Yes this is what I mentioned to you on the phone. The radio uses channel 1-4 for the rover motion control and the camera pan and tilt. Using a servo on channel 5 with the “gear” switch will enable you to move the servo arm back and forth. The servo output arm will follow the position of the switch in real time. Just mechanically mount the servo so it’s arm can actuate the button on the camera.
Jim:
This project has been a little side tracked. After getting everything together the only remaining problem is the tilt mode for the camera. The camera weighs in at 30 oz. The original tilt servo would not hold the camera upright and steady. The camera would shake and fall. I replace the original servo with a Hitec HS-7955TG 333 oz-in servo thinking that the original was not stout enough. The new larger servo does the same thing. The head shakes and falls. Any ideas for a remedy to our problem?
Thanks
Kent
Am I trying to operate 6 volt servos on a 12 volt system?
If you are running your servos on 12v, you may have damaged them. You need to get a UBEC similar to below to reduce the voltage. If your cam is heavy, then you will need to make a balanced mount so the servos only have to move the cam, not support its weight.
Thanks for the interest. The camera weights 30 oz.s What do you mean by a balanced mount? Can you point me in it’s direction?
Thanks for the help.
Kent
With a balanced mount the center of gravity of the cam is placed at the piviot point of the mount like below.
There are power problems that could cause the same thing. Could you post an image of the wiring?
Thanks I will. The unit it at a friends house. I’ll get it this evening.
Kent
I am the friend who is helping kentj with his robocam project. Everything went together fine. The 4wd rover base is driven by a sabertooth drive. It is controlled by a HFD-08R0 receiver (negative shift for 75 MHz). I wired it according to the instructions found at http//www.lynxmotion.com/images/html/build122.htm I used channel 1 for forward and channel 2 for turn as in the diagram. I used channels 3 and 4 for pan and tilt and channel 5 for camera shutter. A supplied 6 volt battery pack (4 AA batteries) plugs into the 8th slot on the receiver. There is not enough torque to hold up the camera even though we upgraded to a 333 in/oz servo. The hook up is pretty straight forward and not much to screw up. As the sabertooth drive operates at 12 volts and the receiver at 6 volts, I tried disconnecting the sabertooth drive and ran just the servos to try and isolate the problem. Same results. Could the 12 volt source driving the rover back feed through the receiver and damage the servos? Does this receiver have an output current limit that would prevent the servos from developing the maximum torque? There seems to be no difference between the two servos’ torque even though the stronger one has ~6 times the rated torque. Could find scant little info on the receivers specs. Can anyone help me out?
Thanks
aljerome
If this is what is powering the servos and the servos are having to support any of the weight of the cam, then this will probably not work well if at all.
The Sabertooth is feeding 6vdc back to the receiver unless you have disabled it by removing the red wire from the connectors as is shown in the 4WD Rover tutorials. No a 4 cell “AA” battery holder with it’s tiny little wires and compression springs can not carry the current required by the servos. Look at this battery and cable… The wires are 18 gage.
http://www.lynxmotion.com/images/product/medium/bat03.jpg
Now look at the wires on this “AA” holder… Quite a difference eh?
When a servo needs to move a heavy object it needs as much as a couple amps like -NOW- and that will never happen with the cheap battery holder.
Jim,
I see your point. However the wires feeding the servos aren’t any larger than the wires coming out of the small battery pack so this is still a “current” bottleneck. I did not see any type of conversion plugs to go from the larger 6 volt battery pack to the tiny input prongs on the receiver and was reluctant to “hack” without specific instructions. So what was the small 4 AA battery pack included in the kit intended for? And how should I get from the “mondo” plug on the larger 6 volt NiMH to the tiny power input prongs on the receiver? I will look into the 4wd tutorials a bit closer.
Thanks for your input.
Jerome Ebel
No, although they look very similar they’re quite different. The wire coming from the battery holder is only 26 gage and is made with a small number of wire conductors. The wires on the servo are 22 gage and made from a large number of small strands to carry the current more efficiently.
