Epic-M replacement right side plate

[Jeffrey Eidell]

When I bought my Epic M used it was missing all kinds of parts. Top and bottom fans, front fan shroud, side ssd, lens mount. Much of it I cobbled together. 3d printing the lens mount and fan shroud. I’m most proud of my Epic currently running off of Makita batteies via custom “Vmount” plate. The best part about running Makita batteries is their obscenely fast charge time, and naturally their cost and availability. Recently I acquired a side handle from ebay for a screaming hot deal at 30 bucks. Works perfectly but I had no reliable way to mount it.

So I went down in the shop and found some brass plate that’s been kicking around and made a replacement for the side plate. This baby is looking extra gaudy now. Ready to shoot. Thinking I’ll replace those stainless panheads with some countersunk brass ones. But for now, I reckon it’s working fine. For your viewing pleasure the Frankenstein.

 

[Mike P.]

Awesome! Yes, a little “gum and duct tape”-ish, but if it works, the images are still gonna be great…. Plus it has a lot of character!

Would love to see the 3D printed lens mount and how you made/wired the makita battery mount… simple and effective!

 

[Jeffrey Eidell]

Hey Mike!

Thanks a bunch for the encouragement. The old girl does indeed create some beauty images. Including some photos of the original makita prototype. It uses a digital buck converter to drop voltage from the makitas to 14.8. Bought a flying lead lemo, and soldered it to the output side. For the battery mount I used the Makita usb charger belt clip (20 or so bucks). I’m currently working with my electrical engineer buddy to modify the Red Quad battery module to accept the makitas and have a mechanical connection to the camera.

The lens mount I printed is for Canon FDs I happened to have an FD speed booster on hand so I removed the glass element and printed the camera mating plate to the applicable flange focal distance. Went through several iterations. Including some early Cherry and Walnut prototypes.

The last is the fan shroud which was a pretty fun one to draw up in Fusion. Basically going back and forth with my calipers and using reference photos to get it pretty close.