My Custom Built Camera Crane

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

I started building a custom camera crane, with everything built from scratch - including a remote 360 pan/tilt head



i recently started my camera crane build. I had no design or plan drawn up whatsoever. I was literally sitting at the computer, thought to myself id like to have one of those and walked out the door. I drove to the metal shop.

Since i cant see a project in my head without seeing available materials, i stayed there about 2 hours drawing on paper, going over what i would need all thought up on the spot in my head. (needless to say im good friends with the metal shop guys now

after a purchase of about 110 bucks in aluminum i came home with the most crucial pieces needed to start my build. I also picked up a couple boxes of 1/4in bolts and nuts along with an assortment of larger bolts, washers, nuts and bearing assembly.

My available tools at home consisted of a drill press, table saw and ratchet set so on. No band saw

I decided on aluminum for the build due to its inherent lightness. Steel would have been nice to weld but much harder to cut, drill and so on. Not to mention the finished product would have probably weighed 100lbs. Aluminum is nice and soft, quiet and not so hard on the tools

I didnt really think at the start of the build to properly document how i built it but the pictures i have are pretty self explanatory.

I started out by building this: 2 plates 9in by 7in sandwiched together with a bearing assembly, and the start of a tower mounted on top. as u ca see im going to be using alot of bolts and nuts for this project.

then i built the tower that would hold the 2 arms and incorporated it onto my base, note the larger bolts that the arms will be attached with.

Then i took my 2 5 foot aluminum arms, drilled them to fit the bolts and made a coupling piece for the end. wow a camera crane lol - oh but im no where near done

my workshop

I had decided from the beginning i wanted about 9 feet of arm on the boom but at the same time be able to carry the rig around in a small car. So i set myself a maximum length of 6 feet.

The arms would consist of 2 5 foot pieces that could extend or retract to your desired length. Or you could remove the secondary set of arms entirely and just use 2 5 foot pieces.

So i set about drilling holes in both arms 3in apart

note: when working with aluminum do yourself a favor and buy a set of nice drill bits. Dont bother that $7 set on sale. Spend at least $35 on a set of titanium or $75 on a set of cobalt drill bits. They will will not warp or lose their sharpness.

because i drilled both pieces at once i know they are identical

add the secondary set of arms and 4 pins to hold it together and ive got my retractable 9 foot reach

I couldnt help but toy with it - lots more work to come!

Next i needed to replace that table saw with a proper tripod. And something very solid. I chose not to incorporate a pre-built tripod as my base because with the amount of weight was putting on it, the legs of most tripods would flex and bend, not to mention ruin the head.

This is a good place to mention from here on was more trips to the metal shop and lots of trips to hardware stores for bearings, bolts and so on. About another $150 bucks

So i started with a simple plate - and lots of measuring - the 4 holes are for the 4 bolts that extend out the bottom on the base of the crane. need something to sit on!

Dont worry - these holes arent randomly placed

These angle plates extend 3 in downwards - it will make sense dont worry

Lots of those nuts and bolts

Then the 3 tripod legs get sandwitched between the plates with bolts.

The crane sits on the plate (there is now a holding pin so the 2 cant come apart accidentally)

Obviously the legs needed some holders so they dont go flying outwards

Its astonishing how solid the tripod is, Not 1mm of give in any direction.

I chose not to make the legs extendable (for now) because the crane itself does that and going any further down will reduce how high the crane can go (due to counter weights hitting ground) and going higher would make it hard to operate

Long list of things still to do. In this pic you can also see the new weight system being built

Guess what comes next?

Yep a full 360 remote head - Now it gets tricky

note: i had the controller and receiver assembly from a rc car. But it needed some extra parts to make it work for my application, different battery, speed control, gears and so on. about $90

Starting to build the horizontal axis assembly

cheesplate

Because you have to make the whole rig balanced, you need to be able to adjust the cameras center of gravity - vertical adjustment

Next is the Rotation assembly. All of the motors, battery, reciever, speed control will be mounted on the moving assembly. therefore there needs to be a fixed gear for the low rpm high torque motor to spin itself around

Where the camera will sit approximately

And thats how far ive gotten on the build. Lots to do still, im waiting on a couple parts to be machined and for the specialty low rpm motor to arrive.

here is a couple videos i took with my iphone mid build

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0SQn...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0-gRus9k50#ws

Today i ordered my lcd that will be my monitoring solution that will sit at the base of the rig attached to the camera via HDMI. - Machine shop called, pieces are done and il be working on it tommrow!

Il be updating!

 

[Mark Collins]

Nice. Any idea how much weight she'll be able to take before buckling? Aluminum isn't exactly known for it's weight bearing capacity. I image you'll be looking at DSLR's and smaller cameras like the EX-series and HVX. Maybe even the SI-2K or Epic?

 

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

Ive done testing with a weight resembling a remote head with a pany gh2 as the cam and i need 55lbs at full extension for counter balance. The aluminum hardly bends. IM sure it will take a scarlet or slightly heavier config with no problems.

 

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

updated!

