Brittain Fraley's Rocketry Site - MK Shea Gyro Stabilizer

Brittain Fraley

DVR-1B MK SHEA Gyro - Get the roll out

While adding the digital camera to MK SHEA provided an excellent platform for collecting video, the roll rate from the rocket lowered the quality of the video considerably. The intention of the next set of modifications was to remove the roll from the captured video.

A piezoelectric gyro and servo moving a small set of fins provided roll stabilization for the camera platform.

With the complexity of the payload section, I added the pad checklist in a decal on the side of the altimeter bay to make sure that none of the steps were skipped.

Here are a couple of pictures of the altimeter bay. Note the stabilizing fins and the camera mirror. Also note the hatch that provides access to turn on the camera and the recovery and stabilization electronics.

The following video shows the results from using the stabilizer. See the Videos page for more videos.

Download (5.2 mb)

Flights

MK SHEA Flights with the roll stabilizer in place.

Date	Flight #	Motor	Altitude	Comments
11/23/02	3	AMW K670GG	4400 ft	Good flight. Accidentally turned camera off before flight.
11/24/02	4	AMW K670GG	4400 ft	Good flight. Stable video. Little to no rotation. See Flight #4 in videos section.
11/24/02	5	AMW K670GG	3800 ft	Good flight. Significant wind caused weathercocking on launch. See Flight #5 in the videos section for onboard video. Slight 90 degree rotation up to apogee.
11/24/02	6	AMW K670GG	4500 ft	Good flight. Camera battery ran out before launch so no video was captured.
12/08/02	7	Cesaroni J330	1200 ft	Good flight. Accidentally set camera to still frame mode. No video capture.
12/08/02	8	Cesaroni J330	1200 ft	Good flight. Good video capture.
12/08/02	9	AMW K670 GG	3900 Ft	Good flight. Good video capture.
01/04/03	10	Cesaroni J330	1251 ft	Good flight. Good video capture. Attempt to capture launch of another rocket from the onboard video.
01/04/03	11	Cesaroni J330	1311 ft	Good flight. Another attempt to capture launch of another rocket from the onboard video.
03/15/03	12	AMW K670GG	3900 ft	Good flight. Slight early ejection.
03/15/03	13	AMW K670GG	3900 ft	Good flight. Good view of Brazos River