Hello, I wish to mount a GoPro 3 Black Edition on Boom 1, with the view looking back at the drone. Will this adversely affect the centre of gravity? If so, would counter balancing on Boom 5 be an adequate solution? Cheers Rory.
Rory I have done this for test purposes and didn't make any other changes. Would suggest that if you have wifi that you turn it off on the GP.
I strapped a GP on boom #6 looking forward. It was about 3" away from the hub and out of reach of the prop circle. I didn't do anything to compensate for the balance. It seemed to fly just fine without any tendency to roll or yaw. I suspect if it was further out and inverted below the boom (to monitor the gimbal for example), then obviously the moment arm would be more significant.... It seems that, while the gimbal balance is important, the balance of the frameset is not something that is quite so important. Obviously, there are limits, but they seem to be more relaxed than for the gimbal. You'll know you're approaching those limits if you see groups of adjacent motors working harder to maintain level flight. Mind you, the way I fly... Andy.
I found that I was getting a lot of vibration-induced "jello" in the GP images when the GP was mounted on a boom. I'll be interested to know if you get that too. The apparent, and counter-intuitive, work-around is to put an ND4 or ND8 filter on the GP so that it's forced to use a slightly slower shutter speed. Let us know what you find, Rory. Andy.
I put one on the number 5 Boom midway, looking down at the gimbal and I had no issues either. Copter did not seem to care.