We bet you have all some cool part in your bin that is just gnawing at you to build something cool. That doodad, possibly from a garage sale, surplus store, or clearance rack deserves a project fitting of its near-infinite potential. [isaac879] finally marries a giant ball bearing with his passion for photography in the form of a pan-tilt camera mount for his Canon DSLR. The problem with tossing your golden-ticket part into a project is that not everyone has a MacGuffin, or a brand new one might be bank-breakingly expensive, so he does us a favor and makes a drop-in replacement that you can print and fill with 6mm brass bbs. This sort of thing is why we love hackers.
The camera mount has the features we expect to see in a robust stepper mount, such as infinite spinning, time delay, and an Xbox controller interface. Inside the base is the industrial bearing or its plastic replica, and that wide base won’t be tipping over anytime soon. Gearing all around is of the herringbone style, of the type you find in classroom pencil sharpeners because they transfer power smoothly. Speaking of things going smoothly, we enjoyed his assembly montage where every part fits together perfectly and there is not a naughty word to be uttered. Just like real life.
If you like homemade bearings, check out this slew bearing that looks like it was made with Perler beads, and we have a self-aligning camera tripod mount for the photography buffs.
Thank you [TheFalconType] for the tip.
Wonderful build and design but… there needs to be a trigger warning for the ASMR-like cracking and popping when he speaks. Someone get this man some water, stat!
Wow, such a smooth design!
That is pretty sweet. Props for putting in the extra effort for the herringbone gears, too!
Came here just to say that. Well, and I also work here.
This is a beautiful design, slick device, and an exquisite use of herringbone gears. (Which, along with custom project boxes, lost-PLA casting, many random jigs, and robot parts is one of the killer apps of 3D printing in my book.)
They really cut down on backlash, making it almost negligible. Soo sexy.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3575 and now https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3561972 make herringbone/all gears trivial in OpenSCAD.
This guy knows for sure how to edit a video ! This is so entertaining to watch.
Very good job on every level of this design. Congrats !
The only thing I can think of is that the base support could offer other mounting possibilities (standard clamp, something to hang it upside down, or on a rail, or on a cable across the room) for amazing timelapses !
That giant bearing is about $1k usd at least.
Or $35 from China. The closest I could find in 5 minutes looking – https://www.aliexpress.com/item/763300482.html
I love the QA:
>”WHY DO THE BEARINGS I RECEIVE HAVE SHAKING?”
>”If you don’t need to shake, please choose C2 small clearance bearing,”
Bought a bearing just like that for a Cat excavator. Race was $40 and it was a US made Timken. Bearing was around $65.