Developing A 3D Printed 3-Axis Gimbal

Background:

Some of you may know of my DIY 2-axis gimbal builds that I have done using wood and acrylic in the past. Those builds were great at the time, but they were limited by the materials and tools I had available. Back in December I became the proud owner of a 3D printer which opened a huge door for me. It gave me the ability to generate parts that are much more detailed and accurate than what can be made by hand.

Concurrently with receiving the printer I was building a TBS Discovery platform for aerial photography use and had the desire for a 3-axis gimbal. Buying an entire 3-axis gimbal was out of my budget, but I did have three gimbal motors available from my earlier builds and three axis gimbal controllers had finally come down to a price I could afford.

I searched around the internet for 3D printable 3-axis gimbal designs, but to my dismay I did not find anything I liked. For one, there were few gimbal designs out there to start with. Most of them were just 2-axis and involved clunky and crude looking parts. They were also in majority designed for GoPros, while I have a Xioami Yi. Taking all this into consideration, I decided to design a 3D printable 3-axis gimbal myself. A challenge for sure, but it gave me the power to design a gimbal I liked, with the characteristics I wanted.

Goals:

Here are the goals I set for the gimbal design:

-Lightweight
-Fully adjustable to balance pitch, roll, and yaw
-Compact
-Easily removed from airframe
-Ability to mount on a handle for handheld use
-Vibration isolated
-Easy to mount/remove camera
-Xiaomi Yi/GoPro compatible
-3D Printer friendly
-Minimum cost
-Professional and attractive design

Inspiration:

To help in brainstorming the design I took a look at some well performing and attractive gimbal designs that are currently commercially available. Gimbals like the FeiyuTech mini 3D and SteadyGim3. These gimbals utilize a minimal amount of material to hold the camera and are only as wide as the pitch motor and camera side by side. They are very minimalistic, yet perform well.

FeiyuTech Mini 3D

SteadyGim3

Prototyping:

Version 1:

Taking these products as inspiration, a large amount of time was spent designing all the parts in CAD. CAD, while absolutely necessary for designing parts to be 3D printed, is also immensely useful for determining how individual parts will act together. With an assembled model in virtual space the maximum movements and adjustability of the gimbal can be tested. Errors in the design can also be caught before expending the effort to make the physical product.

With the first renders looking promising, I printed the very first prototype.

When designing, there is only so much you can predict before actually physically making the product. One of the things I could not easily determine (I’m sure there is some way), is the balance point of all three axis. The balance point determines the necessary arm length. If the balance point is known, the excess arm length can be removed which will reduce the overall size and weight of the gimbal. As a result, the first parts I printed where rough designs of the pitch, roll, and yaw assemblies. The arms are extra long at the adjustment points for this reason. I balanced the gimbal on each axis and updated the design from there. This first prototype also served to double check if any bolt holes were out of alignment or needed to be enlarged.

Version 2:

V2 of the design started with updating the design with the lengths and lessons learned from V1. This version involved printing the entire updated gimbal with vibration isolator and tube mounts included. With this prototype, all the parts could be tested together and reprinted individually to fine tune the design. Over time this gimbal became V3, the current version.

Version 3 is composed of 23 printed parts, all of which will be available on Thingiverse. It utilizes a rail system to easily add and remove the gimbal and controller from the airframe. All the printed parts are printer friendly and do not require supports. The gimbal is easily assembled and balanced, and weighs less than most commercial action cam gimbals. It is designed specifically to mount a Xiaomi Yi on a TBS Discovery (see my build log), so as a result the roll is not full range. I will however upload longer versions of the yaw arm and a mounting bracket to suit GoPros to Thingiverse to support those in need. I cannot guarantee full GoPro compatibility though, unless I somehow get one in my hands.

Technical Specs:

Parts: 23 Printed
Hardware: 4 x M1 Bolt and Nut, 6 x M2 Bolt, 6 x M3 Bolt
Motors: 1 x Turnigy 2804-210kv, 2 x Turnigy 2206-140kv
Controller: Micro Storm32 (unfortunately I do not recommend this model due to its limited functionality, but it works for this project).
Weight: 233g with camera, 157g without

Conclusion:

This project turned out incredibly well. It is by far the most complex 3D printed design that I have worked on to date. I believe I succeeded in statisfying all the goals I set forth for this project. I have not made the handle to make the gimbal into a handheld device, but that should not be too difficult with the tube clamp mounting system. There is still some work to be done to remove the last bits of vibration from the recorded video, but verall though the video I have recorded is very stable.

 
Thingiverse page. If you are using slightly different components and need a tweak to the design let me know! I can make a adjustments and send the files your way.

Video:

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Thanks for reading!

-Sam