Michael Hastings
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2006
- Messages
- 4,191
- Reaction score
- 21
- Points
- 38
- Location
- Florida
- Website
- www.aquavideo.com
AquaVideo ports
AquaVideo ports
Per Jim Kozmik's post, I can see there may be some confusion on the ports and in particular why the port system caused a delay on Joe Shemesh's housing.
In fact the ports and all of the frontplates were done and in stock (see the picture below. The problem was that Joe ordered the PVC housing with the GLASS dome - a configuration that we had not made before and which required a change to the plate inside the housing that the camera mountplate attaches to to get the proper height.
Since one of the REDUSER's in Australia was also asking how he could accommodate our glass dome to his housing that use the same thread as our STANDARD frontplate, let me explain what is going on with the plates.
First the standard frontplate. If you look at the picture the plates on the left are the standard plates. The stack at the upper left is the plates before they are anodized, and on the upper right is a stack of two plates after anodizing and the top has the six inch dome screwed into it. The large plate on the bottom left is the raw 5/8" thick plate with the threaded hole in it for the port thread. From there, making the plate is simply a matter of bolting the plate to the table and running the program. With the PVC housing (now with a thicker wall tube about the same as the aluminum), if we used the original housing plate made for the thinner tube the lens would sit too high in the dome. Not much of a problem with the standard plate because it would just be a matter of raising the center of the CNC program and running the plate. This method also lets us use the same dome mount and raw plate to make frontplates for other housings like an HVX200, EX1 or whatever.
The glass dome (the two plates on the upper right - one is the plate with the dome it, the other is a stack of six with the top one turned over so you can see the undercuts for the latch clip) is a different beast - because of the small size of the tube it requires those undercuts which means the part has to have one side machined and them flipped over to do the other side which is a much fussier setup. So on the new PVC housings it mean making a new internal mount plate to give the right height, which required some significant CNC setup changes and trial and error to get it right.
The large plate below the glass dome plates is a glass plate as well but it can't be easily used on the normal RED housing because there would be no way to clamp it on easily without the undercuts. We made a half dozen or so to use on other housings - that either would be larger or have the lens/dome closer to the center of the tube.
Although we have stock threaded ports for macro/long lenses, and 6 and 8 inch domes you should also notice another feature of the standard plate: the o-ring groove and tapped holes around the threaded hole. We put that there because once things are set up on the CNC it is pretty easy to run at the same time and it gives a lot of future flexibility. First we can easily make a flat port that attaches there for some of the shorter SLR macro lenses - like the canon 60mm or some of the normal primes if you were doing surface or pool shots. It also means if you have some funky application where you need a special port you would have an easy way of attaching and sealing it since you already have the attachment points and seal.
Here's a direct link to the .pdf brochure for the AquaVideo RED1 housing:
http://www.aquavideo.com/pdfs/RED1HousingBrochure309.pdf
AquaVideo ports
Per Jim Kozmik's post, I can see there may be some confusion on the ports and in particular why the port system caused a delay on Joe Shemesh's housing.
In fact the ports and all of the frontplates were done and in stock (see the picture below. The problem was that Joe ordered the PVC housing with the GLASS dome - a configuration that we had not made before and which required a change to the plate inside the housing that the camera mountplate attaches to to get the proper height.
Since one of the REDUSER's in Australia was also asking how he could accommodate our glass dome to his housing that use the same thread as our STANDARD frontplate, let me explain what is going on with the plates.
First the standard frontplate. If you look at the picture the plates on the left are the standard plates. The stack at the upper left is the plates before they are anodized, and on the upper right is a stack of two plates after anodizing and the top has the six inch dome screwed into it. The large plate on the bottom left is the raw 5/8" thick plate with the threaded hole in it for the port thread. From there, making the plate is simply a matter of bolting the plate to the table and running the program. With the PVC housing (now with a thicker wall tube about the same as the aluminum), if we used the original housing plate made for the thinner tube the lens would sit too high in the dome. Not much of a problem with the standard plate because it would just be a matter of raising the center of the CNC program and running the plate. This method also lets us use the same dome mount and raw plate to make frontplates for other housings like an HVX200, EX1 or whatever.
The glass dome (the two plates on the upper right - one is the plate with the dome it, the other is a stack of six with the top one turned over so you can see the undercuts for the latch clip) is a different beast - because of the small size of the tube it requires those undercuts which means the part has to have one side machined and them flipped over to do the other side which is a much fussier setup. So on the new PVC housings it mean making a new internal mount plate to give the right height, which required some significant CNC setup changes and trial and error to get it right.
The large plate below the glass dome plates is a glass plate as well but it can't be easily used on the normal RED housing because there would be no way to clamp it on easily without the undercuts. We made a half dozen or so to use on other housings - that either would be larger or have the lens/dome closer to the center of the tube.
Although we have stock threaded ports for macro/long lenses, and 6 and 8 inch domes you should also notice another feature of the standard plate: the o-ring groove and tapped holes around the threaded hole. We put that there because once things are set up on the CNC it is pretty easy to run at the same time and it gives a lot of future flexibility. First we can easily make a flat port that attaches there for some of the shorter SLR macro lenses - like the canon 60mm or some of the normal primes if you were doing surface or pool shots. It also means if you have some funky application where you need a special port you would have an easy way of attaching and sealing it since you already have the attachment points and seal.
Here's a direct link to the .pdf brochure for the AquaVideo RED1 housing:
http://www.aquavideo.com/pdfs/RED1HousingBrochure309.pdf
h34r:
