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Camera Panning Jig Thingy

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Stigian Part of things Posts: 406	Camera Panning Jig Thingy Stigian @stigian
	Oct 10, 2018 9:52:33 GMT Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top
	Morning all, for some reason I have never posted anything about this build on RR (if I have I can't find it anywhere), so the first part will be copied and pasted from another forum to give you the whole story.. Starting almost 2 years ago! I have started a little project that I have been meaning to do for a long time, a panning camera jig thingy.. This should make my videos look more professional and hopefully make them more enjoyable for you all to watch... The first part needed was the gearbox out of this very old and abandoned kiddies electric car.. I forgot to get a photo of the gearbox so here's a pic of what remained of the car when I'd finished cannibalizing it. While dumping the remains of the car on the rubbish pile I thought I'd have a quick look at the scrap pile... Hhmm... Those tubes could come in handy Back in the workshop some choppy weldy later, a 8 inch wide tubular track was made. Now I needed something to roll along the track, a sliced up cart axle and some used bearings got things rolling.. Yes I did commit the sin of welding the bearings to the axles, but the bearings feel the same as before the welding so hopefully all will be well. Something to mount the camera would be handy, so an old tripod got the chop. To motorize the contraption I am using a CB radio power pack, a New Holland tractor wiper motor and the speed control gubbins from a rechargeable drill that has knackered battery's. The two axles were joined together by using a cut down New Holland tractor wiper motor bracket which just happened to have the right size hole to fit the tripod cut off. As you can see the wiper motor isn't fully fitted yet. The idea is the wiper motor slowly winds a length of string onto a shaft and pulls it along the track.. The speed control does work but the motor does make some squealing sounds at slower speeds.. Something to have a think about.. I will add the electric car gearbox to slow things really down whilst doing time lapse filming.
	My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBloke Quote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity

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Stigian Part of things Posts: 406	Camera Panning Jig Thingy Stigian @stigian
	Oct 10, 2018 9:59:50 GMT Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top
	As I'd cut up the wiper motor bracket to make the camera carriage thingy, I needed to make a new one.. The shape will change a bit when it gets mounted to the rails. Here's the gearbox from the kiddies electric var that I forgot to take a photo of.. All that gearing will slow things down very well, ideal for time lapse videos. The missing sprocket from the gearbox is fixed to the electric motor shaft.. I don't need all of the motor so out came the grinder. It was at this point that I decided the time had come to look for for an old inner tube to make some tyres out of. I couldn't see anything with bike wheels on it in the scrap pile, so I had a drive looking for some rubber coolant pipe to use... Fear not, the Fergies are safe. It was these two Escorts that I was interested in.. The estate while easy to get into was not going to give up any of it's internals as the bonnet pull lever inside refused to budge! The saloon I knew had an opening bonnet but without cutting down any trees only the driver door would open.. About 6 inches! Lot's of unnatural body positions later I just managed to get my arm in and pull the latch.. It's a shame that when I opened the bonnet I found the water pipes way too small! Oh well, best have another look at the scrap pile as it's on the way back to the workshop.. This time I got off my Wheel Horse to have a real good look.. Then I spotted it buried under loads of junk and long grass. Hurrah That was a very cold day weather wise so naturally the first thing to do when I got back to the workshop was to make a coffee And bask in the glory of finally finding an inner tube. Once the coffee had warmed me up I sliced a bit off the inner tube and with a lot of stretching it slid onto the bearing.. Instant tyre I will try a wider bit of inner tube to see how well it wraps it's self around the bearing.. As you can see the bearing only really make contact with the rails on it's outer edge, so the more the tube wraps it's self around the better.. I'm not a fan of the really low profile tyre look anyway
	My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBloke Quote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity

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Stigian Part of things Posts: 406	Camera Panning Jig Thingy Stigian @stigian
	Oct 10, 2018 10:07:49 GMT Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top
	Back to the drive train if you can call it that lol.. To get the ultra slow panning side of things working I needed to find a way of fixing the small electric car motor to the New Holland wiper motor.. A bit of round bar with a 3mm diameter drilled in it.. The bar was then heated up (ta for the use of your blow torch Nigel) and expanded so the 3.2mm shaft of the electric motor could be press fitted in. A bit of tube with a 13mm nut welded on. Which is a tight fit on the bit of bar. Once the tube is welded to the bar the nut end winds onto the wiper motor. Taa daaaa... Drive into the gearbox for the ultra slow speed side of things. To get drive out of the gearbox I needed to find a way of fixing a bit of this bar to this sprocket. A masking tape template, shame I forgot to photo the steel version as well! The basic motorized system, and yes the far shaft needs a tweak to get it straight.. The idea is you can tie a bit of string to the shaft coming out the wiper motor to produce a nice workable speed.. Move the string to the far shaft and the gearing is such that it would take about 30 mins maybe more to pull the camera carriage up the rails.. Just right for time lapse stuff. You saw the masking tape template of the part I forgot to photograph, well here's the part finally photographed.. Screws go though the cog and screw into captive threads in the 6 sided er... boss which is welded to the shaft. It has been re-welded since this photo was taken.. With the winding shafts sorted so they run parallel with each other the whole lot was welded to one end of the rails. The other end got a pulley.. One of the shafts was then taken back off for some serious strengthening and a few guiding washers. The green garden string I had bought was useless and kept breaking, so I tried some thin fencing wire which I happened to have kicking about the place.
	My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBloke Quote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity

