Help in making a 3 axis base for an ubiquiti antenna + a webcam :P

So I am about to raize a 20 meter pole to put a ubiquiti antenna on it (everything about the pole to keep it steady and how to raize it etc has been taken care of )

My issue is that I thought that maybe I need in the future (due to wind or what not) make some adjustments on the ankle of the antenna and raizing a 20 meter stairs wont be pheasible most of the time.

So I thought about indeast fastening the antenna on the tip of the pole I could fasten it on a base that has 3 degrees of movement (A,B,C) so that I can move the antenna right or left tilt it right or left and move its direction up or down at an angle

I have prepared a dirty sketch to give you a feeling of what I am looking for.

A,B,C are the labels of the motors/gears (in red) the antenna is in green the blue arrows show what I expect the movement of each motor to do

I also added a camera (blue box) that which basically doesnt need to be something fancy just a simple low res sensor I need it because the ubiquiti antenna has a level indicator on its back so the webcam would be pointed at that level indicator and feed the signal to me over lan so that I know the antenna is leveled the cheaper the better I only need to be able to see the bubble be in the middle of that level indicator on a sunny day.

It needs to be PoE and I am thinking to use an ardruino PoE capable variant to do this thing

So what kind of motors should I use and any advice on the actual application (dont take my dirty sketch as a base or mandatory guide line , it is just there to give you a general idea of what I athink of making if you think I miss something or over engineered something or have a totally different idea that you think is going to be a better sollution then please enlighten me :slight_smile: )

I don’t know your weight, speed and accuracy requirement but I would start by going here

https://www.servocity.com/

and see if you can cobble together the motors, gearing and translators you need.

The servo’s could be controlled by an arduino and a servo motor driver board. The control could be hardwired,wifi, lora or 433mhz connected. You could also use a RC control.

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Well the antenna is a few grams… edit actually I found some specs it’s 320 grams

Speed is not a requirement what is a requirement though is the gears to be steady and hold position (e.g on a windy day) also somewhat weather resistant I will try to make an enclosure, but I am not sure it will be 100% weather proof in terms of moisture or like some watter getting in through the cracks in a heavy rain scenario.

Also could you help me a little about the topology and kind of motors/gears Ill need? I mean looking at my sketch I already found some flaws example B needs to be the other way around and attached with C :stuck_out_tongue:
Or maybe B (righ left tilt) and C (angle up down) could be just a double sided motor and I would need just to add some gears to change the ankle of the angle ?

Thanks.

You have a lot of choices and prices here:

A&C motion:
You can buy these kits or the parts for them.

Alternately they can also give you an idea of how to build a turret from discrete servos and mechanical parts.

B Motion:
The vertical translation is harder to get but something like this would accomplish the vertical (B) motion:

Why do you need the B (vertical motion) if the C motion exists???

Camera
This seems like overkill to just determine if the antenna is level?
I wonder if an accelerometer would be a simpler approach to detect angle and level.


You may be able to get ideas here: Product Insights

All these parts have step files that will allow you to CAD model the build.


I don’t know if these servos have the holding torque you need in high winds.
However, if you totally enclose the antenna then that would shield it from the torque of wind and protect the motors etc from the weather.

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