Hey,
First I want to officially introduce myself. I am 18 years old, living in Germany and currently doing a apprenticeship as carpenter.
As timelapse-photography is my big passion I have unavoidable to deal with Motion Control Systems. I built a small slider in spring which absolutely convinced me of whats possible in that league of timelapse photography.
Here my latest timelapse video were you can see the results: http://vimeo.com/30183976

Unfortunately I see some massive deficits in that construction. It's absolutely not stable enough which is caused by the small contact surface to the tripod(s) and the small rail.




The next thing I did was to build a Crane. It wasn't well planed and I built one on the spur of the moment. Here a pic of it:



First you might think, well whats wrong with it ?
Here the cons:
-telescopic contruction of the arm itself -> not usable as rail for a slider
-fixed length of the arm caused by the telescopic contruction and usage of a cable for the camera mount
-no precise way to fix the cable to avoid unintended tilting of the cam while moving the arm
-usage of a small turntable as rotation point of the crane which caused jiggling
-too small distance of the paralell bars -> camera doesn't fit between.
-no system for easily adjusting the counterweights.

To do all that better I decided to built a new one which should be easy to work with, lightweight, portable and upgradeable.
I already spent a lot of work in planing that all.

Here some specs of the new one:

-arm/rail consists of 40/20mm aluminium profiles of 1m length
-"V-Mount" is the identical with the camera mount -> no tilting caused by displaced pivot point
-stable conection to the camera with bar
-Crane directly mounted to tripod head -> pan and tilt with tripod
-side support brackets used for adjusting counterbalance/tripod conection/belt clamp
-H-Brackets for tripod conection within the rail -> dolly can roll over
-custom motor mount for easy changing of motors with different gear ratios
-ability to motorize the crane for extreme slow paning by using a huge gear
-package size: 1m

I think you might see the resemblance with the Kessler Crane and the Shuttle Pod. But well, I can't affort Kessler gear so I have to built my one stuff. I have the possibilties to work with the machines in the carpenter's shop. So why don't built my own Kessler gear for a fraction of the price ?
my concept so far:
















I am posting that to get some thoughts about my contruction. Possibly you find some points I havn't thought about. So let me hear what you would improve !

Impressive designs for an 18 year old. Keep it up and you'l go far!

Hello martin ,yes large gears are a problem. Mine are home made and are far from perfect hence the spring loaded pinion gear. It as about 250 teeth but its only made out of plastic so cant handle any load . Which is fine on my rig because the camera is on the balance point. The next rig wont be using them going for a series of gears instead..
Astro telescopes use large gears but not managed to find any cheap ones The only reasonable priced ones I could find were these http://servocity.com/html/32_pitch_alum ... rs___.html or these might be good for you http://servocity.com/html/hub_mount_spr ... _250_.html but still only a 100 teeth.
Think you have jumped in at the deep end building a crane that’s portable for hiking. There is a lot of leverage in that long boom and anything that holds it in place will have to be quit substantial .Anyway good look with it
“Sure I thought about that. But a ladder is not really portable“. My Ladder dolly is really light if a bit long.
Ps thought would post reply here rather than timelapse showcase

@ DISPLACEMENT 1

thanks for the info ! I'm quite sure to use this one with 204 teeth (http://servocity.com/html/48_pitch_alum ... rs___.html) for horizontal Crane motion. Vertical Crane movement I will realize simply by rolling up a cable which is attached to the weight bar.
Concerning the portability of the rig you're right. It's not the ultimate construction for huge hiking tours. Counterweights are not the problem. I will use a bag and put anything I can find in the field into it (stones, sand...). In most cases I will go to locations which were available by car. Or even places were I can get under an hour by foot.
The whole thing will fit into a keyboard bag (100x40x20cm).
The huge advantage of the new construction compared to my prototype is that it's totally modular. I will be able to use it as 1,2,3 or 4 m (3,2f, 6,5f, 9,8f or 13,1f) track or crane. So will just carry that what I need.
Next piece of news:
I will use a MX2 motion controller ! That will offer me totally new perspectives and possibilities for time-lapse shooting.

@agour
Thanks

Has anyone an advice for building the camera mounting plate ? It will be 6 mm thick aluminum and I don't know how to get the wholes in without going to a professional with a CNC/Laser/waterjet cutting-machine system (1h CNC operating ~ 100€).
Thanks for any assistance !