 

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

ok i havent paid much attention to updating the thread over here but here goes....


i built the "head" of the unit that will be remotely operated.

i started with a 1 and a half in square tube cut into 2 pieces which then needed to be joined at an angle

making the joint extremly strong so there is no flex

14 bolts total haha

on the bottom of the arm extending down, i had the square pipe precision machined to fit 2 bearings which would then hold the pivot axle that would hold the camera (u can see it in the background)

making this

then it was attached to the rig using a bearing assembly i made myself

it looks off in this pic but its just due to the angle, the head is perfectly level in all directions down to half a mm

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150588072060455#

tomorrow i start working on the electronics

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arg - this just got a whole lot more expensive.

i thought i could get away with a single motor providing the horizontal rotation and a servo setup to handle the vertical rotation. (motor hasnt come due to seller sending it to uk by accident....)

turns out the servo (though it has 180 degrees of movement) cannot provide a smooth motion whatsoever and to top it off, the way its designed means it returns to zero (i.e. back to its original position) after a motion.

Then to top it off, the existing gear setup i had on the top piece will not work due to the pinion gear not being close enough to the spur gear.

SO im forced to build a setup with some expensive new gears and different motors and another electronic speed controller Mad

60rpm gear reduction motors coupled to 24T 48P pinion gear will turn around a 203T 48T Spur gear providing (at max speed) 1 full revolution of the head unit every 7.1 seconds. Coupled with a speed controller i should be able to get speeds around 5-10 rpm on the motor giving me 1 full revolution of the head every minute.

these are the motors im using
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360347383800&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT

and the gears
http://www.servocity.com/html/48_pitch_gearmotor_pinion_gear.html
http://www.servocity.com/html/48_pitch_aluminum_hub_gears___.html

and the speed controllers
http://cgi.ebay.ca/Ace-Veloci-Pro-R...Control_Parts_Accessories&hash=item4cf71280fa

2 of everything... lame

Custom motor mounts, and more machining...

hehe this is just more of an overview for myself...

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small update

made a couple extra supports to stop the tube flex

and got a package in the mail

curious...

looks like a suspicious package...

nope (luckly)

yay!

lcd mount is on its way along with an extra battery and mini hdmi cables!

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waiting on parts to arrive sucks.

the head will probably need a suspension head to absorb vibrations and bumps so i drew up a design.

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decided on a new design

prototype #1

prototype #2

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150608307645455#&comments

remember this will be doubled up, so 4 arms... and this is a smaller prototype. i estimate final version to be about 30% larger to accommodate the bearings.

still waiting on the darn parts to finish the head unit...

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and thats where im at for the moment

 

[Jeremy_Sawatzky]

OK HUGE UPDATE! :w00t:

i got in the 203t hub gears and pinions. along with one of the motors that i ordered, then later in the day i got my bigger slower motor as well.

i could only fab a bit but the video really shows it off well

the motors is just jerryrigged on right now cause im not sure if im going to use it or not.

at the slowest speed on the motor i get 1 revolution every 45 seconds so a little fast still but this is with that small 120 rpm motor. But at the same time im using a tiny 13t pinion gear so if i use my bigger motor (60rpm) - it has to use a larger 6mm bore 24t pinion gear so those cancel each other out. I think il have to go with something in the 30rpm range or slower.

got in the minihdmi to hdmi cables in along with an 11in articulating arm, mounts very well! :yippie:

also made some more pieces for the full size suspension head unit

big mess, and a fun bit to use

so like i said, that prototype suspension head thingy was going to be rebuilt about 30% larger to accommodate bearings and such. This was much harder than anticipated.

those pieces of aluminium in my previous update were meant to hold the bearings like you see here. - note the set screws so the bearings dont spin around inside.

then i duplicated and made a couple pieces to hold both arms together.

my fav part about it is how perfect it is on all angles, not one part of it is "out"

and a quick video similar to my other one showing how quiet and smooth it is.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150625704705455#&comments

there will be some weight shaving to do as this unit does weigh a fair amount and coupled with the remote head on the end of it and a camera and a battery.... it will weigh alot, and all that weight out on a 9ft lever will = probably 60lbs of counter weight.

next up - motor mounts!

ok yesterday and today i worked on mounting the second gear as well as a couple motor mounts,

Because of the super tight tolerances of the 203t 48 pitch gear, it makes it very very hard to nail down perfect measurements. Most parts need to be adjustable instead of just bolted together. if im off center by a millimeter, the motor will come off the gear... but i think i did pretty well.

I made a long video instead of pictures to show you guys what ive done and a general recap... enjoy

IMG 1519

k update, il post more pics later. i spent a solid 10 hours on it the past couple days.

yea it was bloody complicated...

kk a few more pics of the suspension head

another motor mount

ive got about 7.5 inches of travel on the head, plenty to take out any harsh bumps - and the rig is super smooth.

 

[Walter Tutschka]

Hello

Good work, given the existing equipment !

note: when working with aluminum do yourself a favor and buy a set of nice drill bits. Dont bother that $7 set on sale. Spend at least $35 on a set of titanium or $75 on a set of cobalt drill bits. They will will not warp or lose their sharpness.

For Aluminium drilling just buy ordinary HSS drills and use methylated spirits und you got a very good result.

 

[Philipp Straehl]

good work! But it's incredible how cheap aluminium and bolts/nuts/washers in your country are. $110 for the first crane version, that's nothing. I would pay about 5 times more. And given aluminium needs very much energy to produce, it's still very, very cheap. Anyway, nice rigs.

 

[paulherrin]

super cool! thanks for sharing your progress!