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Stigian Part of things Posts: 406	Camera Panning Jig Thingy Stigian @stigian
	Oct 10, 2018 10:26:07 GMT Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top
	The system worked just fine for panning along side to side though the fencing wire was starting to develop lots of little kinks.. So I thought I'd best try things up and down.. Yes I was in position to catch the video camera should anything fail and gravity makes things plummet during testing.. These two photo's were taken in record time As the electric motor at the time was 12 volt, it made it easy to try it out outside.. With it back on the bench for more testing the thin fencing wire decided it had had enough of having lots of little kinks forced onto it and showed it by snapping! I also wasn't that happy with how the pulleys worked. The ultra slow side of things was really ultra slow like the camera moved 1 ft every 20 mins sort of ultra slow! The New Holland tractor wiper motor made all sorts of squealing sounds when it's speed was turned down and it would of been a pain in the 'orse to have to disconnect the drive wire/string from one pulley shaft to another to get different speeds... Sooooo, a rethink was needed... Hidden under the yellow rag (which is wrapped around to try and quieten gear noise a bit) is the 18 volt motor from the rechargeable drill that gave up it's speed controls. It powers the kiddys electric car gearbox to turn a single shaft which is now held up one end by a bearing and plate that came from a Webb cricket pitch mower years ago.. It pays to throw nothing away As you can see the whole thing is now rubber mounted to the rails to reduce the amount of running sounds the camera picks up. A big thank you to Matt for donating some strong fishing line to the cause, it now winds both ways on the shaft, so when one side is winding in the other is winding out. The speed control is a work of art and is more than worthy of the two photo's it's getting.. As I am using the trigger speed control from the 18 volt rechargeable drill I needed to find an accurate way of applying pressure of varying amounts to the trigger and keep it there.. The easiest way I could think of was a clamp of some sort.. Like the exhaust clamp with a bit ground out to fit the trigger.. Just tighten the nuts to increase the speed. A washer was welded on to house a master on off switch Power is now supplied by this 18.5 volt HP power pack that I found in a box in the workshop.. No idea where or when I got it, but it has come in handy. So with everything finally ready to go, the jig thingy was put in a position up high, video camera clamped in place on the carriage and the comical electrical system plugged in... It was at the point I managed to knock a stand which was holding up one end and it all came crashing down with a loud bang! Nigel and Matt came running to see if I'd done anything nasty, but soon hastily retreated once they saw me stomping about the place swearing a lot! Somehow my video camera didn't get broken, not even a scratch, but the jig thingy did need some repairs! One of which was to repair the end of the winding shaft which had had a threaded end sheered off! To make the shaft long enough again I had to lengthen it.. It was at this point I had an idea and left the shaft over length for another idea.. More on that when it happens. So does the camera panning jig thingy work? Well, here's a couple of snaps after some successful testing..... That was almost 2 years ago...
	My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBloke Quote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity

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Stigian Part of things Posts: 406	Camera Panning Jig Thingy Stigian @stigian
	Oct 10, 2018 10:42:31 GMT Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Back to Top
	Almost 2 years is a long time and quite a lot has changed on the Camera Panning Jig Thingy or CPJT for short.. The bearing wheels lost thier inner tube rubber tyres/tires as well, they kept losing them.. Despite a nice tight fit on the bearings they would work their way one way or the other and come off! String or fishing line was always a bad idea really.. The fishing line was a very strong one, I can't remember now what it was rated at) but it would still stretch and eventually snap! I didn't fancy it breaking when doing a vertical shot and my video camera hurttling towards the ground at a very fast and very damaging rate! Soooo, now we have a whole lotta thread.. Let's start at the smaller end... That's the end of a rather long length of threaded rod with a "made on the lathe" thingy that screws onto the rod (with a lock nut) and allows me to put a bearing or two on the end of the threaded rod.. Yes you are seeing correctly, that is a skateboard wheel and bearings fixed on the frame The idea is the skateboard wheel allows for a little bit of movement which makes everything run a lot smoother. Moving along the threaded rod we come to the camera carriage thingy.. Zoom in a bit and you can see the threaded rod runs through a couple of nut's welded onto the carriage.. As the threaded rod turns, it forces the nut's to wind down (or up) the thread which being welded to the carriage moves the carriage along the rails. Cool eh A view from the underside.. The lead pipe is zip tied on to the carriage to counter balance the weight of the carriage and camera on top when the CPJY is being used vertically.. Otherwise know as up and down Moving down (or is it up?) to the business end we have a couple of pulleys a belt and half a wiper motor.. With the pulleys set this way the carriage moves down the rails at a ground breaking 1 inch per minute. The carriage has a little over 6 foot of travel along the rails which gives me a 1hr 12mins recording time as the camera pans it's way down the rails.. That may sound like a long time, but is is very handy when filming long scenes such as stripping all the parts off MadTrax If I swap the pulleys around then I get a total travel time of about 6 mins.. I have made a couple of other pulleys (no photo) which can be swapped in giving more travel time options.. A better view of this end, a computer cooling fan has been fixed on to help keep the wiper motor cool.. It does get a bit hot which I expect it did when it was actually being used as a wiper motor! Power now comes (again) from a Mustang CB radio power pack.. No fancy speed control this time (as the pulleys take care of the speed), just forward and back depending on how the two wires are connected. The lengths (and heights) I go to to bring you all good video footage You can see al the "panning action" in the next MadTrax video, strip down in timelapse
	My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBloke Quote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity

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