JP2000307929A - Tripod head device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a universal head which can stop the panning and tilting operation of a television camera mounted on a universal head properly by limiting the maximum rotating speed of a motor placing the television camera in the panning and tilting operation by attenuating the driving voltage of the motor by an attenuator according to the weight of a television camera. SOLUTION: According to the control signal from a universal head controller 32, a CPU 30 outputs a control signal commanding the rotating speed of a panning monitor 40. The control signal is converted by a D/A converter 34 into an analog signal, which is attenuated by an attenuator 36 and inputted to an amplifier 38. Then the signal has its voltage amplified by the amplifier 38 and is applied to the panning monitor 40. A user can adjust the voltage attenuation value or the attenuator and the voltage attenuation value is adjusted according to the weight of the television camera mounted on the tripod head to properly limit the maximum rotating speed of the panning monitor 40, which can properly be stopped.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a pan head device, and more particularly to a pan head device which drives a pan head on which a camera is mounted by a motor to move a shooting direction of the camera.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Heretofore, there has been used a pan head device which mounts a television camera on a pan head and drives the pan head and tilt operation by driving the pan head by a motor. In such a camera platform device, by operating a camera platform controller connected to the camera platform via a communication cable or the like, the motor can be driven to direct the television camera in a desired direction.

[0003]

However, conventionally,
When a heavy TV camera is mounted on the camera platform, the inertia force when panning / tilting the TV camera increases, so even if you try to stop the panning / tilting operation at the target position, the TV camera is stopped at that position There was a problem that it was not possible. That is, for a heavy television camera, the rotation speed of the motor is too high, and there has been a problem that the motor cannot receive the inertial force when stopping the television camera.

The above problem can be solved by replacing the motor with a motor having a higher power. However, it is not a very preferable measure in terms of an increase in the size of the motor and cost. The present invention has been made in view of such circumstances, and according to the weight of the camera mounted on the camera platform,
An object of the present invention is to provide a pan head device capable of restricting a maximum rotation speed of a motor when performing a pan / tilt operation of a camera and appropriately stopping the pan / tilt operation of the camera.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a pan head device in which a pan head on which a camera is mounted is driven by a motor to move a shooting direction of the camera. In the voltage supply path that supplies the drive voltage,
An attenuator for attenuating the drive voltage to a voltage corresponding to the weight of the camera is connected.

According to the present invention, since the drive voltage of the motor for moving the shooting direction of the camera is attenuated by the attenuator to a voltage corresponding to the weight of the camera, the maximum rotation speed of the motor is reduced by the weight of the camera. Limited accordingly. Therefore,
Even when the camera is heavy, a problem that the stop of rotation is delayed by the inertia force of the camera when the rotation of the motor is stopped is prevented, and the photographing direction of the camera can be appropriately controlled.

[0007]

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a pan head device according to the present invention. FIG. 1 is a front view showing the appearance of a camera platform to which the present invention is applied. A pan head 1 shown in the figure is a remote control pan head remotely operated by a pan head controller (not shown), and drives a pan axis 14 and a tilt axis 16 shown in the figure respectively based on a control signal from the pan head controller. A pan motor and a tilt motor are built in the camera platform body 12.

The tilt shaft 16 of the head body 12 has an L
A support base 20 formed in the shape of a letter is attached, and the television camera housing 10 is mounted on the support base 20 via a mounting adapter (not shown). The TV camera housing 10 has a metal housing main body 22 for housing the TV camera, and a protective glass 24 and a wiper device 26 are provided on the front surface of the housing main body 22.

According to the above-mentioned head, when the pan motor is driven based on a control signal from the head controller, the pan shaft 14 rotates, and the entire head body 12 rotates in a horizontal plane. Thereby, the housing 1 for the television camera
The shooting direction of the television camera housed in the camera 0 is moved in the panning direction. When the tilt motor is driven based on a control signal from the pan head controller, the tilt shaft 16 rotates, and the support platform 20 rotates in a vertical plane. Thereby, the shooting direction of the television camera housed in the television camera housing 10 is moved in the tilt direction.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the control circuit for the pan motor. Since the configuration and operation of the tilt motor control circuit are the same as those of the pan motor, only the configuration and operation of the pan motor control circuit will be described below. As shown in FIG.
When the CPU 30 mounted on the camera acquires a control signal for instructing movement in the pan direction from the pan head controller 32, the CPU 30 based on the control signal
A control signal for instructing a rotation speed of 0 is output to the D / A converter 34. As the control signal, the higher the rotation speed command of the pan motor 40, the higher the voltage output.

The control signal output from the CPU 30 is D
After being converted into an analog signal by the / A converter 34,
The signal is input to an attenuator (attenuator) 36. Then, the voltage of the control signal is attenuated by the attenuator 36.
The operation of the attenuator 36 will be described later. The control signal whose voltage has been attenuated in this way and output from the attenuator 36 is subsequently input to the amplifier 38, where the voltage is amplified by a predetermined factor and applied to the pan motor 40. Thereby, the pan motor 40 is rotated at a speed according to the applied voltage. Therefore, the pan motor 40 is rotated at a speed corresponding to the magnitude of the voltage of the control signal output from the CPU 30.

