Panning Camera Jig Thingy 2.0. A Whole lotta Thread

[Ian 2,417]

Evening all, 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.
I hope to have it all fully finished and tested tomorrow, so stay tuned

 

 

[Mister Mad Mower 64]

Nice idea , i play around with camera mounts quite a lot , i feel that the steel bearings may create an audio issue though , maybe slices of bicycle innertube over them will give a smoother and almost silent track as the camera rolls along .

Take a look on a popular auction site at the 12v remote winch switches , You could be riding by on a tractor and opperate the tracking motor from the seat to get a shot as you pass by .

Or simply be pushing a new engine on a trolley into the workshop and get a shot following you as you go .

If you add a vertical bar near the end of the track , as the trolley nears the end the bar would catch on the tripod head handle and swing the camera around to follow you as you move away giving the effect of having a cameraman opperating the set up .

And as you already are using bits from a battery drill , why not simply make up a capstan winch using strimmer cord running around a pulley at each end of the frame with one end tied to the trolley and the other attached with a spring to keep it all tight for better movement when under power .

The battery drill is an amazingly good experimenters tool as bolts can be used to attach all sorts of pulleys / discs etc to the motor easily .And the variable speed and use of 12v batteries make then portable and safe to play around with .

A friend used a stripped down drill with a bent bar in the chuck to opperate a robotic fishes tail , the bar rotated around and the bend swung the tail from side to side , simplicity itself really .

 

.

 

[HeadExam 1,783]

Ian's going Hollywood on us, lol

[Anglo Traction 1,016]

Very good example of your ingenuity Ian. I see this as an addition to keep your project updates 'On Track'  so it doesn't't go ' Off the Rails' .

[Ian 2,417]

On 07/11/2016 at 10:13 PM, Mister Mad Mower said:

Nice idea , i play around with camera mounts quite a lot , i feel that the steel bearings may create an audio issue though , maybe slices of bicycle innertube over them will give a smoother and almost silent track as the camera rolls along .

Take a look on a popular auction site at the 12v remote winch switches , You could be riding by on a tractor and opperate the tracking motor from the seat to get a shot as you pass by .

Or simply be pushing a new engine on a trolley into the workshop and get a shot following you as you go .

If you add a vertical bar near the end of the track , as the trolley nears the end the bar would catch on the tripod head handle and swing the camera around to follow you as you move away giving the effect of having a cameraman operating the set up .

And as you already are using bits from a battery drill , why not simply make up a capstan winch using strimmer cord running around a pulley at each end of the frame with one end tied to the trolley and the other attached with a spring to keep it all tight for better movement when under power .

The battery drill is an amazingly good experimenters tool as bolts can be used to attach all sorts of pulleys / discs etc to the motor easily .And the variable speed and use of 12v batteries make then portable and safe to play around with .

A friend used a stripped down drill with a bent bar in the chuck to opperate a robotic fishes tail , the bar rotated around and the bend swung the tail from side to side , simplicity itself really .

 

.

 

 

Your right about the steel bearing creating lot's of audio noise.. I thought it might do and the video camera does pick it up way too well..

I did try the battery drill motor, but being 18V it wasn't to keen on running at 12V or 13.8V from my CB power pack!

I'd already thought of the self angling camera thingy, but using string instead of a solid bar sort of thing.

One thing I am trying to do with this build is build it as cheaply as possible..   So far it's cost me £1.79 (with staff discount from the garden center) for a ball of string, I'm hoping that's all I have to spend

 

 

On 08/11/2016 at 2:42 AM, HeadExam said:

Ian's going Hollywood on us,

 

Not yet, I still write my own scripts     When I say write, it's more like start talking to the camera and wonder what I'm going to say next

 

 

22 hours ago, Anglo Traction said:

Very good example of your ingenuity Ian. I see this as an addition to keep your project updates 'On Track'  so it doesn't't go ' Off the Rails' .

 

Thanks Richard

 

 

More of an update for you chaps.

 

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 as Mister Mad Mower suggested.

 

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

 

 

 

Yesterday 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 slice 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

 

 

 

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

 

[nigel 1,877]

If you had asked I've got loads of radiator pipes you could of had for a £1 tight ass 🖕

[Mister Mad Mower 64]

Them old escorts have a lovely timing belt and sprockets on , The belt cut and glued to flat bar / box section makes a cheap rack for the sprockets to get a posative drive on .

Try the CV joint rubbers segmented cone , they may give you the tyres for the bearings your looking for .

And if it has electric windows then you have some low geared winch motors to hand .

Electric mirrors have small low geared motors in them as well .

And if you fit one of the interior light door switches at the drive motor end , you can make an auto stop overun switch by running the motor through it and if anything goes wrong the trolley will hit the switch and open it .

Loads of possability if you have an old escort or two .....

Not to mention the rear stub axles for rotary welding table mounts or trailer axles , youve got 4 of them - Skid steer tractor in the making ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ian 2,417]

Evening all, time for a long overdue update on this camera panning jig thingy, and quite a lot has changed..
But first..

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.

 

 

 

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, but your going to have to wait until the next MadTrax video to see the results

 

 

[Stormin 4,458]

Pinewood revisited.

[Ian 2,417]

A short test video for you.. If it looks lumpy that's Potatobucket videos for ya..

Click on the pic... Oh, I guess PB can't handle wide screen!

 

[Mister Mad Mower 64]

Quiet drive -

Use the wiper motor ( with the plain bearings greased ) with a block of wood roll pinned onto the shaft .Fix a 1"  plywood disc onto the block and stretch some inner tube over the disc to form a grippy tyre .

Make a similar pinned block arrangement on the input shaft , just make a 10" or 12" plywood disc ( 3/4 or 1" ply ) and use a larger innertube from a van etc to make up the tyre .

Mount the wiper motor on a plywood plate that is free moving ( pivoted ) so a deadweight or spring can pull the drive and driven discs together .

If your motor is doing 45rpm , a 1" disc onto a 12" disc should reduce this down to 3.75 rpm .If the bar this drives is 1/2" then  you should see a trolley travel of  around 6 1/4" per min with the line fixed directly to the bar .

If  12" travel a min is required then use a 6" disc and so on .

If you have any , bicycle wheels make large diameter pulleys for a belt reduction , again almost silent due to the lack of grindy gears .And a inner tube can be cut length wise in half to make a good flat belt to be driven off a piece of brush handle fixed to the motor shaft . Or just make up a disc drive and run it directly on the inner rim .

And iff all else fails , rob the little womens sewing machine motor and foot pedal .......

[Ian 2,417]

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

 

[Cub Cadet 613]

12 hours ago, Ian said:

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

 

Fantastic! I look forward to seeing it used in your videos!