Building homebuilt stabilizer

[Terry Thompson]

Charles,

Here's my test link

Just got to try it out.

Thanks...you're the Steadiman!

Terry

[Jon Omiatek]

Terry

How much is your arm and vest? Just for comparison. The glidecam steady shooter is $1499.

Thanks,

Jon

[Terry Thompson]

The Indicam (Indi for Indipendant Video and Filmmakers) is $995 for a dual arm system.

I just finished my sled and it will be $450 for it so the entire system will cost under $1500.

The web site doesn't show the updated system yet but the sled has an adjustable no-tools gimbal, an extendable post, as well as a two bolt X-Y camera platform adjustment.

I'm doing final testing and then I'll post pictures of the new system on the web site.

Now, back to your steadycam building. I wish I had access to all the machining tools at my shop but I have to go elsewhere to have some of the work done. You are a lucky guy!

Are you taking pictures all along the way?

Tery

[Jon Omiatek]

I am taking as many as I can remember to take. I have pictures of the raw metal, cut metal and that is about it at the moment. I waiting on springs and bearings. I also need to purchase all of the hardware(nuts and bolts) which I plan to do before the end of the weekend. Early next week I will start assembling everything.

I still need to work on the vest. I plan on ordering the metal and other components soon.


Tery,

I watched the videos on your site. It just makes me want to spend the next 24hrs building it. I know they are different, yours and cody's design but they have to be somewhat close.

Thanks,

Jon

[Terry Thompson]

Most full rig steadycam systems are similar in operation and construction. They might have different camera platforms, gimbals, counterweights, adjustments, etc. but the arms are parallelograms and the springs counteract the weight of the sled and camera. The trick is getting everything to work together well with very low friction.

There are a whole lot of details that you will learn about as you build your system but it's great you have some good plans to start with.

I'm interested in the weight of the rig once you finish building Cody's plans. Also I'm interested in how it adjusts to different camera weights.

Make sure you get some closeups (in focus of course) so we can see how everything is supposed to be.

Tery

[Chris Hurd]

Hi folks,

Unfortunately I have had to prune some less-than-desirable chatter out of this thread. Please! Keep in mind the following when you choose to post:

-- do not hijack threads

-- treat each other with mutual respect and courtesy

-- do not hassle each other or engage in flame wars

-- try to keep the discussion streamlined for the benefit of future readers

Many thanks,

[Jon Omiatek]

Chris,

Thank You!

Jon

[Terry Thompson]

Jon,

How is the project going so far? Have you CUT OUT THE\1

[Terry Thompson]

Jon,

How is the project going so far? Have you cut out the vest material (not the front plate) and what material are you using? How thick is the padding? Just wondering.

Hey, where are the pictures? You know they are worth a thousand words so how about a few thousand words for us to see.

Tery

[Jon Omiatek]

Tery,

I haven't started on the vest material. I am meeting with a person who sells industrial fabric this week. She is a friend of my wife, which will make it easy for me to buy a small quantity! I am going to use the same stuff you will find in backpacks. The tuff black stuff. I will have a better name for it on Thursday.

I will try and get the pictures of the cut material up today. I am waiting on my bearings.

I didn't have time to work on the project this weekend. I had a wedding and a bride who was originally getting married in October moved the wedding to March 19th because her fiance is being deployed to Iraq. I had to put together a montage and love story this weekend. That was last minute for sure.


Jon

[Terry Thompson]

Jon,

I know about the price of small quantites. There is even a big discrepancy between suppliers. I bought bearings made in Japan from two different companies. One charged me $22.50 while the other charged me less than $6.00. That is a huge difference!

Looking forward to some of the pics.

Tery

[Jon Omiatek]

Here is a picture of the sled base piece. The project is moving really slow due to too many weddings this month.

http://www.trulux.com/pictureuploads/IMG_1475.JPG

Jon

[Terry Thompson]

Jon,

Nice job!

The plate looks almost like my Glidecam 2000 bottom plate. I'm sure it was designed after it. Glidecam has a good design there.

How did you make the cuts and the slot? Since this is a learning process these details are important.

By the way, you probably ought to make your pictures smaller so it will be easier to load from the web. You picture at this time is 1085 x 814 pixels which is huge. It would be better at VGA size that is used for emailing. Since there aren't any heavy details the smaller size would be just fine. I'm not sure of the pixel size but it is considerably small than the size you are using now.

Let me know when you have the next part done and have pictures of it.

Thanks,

Tery

[Jon Omiatek]

Thanks.... I will resize the picture tomorrow to 640X480. Just getting the picture online today was a task in itself. I have 3 weddings dvds that must be completed by next week. OUCH!

First, I etched my aluminum plate with a flat head screw driver and a ruler. Then I used a sharpie to trace those lines. Then I took it over to a band saw and cut it out. After cutting it out, I drilled holes with a bridgeport. Wow, that would be hard with just a standard drill. It would be worth sending it to a machine shop if you don't have access to a bridgeport. I don't see it costing too much. It would take a skilled machinist about 20 minutes. The bridgeport made it easy to drill the long holes you see in the picture. I also had to trim down the edges that come to a point around the middle of the piece because it wouldn't fit into the bridgeport, but you can't really tell.

Just cutting out this piece, marking where to cut and drilling the holes took me about a hour and a half. My problem at the moment are the two welds that I will need. I have called two places and they want $50 to weld it. That's highway robbery, considering it should take 5 minutes to weld. I am still shopping around!

I purchased some material for the vest. The cost was around $30 for everything, minus the fastening clips. I will post pictures of the material and their associated cost's once I get the stuff and the bill.

I purchased a 7" 16X9 LCD monitor for my sled for $125 shipped... I purchased a battery for it for $18, 12v 3.0 amh and it weighs 2.6lbs, the lcd weighs 1.0lb. I guess I will need more weight at the bottom. I can't wait to mount it! It will make the 16X9 on my FX1 and PD170 look really nice on my stabilizer when its finished!

I hope to have more time this week to start construction on my arm. I already have the pieces cut out so hopefully I can post some pictures by the weekend or next week at the latest.

If I didn't have the great desire to build it myself, I would seriously thing about buying the glidecam steady shooter for $1499. Built ready to go, that's nice. I plan on selling my glidecam 4000 pro once I finish the homebuilt sled. They build some quality stuff and glidecam, I love my 4000 pro.


Jon

[Terry Thompson]

Jon,

I had to do a web search in order to find out what a "bridgeport" is. You are right about not being able to do that slot very well by drilling it.

I take it a bridgeport is a rather expensive machine correct?

You should take pictures (or have someone take pictures) of the work as you are doing it. I have a good idea of how you make the parts you are making as I have done quite a few of them myself but others might not so some pictures would help out a lot. I am doing this in video as a "show me how" thing.

I originally made my vest and dual arm to fly my Glidecam 2000 but am now making my own sled as well. I am very happy with its performance and features.

Keep those pictures and posts coming.

Tery