Can't wait to see what you come up with... I had considered this late last year but got distracted and never came back to it. Some videos that inspired me on this similiar path was this:

http://vimeo.com/11867672

http://www.floatcam.eu/e_dollycrane.htm

http://vimeo.com/14229000

I'm finally at the end of the construction phase of my project. You may notice some minor changes in construction but all in all it worked very well.
I made some parts of wood due to easier machining, but it seems to me pretty solid. You can't talk any more about a lightweight solution but it is really modular and it keeps me all options open.
Specially the MagicArm is very useful.

Another big improvement is that the whole thing work with a brand new MX2 Dolly Engine. I also got a 6800mA Li-Ion Battery on Ebay to power the motor. I have some issues with the calibration of the motor. The motor works completely different when changing the direction. Maybe that isn't up to the MX2 so I have to live with it.

Here some ways to set the hole bunch of metal up:





















For hiking tours or places I can't access with the big slider I restored my small slider. No ball-bearings any more. Just a block of wood. The thing works pretty well. I just have to look for a way to attach battery and MX2 to the cart.








I didn't explained all and everything here how I did this and how I got this. Just ask for what you want to know


That may happen when trying to film the snow cloud of a skier. Cheers !

Nice looking equipment. But there is something wrong with your ND filter. Wrong colour, i think?

ooooh unlucky

Naaa, he left the lens cap on

no panic... I attached a UV Filter. I had to keep the lens hood mounted to fix the bag on the lens.
Unfortunately the video wasn't a huge success. I tried to get a nice slow motion with Twixtor but 60fps were simply not enough. It's warping and you can't cover it up.

WOW, Really nice dolly / crane. The bucket counterweight is brilliant. You can adjust the weight easily, and even use rocks so you don't need to pack in dead weight. Using the dolly track as the crane arm is also a great way to save money and weight in a system that goes anywhere and does everything. The idea of using gear drive to raise the crane or turn it on the tripod is very cutting-edge. All the reasonably sized, reasonably priced cranes I've seen use a pulley that winds in a cable to move the crane. I get it. You get a ton of leverage by pulling on the counterweight end of the arm. That method always seemed a little unfinished to me. Granted, a crane becomes useless in any kind of wind anyway unless its huge and massive, so a fair-weather solution (like the cable-pull) might be as good as anything. Here is a link to some gears that could work real good for direct driving the crane from its pivot point.

http://www.concisemotion.com/Wormgear/A31.htm

They come with ratios up to 100:1. Thats a gear reduction of 100:1, not just 100 teeth. They are very heavy-duty gears. I am currently trying to talk a customer into using them for a different motion control project. These should give you an even higher ratio than that huge servocity spur gear. Are you just making one of these? Have you thought about using kickstarter to raise some money to build a bunch of em and starting your own company? I can help with getting the metal parts made. PM me if interested.

..... I've seen star filters, fog filters and solar filters but that's the first time for a snow filter.

The more time I spent in planning and building the crane the more complex the idea of a fully motion controlled timelapse crane turned. I'm not sure anymore if a gear driven drive is the best way. Just imagine how much force would be on these little teethes of the gears. Just a tip at the long arm or a light gust could damage your moco construction. Possibly the gears you mentioned were solid enough.
A cable driven solution has the con that you won't be able to move in two axes precisely. But it's easier to realize. A gear system needs a special construction at he pivot point which would make it unhandy to assemble and disassemble the whole thing. Remember it should be usable as slider and unmotorized jib too.
Let's see what I can realize.
By the way Kessler Crane is also planning on a moco-jib I heared.

Does anybody has experience with GorillaPods ? I thought about using a pair as outrigger feet for my sliders. How solid are they ? For the small slider it should be fine I think but for a ShuttlePod-format slider ? Primarily I want a solution to get the track really near to ground and secondly for leveling in very rough terrain (mountains, rocks, mountain streams). A pair of Kessler's Outrigger feet would be the very best for me. But Kessler gear is a expensive dream to me. Does anyone has a nice solution yet ?

I really should make a kickstarter project for snow filters

I've been building support feet for some time now, but only built them out of necessity. I helped Dynamic Perception with their current design and I think you'll find their build and costs fit your dream. Kessler is too expensive for sure. The Dynamic Perception feet are far better then GorillaPods - GorillaPods will not give you the support or stability that solid legs will. Just note that the DP Support Legs are designed for the 80/20 1030 type rail but they might be adaptable to your slider.

I just watched some reviews of these GorillaPods and I agree you. They seem far not stable enough. I'm not sure which DP Support Legs you mean. I can't find them anywhere. I've seen the outrigger feet you were using. Were that the DP feet ? Were can I get them ? They look pretty solid. Do you think I could use them even with the big slider ?