select the motor size. Of course, the stronger the motor, the more power needed and the more battery needed. Steppers are also always using power to hold position, whereas a gearmotor does not.

The other thing to watch is the steps per revolution. This will determine how much of a move you will see per step. Gearing can be used to reduce the step so that it won't be noticeable.

I noticed in Preni's vimeo link, they had a direct drive with not too much of a gearing reduction. So they likely had a high steps-per-revolution count.
 
seems your already moving in another direction but ill comment anyway on the Kessler anyway.

i use the Revolution head with their Oracle controller. i mostly use it on their 12' crane. the system is very smooth and can do the very slowest crawl movements with easy finesse. the Oracle controller gives diverse settings as to how you want the joystick to feel, ramping biases etc.

the only consideration on the negative side is "noise". if your capturing audio in the room then its not very good. doing slow pans & tilts the noise is not too bad but anything above that onto fast moves it very noisy and wouldn't work for shots when subtle dialogue etc is taking place...unless the head is far enough away to not matter.

david
 
Hey David


Its all good, I am still entertaining various opinions and feedback. Your opinions are greatly appreciated so please feel free to share anything that you feel is relavent, cheers


Rob
 
Oh yeah, and the reason I went for the ServoCity over the Kessler is because the Kessler doesn't do wireless and that was paramount for me. If I didn't need wireless, I'd probably go for the Kessler.
 
Did Servo City ever try to solve (Paul F and Prendi) the lack of smooth start/stop issues you were experiencing? Or is this the best their system can do and if you want a smoother start/stops you will have to try a different manufacture?
 
Prendi said:
I have the PT2100 head from Servo city and while I agree that there is always an element of start 'jilt' to the pan/tilt, it all depends on your application. I use it on my cable cam and because there is so much movement whilst I'm panning, it can't really be seen. Example here - http://www.submotion.net/#!cable-cam/ck0q

However, if you wanted to eliminate the start/stop jilt, you need to swap out the gearmotors for stepper motors. This would give you that control over the speed ramp. Basically, they are much more precise motors. They are more expensive, but in comparison to the other heads you've listed, it would still work out cheaper. Best bang for buck for sure! And if it's good enough for a big budget production like this (1:46) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uovvrEFdHIg , it's good enough for me.
Click to expand...

You mean servo motors right? Steppers would definitely have a start/stop jilt.
 
I don't think there is a solution with PWM and gearmotors. The issue is that they don't start moving until about a 15% pulse. There's nothing to be done about it.

I took a servo lens apart to see how they do it. Servo lenses have excellent range of control. The don't used PWM. They drive the motor with straight DC and vary the voltage. Contrary to the name servo-lens, they don't use servo motors, they are simple DC motors.

I don't know of a joystick motor controller that outputs a variable DC voltage. The ones I know of all output PWM.
 
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