The other issue with the battery holder is the connection to the battery is a friction fit, not soldered. It inherently is flawed for a system that needs a lot of current quickly. Not sure the “AA” batteries can do the work, but I’m no expert on battery chemistry.
Remember you are doing something that is not being done in our tutorial. You are connecting a high end servo that can draw a significant amount of current instantaneously. It may be necessary to connect the power directly to the servo and only provide a ground and signal from the receiver.
Jim,
I have been experimenting with just the receiver and the tilt servo to try and get some results holding that 2.5 lb camera up. I first tried powering the receiver with the 6Volt NiMH pack. Still not enough torque to tilt the camera without it falling after leaving the direct upright position. Then I took your advice by connecting the battery pack directly to the red (+) and black (-) leads coming from the servo on the assumption that the receiver could not transmit enough power to give the servo it’s rated output torque. I then took the black and yellow leads and hooked them to the appropriate output channel on the receiver (leaving the positive (center) wire unhooked). I had no response whatsoever to the servo! ? I had to remove and/or move some of the small wires coming from the receiver plugs and may not have had a good connection (not likely but possible). Was going to order some from lynxmotion but could not justify a $15 shipping fee for $4.95 worth of cables (sorry,…I’m cheap! 
). I think I can get them locally. I could not find any in depth literature on the servo. Does it need to power up through the receiver? Are there receivers available that are rated at a higher output current? I will clean things up with regard to the wiring and try again when I have more test cables to work with. Any help with referencing more info on this problem would be helpful.
Thanks
Jerome
So the 30 oz. camera is now 40 oz.? The 333 oz. in. servo should be able to support 333 oz. at 1" from the rotation center, at 2" it falls to 166, and at 4" it’s only 83 oz. in. Don’t know how large the camera is so I don’t know how far from the rotation the mass is. But I suspect it’s more than 4". It’s been suggested you should go with a gear box from servocity, even once by me.
This makes no sense whatsoever. 
Again I will ask for pictures to verify the wiring. You still must provide power to the receiver for it to, well, receive…
The text here is somewhat useful, but seriously a few images or even a video would be much more helpful.
Here is a camera tilt I made from MicroRax extrusions and connectors we sell. As you can see the mass of the camera is on the rotation axis. This takes very little torque to move the camera.
lynxmotion.com/c-144-microrax.aspx
Slick camera platform! It looks like you could add some rails so that you could move the rotation point to the nodal point of the lens. When the camera rotates about this point you won’t get any perspective shift when panning and tilting while shooting video.
Not a highly necessary adaptation but if you are into adding special affects this will help tremendously. Also at close range it makes it easier to keep he camera on target. Just an old photographers’ trick.
I’m getting a little TL:DR and OT, but if you can stay with me a moment longer you can test it yourself with just a finger. Hold a finger a short distance from an eye. Close the other. Now rotate your head a bit. You will notice your finger moving in front of the background. Now try to make the same rotation using our eye as the rotation point. A little harder but it can be done, your finger should be steady against the background. This is how model photography in SFX movies was produced. Now with CG this has become a rather lost art.
I guess the nodal point of that 20x zoom lens varies a lot depending on the focal length selected… 
Hey, now you have an excuse to add another axis! 
New problem. The car is not controllable via the remote. It goes forward and in reverse but will not turn. At times it tries to do numerous things at one time resulting in spins and other contorted maneuvers. My suspicion is that the one or both of the electronic boards have been damaged. Suggestions as to a course of action? Are the boards available? If so how much?
Thanks
Kent
The boards used in the project are;
Sabertooth 2x10 or 2x12 RC.
lynxmotion.com/p-563-saberto … oller.aspx
Hitec Laser 6 radio. We do not sell the receiver separately, but it should be available on the web.
lynxmotion.com/p-72-hitec-6ch-rc-set.aspx
Could you post a few images of the wiring?