GoPro SteadiCam Gimbal for Kayak

thingiverse

I've gotten a lot of questions about how to mount and use this piece, so I'll share what worked for me. To create threads in the bottom hole of the gimbal's center part, I used a 5/16 inch tap in Freedom Units. A comparable metric tap should work just as well. Next, I put plumber's thread tape on a 5/16" threaded rod and screwed it into the tapped hole. Then, I secured an entire package of large washers onto the rod with two nuts and two lock washers to create a counterweight (big thanks to the open source telescope community for that idea!). For mounting this piece on my boat, I use two different solutions. On my rotomolded sit-on-top, I attach a Scotty #135 Portable Camera/Compass Mount to a Scotty #429 Extended Gear Head Adapter seated in a Scotty #344-BK Round Flush Deck Mounting Bracket. For my thermoformed sit-inside boat, I use a Delkin Fat Gecko mount with an extender rod. To create a waterproof SteadiCam that doesn't need its own set of batteries, combine the gimbal pieces with VikingScientist's helm-cam selfie arm or a comparable GoPro arm. This is more of an assembly/adaptation job than an original creation. My main contribution was modifying foucteau's gimbal center: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1854908. I filled in the center using TinkerCAD, slapped Ghir0's convenient GoPro mount on top like a LEGO brick, and put a hole in the bottom for a 5/16ths threaded rod. The v2 gimbal center has been updated with a smaller diameter hole for the threaded rod and a raised GoPro mount to give the camera more movement clearance. I also want to thank flahut59 for re-sizing the bearing holes on fouctou’s original gimbal design, so we no longer have to crack that piece when assembling the parts. A TinkerCAD file for the center is available here: https://www.tinkercad.com/things/6ecg42xJSma-gopro-gimbal-center