Next, the structure of the attenuator 36 will be described.
As shown in (A), the voltage of the control signal input from the D / A converter 34 is divided by the resistors R _{1 to} R _n , and the switch S ₁
By turning on either to S _n, the attenuator 3
6 is configured to output a voltage lower than the input voltage. The voltage input to the attenuator 36 in the case of turning on the switch S ₁ is not attenuated. The ratio of output voltage to input voltage of the attenuator 36 is switched by the position of the switch for turning on the switches S ₁ to S _n, on and off of these switches S ₁ to S _n are setting means such as a dip switch Can be switched by the user. In the configuration of FIG. 3A, the ratio between the input voltage and the output voltage is switched to a discrete value, but may be switched to a continuous value. The attenuator 36 is shown in FIG.
D by turning on the switch S ₁ to S _n to one of the resistor R ₁ to R _n of different resistance values as shown in (B)
The configuration may be such that the A / A converter 34 and the amplifier 38 are connected in series. However, any _{one of} the resistors R _{1 to} R _n has a resistance value of 0.

By connecting such an attenuator 36 on the supply path of the control signal output from the CPU 30 as shown in FIG. 2, the voltage of the control signal output from the CPU 30 is attenuated by the attenuator 36,
Is lower than the target applied voltage.
To be applied. Therefore, the rotation speed of the pan motor 40 is rotated at a lower speed than the rotation speed targeted by the CPU 30. The attenuator 3
By adjusting the setting means such as 6 dip switches,
The rate at which the rotation speed of the pan motor 40 is reduced can also be adjusted.

Next, the pan motor 4 constructed as described above
The operation of the 0 control circuit will be described. For example, CPU
When the pan 30 is to control the pan motor 40 at a rotation speed as shown by a curve a in FIG. 4, the attenuator 36 does not exist (the conventional driving circuit of the pan motor 40), and the pan head TV camera housing is used. When the television camera housed in the camera 10 is heavy, the operation for stopping the rotation of the pan motor 40 does not become the operation of the curve a targeted by the CPU 30 but the operation as the curve b in FIG. Show. That is, since the TV camera is heavy, the time from when the rotation of the pan motor 40 starts to decelerate to when the rotation stops is long, and the time (time) t ₁ ′ at which the rotation stops is longer than the stop time t ₁ in the curve a. I do. This makes it difficult for the user to control the pan position of the television camera.

On the other hand, when the attenuator 36 is connected to the control signal supply path as shown in FIG. 2, the rotation of the pan motor 40 is different from the operation of the curve a targeted by the CPU 30 in FIG. An operation like a curve c is shown. That is, the maximum rotation speed of the pan motor 40 is represented by the curve a.
, The inertia of the television camera when the rotation of the pan motor 40 is stopped is reduced, and the time t _{1 at} which the rotation stops is substantially equal to the stop time t ₁ targeted by the CPU 30. Will be consistent. Therefore, even when the television camera is heavy, the pan position of the television camera can be appropriately controlled without changing the control of the CPU 30.

Further, since the inertial force of the television camera mainly depends on the weight of the television camera, the panning controller 32 actually pans the television camera, and the panning operation is suitable for the television camera. As described above, the user adjusts the amount of voltage attenuation in the attenuator 36 and adjusts the maximum rotation speed of the pan motor 40,
A suitable pan operation can be obtained regardless of the weight of the television camera.

In the above description of the control circuit of the pan motor 40 in FIG. 2, the user manually switches the voltage attenuation in the attenuator 36 according to the weight of the television camera housed in the camera housing 10 of the camera platform. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and a switching signal may be transmitted from the CPU 30 to the attenuator 36 as shown in FIG. That is, FIG.
As electrically switched switches S ₁ to S _n shown in (B), CPU 30 and the switch S ₁ to S _n
The switching may be performed by a switching signal from. In this case, adjustment of the amount of voltage attenuation by the attenuator 36 is specified by a user using a switch or the like, and the specification is performed by the CPU 3.
0, and based on this, the CPU 30 may control the attenuator 36 by the switching signal.
The PU 30 may drive the pan motor 40 on a test basis when the power is turned on, or the like, so that the PU 30 can be automatically set based on the operation response of the pan motor 40 at that time.

In the above-described embodiment, the attenuator 36 is connected between the D / A converter 34 and the amplifier 38. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and as shown in FIG. It may be connected between the pan motors 40. In the above embodiment, the control circuit of the pan motor 40 has been described. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the present invention may be applied to the control circuit of the tilt motor by connecting an attenuator in the same manner as in the above embodiment. Can be.

[0019]

As described above, according to the camera platform apparatus of the present invention, the drive voltage of the motor for moving the camera in the photographing direction is attenuated by the attenuator to a voltage corresponding to the weight of the camera. The maximum rotational speed of the motor is limited according to the weight of the camera. Therefore, even when the camera is heavy, it is possible to prevent a problem that the stop of the rotation is delayed due to the inertial force of the camera when the rotation of the motor is stopped, and the photographing direction of the camera can be appropriately controlled.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a front view showing the appearance of a camera platform to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a control circuit for a pan motor.

FIGS. 3A and 3B are configuration diagrams illustrating an example of the configuration of an attenuator. FIG.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram used for describing the operation of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing another embodiment of the control circuit for the pan motor.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing another embodiment of the control circuit of the pan motor.

[Explanation of symbols]

30 ... CPU, 32 ... head controller, 34 ... D / A
Converter, 36 ... Attenuator, 38 ... Amplifier, 40 ... Pan motor

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A pan head device for driving a pan head on which a camera is mounted by a motor to move a shooting direction of the camera, wherein the driving voltage is supplied to a voltage supply path for supplying a driving voltage to the motor. A head device connected to an attenuator for attenuating the voltage according to the weight of the camera. 2. The pan head device according to claim 1, further comprising switching means for switching between a state in which the attenuator is connected to the voltage supply path and a state in which the attenuator is not connected.