How lucky is [Transistor Man] that he found the materials for the tracks of this curved camera dolly just lying around the shop? The three rails making up the system are quarter-inch diameter and he was able to bend them by hand with the help of a 55 gallon drum. But to hold them in place so that the camera dolly would run smoothly he had to find a way to precisely space the tracks.
The robot arm you see in the picture above is a 3D printer which ended up being the easiest solution to the problem. With a bit of trial and error he found a design that holds the tracks in place without interfering with the camera sled’s progress. From there he devised a mounting system which uses three camera tripods to hold the track. You can see a test video shot from the dolly track embedded after the jump. It’s the opposite of the bullet time rigs [Caleb’s] been working on lately.
We figure the spacers would work for any track shape, but if you’re going for a complicated route you need some type of pipe bender to help out.
Cool video, looks like it took a long time to set up
Nice engineering
And here I was expecting a 5-axis 3D printer from the title. Not sure exactly what you’d gain from being able to tilt the print head, but I was kinda disappointed when that wasn’t what this hack did.
Miss reading things often leads me to disappointment too! Nice Dolly.
yowza, that’s quite a setup.
Hire a freaking maid already.
Making several flat identical things, stack ’em up clamp drill thru with drill press. Done
It took me far too long to realize what the video was about.. and I saw the thing in person! ha! – as to the maid comment. You have no idea how much of a geek heaven Transistor-Man lives in. Inspirational!
Nice. This could be useful for consistent/repeatable Kinect 3D scanning too