Morning all, Wow almost 2 years since I last updated this thread!
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 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