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	Saturday, 2 December 2006

Anatomy of a KAP rig For those of you wondering how a radio controlled kite aerial photography rig works.... The whole thing hangs from a picavet suspension system. This attaches to the kite line (usually about 30m down the line from the kite) at two points a couple of metres apart. The picavet is one long length of braided cord which the cross above the camera can slide freely on (some use tiny pullys here like the kind used on model sail boats). It ensures the camera stays level in relation to the ground no matter what angle the kite is flying at. The rig uses three servos which came with a model RC aeroplane kit. These normally have one arm which can move 90 degrees. On a plane they would move flaps up and down. The top servo (2) on this rig has been modified to rotate a full 360 degrees so it can turn the whole rig to look in any direction. This is the receiver. It takes the signals from the control transmitter on the ground (via the aerial) and sends them to the appropriate servo. You can see three red/black/white wires going from it to each of the servos. This is the receivers aerial. Simply a wire twisted around a peice of dowel. The battery pack is four AA sized rechargables. The on/off switch. Works best if you remember to turn this on before launching :) This is the tilt servo. It can rotate 90 degrees taking the camera from a straight-down orientation up to look out towards the horizon. The last servo is the trigger finger. Its arm moves 90 degrees to push the shutter button. I've made a little finger out of beef bone which reaches the button. The arm is easily removed so I can make a variety of 'fingers' for different cameras I may want to use. Finally the camera. This one is an old fully automatic minolta compact 35mm film camera. Picture quality is not that great but it made a good test pilot. I am currently fitting my old Canon EOS film camera to the rig, which although its a little heavier, should give very good picture quality. The rig is controlled from the ground with a transmitter just like any radio controlled model car/boat/or plane would use. BTW you can buy this rig as a kit here. 9:39:31 AM    Comment []

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