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Hello all,
For an animation project I'm starting, a camera tilt and pan unit became
necessary. Here's half of it, the tilt part. (I haven't designed the pan part
yet) Forgive me if I'm misposting this; this is my first major MOC post.
Deep links: (forgive me for simply providing URL's. I haven't quite figured out
the FTX system here yet)
<http://brickshelf.com/gallery/Buachaille/camtilt/aaa_overview.jpg>
An overview of the mechanism. It's powered by three hand pumps and utilizes
four
pistons, three switches and a homebrew airtank to move the camera.
The camera sits securely on a small platform. The platform was designed to hold
the camera without allowing any camera shaking or wobbling - and it worked.
That
camera sits in there solid as a rock. The tilt mechanism may be a little shaky,
but the camera ain't goin' nowhere.
The platform is manipulated by four pistons, each connected upside-down to a
corner of the platform. One switch manipulates two pistons (a set in the front
and a set in the back), allowing me to raise, lower or tilt the platform up or
down. A fairly wide range of motion - I would guess around 30 degrees.
<http://brickshelf.com/gallery/Buachaille/camtilt/pistons.jpg>
The pistons are shown here, connected to the platform. I'm sorry if the
pictures
are unclear where the camera sits; I had to use it to take the photos. :)
<http://brickshelf.com/gallery/Buachaille/camtilt/cam.jpg>
This photo shows where the camera sits. The lense aperture fits right next to
the 1x2 white slope on the left side. The LCD viewer is located just above the
2x2 tiles on the back, allowing me to see what I'm doing while I'm manipulating
switches.
<http://brickshelf.com/gallery/Buachaille/camtilt/switches.jpg>
I kept it simple and only used three switches. The left and right switches
control a set of pistons each; the right switch controls the front and the left
switch controls the back. Moving a switch to the UP position raises the
platform, moving it down obviously lets it down. A wide variety of camera
angles
are possible by manipulating both switches together.
The middle switch is the main control valve. The line coming from the airtank
(shown below) plugs into this. One output line from this switch feeds the other
two switches and the other output line is a release valve. I've fount I can
pump
the hand pumps at least 80 times before I pop a hose. Remember that the pumps
are connected together, so that's 240 single pump compressions. In a very
scientific test, I found that the airtank, fully pressurized, could flip (from
one state to another) one set of pistons with no load around 75 times and a
single small piston around 390 times.
<http://brickshelf.com/gallery/Buachaille/camtilt/tank.jpg>
An 8oz/237ml bottle with a couple of hard tubes hotglued in, connected to three
hand pumps. It's quite a job to fully pressurize but once you do it just keeps
going...and going...and going...well, 390 times anyway. I found the hotglue to
work surprisingly well - I haven't had a single leak from the airtank. (my
hoses
tend to leak a lot, but only because the cat likes to get her claws into them)
The last three photos show the range of motion available to the camera:
<http://brickshelf.com/gallery/Buachaille/camtilt/camrange1.jpg>
<http://brickshelf.com/gallery/Buachaille/camtilt/camrange2.jpg>
<http://brickshelf.com/gallery/Buachaille/camtilt/camrange3.jpg>
As always, PLMKWYT,
~Mike "hoping-this-overlong-post-goes-through" Thorn
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Pneumatic Camera Tilt Unit
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| (...) Hi Bauchaile, I don't post with in-line images because not everyone has broadband. (...) I love to see new pneumatic projects! I was curious why you needed three switches. It seems like a front switch and a back switch would be sufficient. It (...) (21 years ago, 6-Oct-03, to lugnet.animation, lugnet.build, lugnet.technic)
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