Cable Cam

P

Prendi

Well-known member
So I've been working on a cable cam for the past year and wanted to gauge if there is a market for them and how much people are willing to pay. My design is a double cable system with a pan/tilt head and a live view. It also has a breaking system for peace of mind. Because of the environment I'm using (snowboarding), I had a few requirements before I started. I needed it to be able to hook up to 2 single points (unlike most double cable systems) like 2 trees, posts etc... Battery powered, easy to assemble, potable and able to pull something the weight of an Epic/FS700. Well after a lot of tinkering, I seem to have met all those requirements and I'm pretty happy with the results. Now I'm getting some requests to build them for other people.

Firstly, I'm not really sure that i want to, as I'm a cinematographer and not an engineer. And secondly, I have no idea how much I would charge for something like this. It wasn't super cheap to build and I had the luxury of using my friends company who builds packaging machinery to help me, but if I was building them for other people, I'd have to pay to use their facilities.

So what do you think, is there a market for this? If so, is there a going rate for a "proper" cable-cam?

Thanks
 
There is a market for everything if the price is right. I would start out with your design and have it looked over by someone who specializes in mechanical engineering. Im sure they will be able to smooth out the product and will be able to offer advice regarding production. Next I would add up absolutely everything it takes to build one unit, cost of materials, labor, machining. take that number and decide what kind of profit margins you are looking to achieve. Research other products on the market. Once you know your price per unit and have determined that there is profit to be made. Release the product and see if it sells.

Do you have any pictures you can show us? What are the specs?

I am in the stage described above. I just finished a 4th prototype crane and came to the conclusion the current design is too costly and complicated. Margins were to small to make it viable. I am a couple days away from ordering parts to build the 5th prototype. Much simpler and cheaper to manufacture. My margins are higher and I can release the product at a lower price.

There is nothing to say you cant release a non-perfect product. There are always improvements to be made. Just look at the Apple marketing team.

The meat and potatoes of it all is, If you can build it at a price and sell at a profit that beats out competitors you have a business.
 
Cable cam is a specialty item so the price doesn't matter as much as "value" - namely if the person looking for specialty item gets all they need in it. Specialty items are notoriously low margin items - thus they are so expensive.
 
If you have a really viable product, have you considered shopping it around to various support gear companies? If you have something that's close to being ready for production, perhaps you could strike a licensing deal with someone. R&D is really the hard part of getting a new product to market, and you've done that.
 
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