Another DIY Jib!

J

JCjib

Member
Hi guys,

Just though I'd share my DIY jib that I'm working on. It's something I've spent a fair few years (on and off) designing and building. It's almost finished now and just requires a few tweaks and additional parts and then it should be good to go! Below, hopefully, are some pics of it and you can click here to see a video of it complete with terrible narration by myself! I'm hoping to get a new video uploaded by the end of summer showing it in action but I'm trying to find someone who has a decent sized camcorder to get some quality footage and to make the jib look good! It's designed to fit anything up to something like a Canon XL2 and also features a mechanical pan and tilt. Anyway, let me know what you think. I'm totally open to any constructive criticism!
 

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All I can say is .. wow!

What material did you use?

Alright, acrylic! Got my answer in the video
smiley.gif


Looks awesome!
Click to expand...

Thanks very much! Yes, I used acrylic as the main material. I'd rather had used aluminium but our CNC isn't up to cutting aluminium so I've used the next best material that was available to me. I'm hoping that at some point I can take the design to a metal fabricator and get it CNC cut in aluminium.
 
Last edited:
Paul F said:
Fabulous.

How did you vinyl coat the tubes?
Why did you go with a mechanical control?
Click to expand...

Thank you! I simply used self adhesive vinyl, the type used to cut vinyl graphics for vehicles etc. I've since had the tubes powder coated and they look so much better. I went for vinyl originally as I had access to it for free but it easily got damaged. I shouldn't have bothered because powder coating only cost me £15. Regarding the mechanical control, I went for that option for 2 reasons, firstly, I haven't got the first clue about electronics and secondly, from the research I did on the internet about remote pan & tilt, I couldn't justify the cost for this project. I just wanted to make a jib as cheap as possible but to also make it look as professional as I could. I'm hoping that if I can make any sort of business out of this, I can start making more jibs and include a remote pan & tilt.
 
Mechanical has advantages over simple joystick control. It is more intuitive and takes less practice. So you have a good system.

A joystick control is pretty easy to build and doesn't require much know-how. You've done the hard part.
 
kwkeirstead said:
OK, the big question is what would you charge to make another one?
Click to expand...

That's a tricky one to be honest as it's still very much at prototype stage. The acrylic parts ideally need replacing with aluminium for strength and safety, I'd hate to see that nice camera rig in your profile picture come crashing to the ground because the pivot failed! The jib has cost me about £300 in materials to make in its current form and at the moment, I've no idea how much it would cost to produce the aluminium parts. However, if I was to make another one as it is now, it would probably be about £600 which would include my labour.
 
I don't think aluminum is much more than acrylic. I checked plastics against aluminum a couple of times and was surprised how expensive plastic is. Machine time on the CNC wouldn't be much longer. I know you're not in the States, but here is a good source for small amounts of aluminum stock to give you an idea on prices (onlinemetals.com).
 
hey man, great looking piece of rig. i kinda started falling in love of your cable system. my only criticism is that you used plastic, which is quite heavy for it's given strength, and tends to snap, but otherwise, congrats.
 
Thanks very much! Yeah, I was aware that acrylic isn't the best material to use but it was the best that was available to me and our CNC router isn't set up to cut aluminium. I have since found somewhere that can CNC cut aluminium so that's what I'll be using on the next jib but I've a few design changes to do before then.
 
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