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In lugnet.animation, Mike Thorn wrote:
> 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)
Hi Bauchaile,
I don't post with in-line images because not everyone has broadband.
>
> <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.
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 seems like you have four possible positions for the camera:
Front contracted, back contracted - camera low but level
Front expanded, back contracted - camera tilted up
Front expanded, back expanded - camera high but level
Front contracted, back expanded - camera tilted down
If you'd like more possible angles, you canhook two of your pistons back to back
in each corner of the platform.
This cwould give you thrr positions in the front and three positions in the
back, for a total of 9 tilt position/angles.
>
> 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>
Yes it will give you a wide range of motion, but pneumatic pistons controlled by
switches are binary in nature, so you only really have 4 steady state
position/angles for the camera.
If you control the platform pistons using pistons instead of switches, you can
have a more analog situation. You can hook two pistons together. By expanding
and contracting one piston, you can expand/contract the other piston.
>
> 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,
Fun project! Thanks for sharing!
>
> ~Mike "hoping-this-overlong-post-goes-through" Thorn
Kevin
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 | | Pneumatic Camera Tilt Unit
|
| 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: (...) (21 years ago, 3-Oct-03, to lugnet.animation, lugnet.build, lugnet.technic)
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