DIY Cranes??

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Dysania

Member
Hey,
I'm starting up a production with a bunch of my friends and we wana get different kinds of stabilizers together for some creative shooting. Anyway we thought it would be neat if we could somehow build a crane. We asked the robotics team in our school if they could build a radio controlled crane and they said they should have all the equipment.

I know there are tons of different DIY instructions online, was wondering if anyone has any good experiences or knows of something reliable. We're looking for something portable, but sturdy obviously. Also something with a radio controlled head would be awsome. Thanks
 
I built a basic jib arm with thin-walled rectangular tubing and oriented the tubes vertically (so each bar of the arm is 1" wide and 2" tall) and it works pretty darn good. You still have to be aware of bounce at the beginning and end of moves, but in just the first time out I have it working pretty smoothly.

A crane like hoarp built is serious as can be... very very impressive... but depending on where you are in this game... a much more simple jib arm is capable of some impressive shots.

If you want to build one then get the thin-walled tubes... and then go on ebay and buy some teflon sheet. 1/8" thick is perfect, so you can use 2 "washers" per contact point... thereby creating a surface bearing. I then also put a teflon washer on the outside of the jib before using a regular steel washer and bolt/nut... so that for each bolt that passes through the arm there are 6 teflon washers needed. This meant 36 for the whole arm. My "washers" are also 2" in diameter to create a wide surface area.

My whole gripe with some of the jib/cranes offered in the "budget class" is the lack of smooth motion through the action... and I think most people accept this as inherent in an economy jib... but I think that box section ends and wide surface area of teflon does a lot to get that under control.

After you get your arm done you simply tighten each bolt until the steel washers are snug, yet spin with only finger pressure (and use nylock nuts of course).

When it comes to cranes I bow before hoarp (dude with stuff that impressive you should change your user name to a real name)... but I thought I could offer a little tip about the construction, that you may not have considered. My simple jib cost a little under $200 to make... but that is simply a statement, not an endorsement for going cheap... a real crane, even a DIY one, will certainly be 3 to 5 times that.
 
Here's my jib,
12 ft long total length

made of 1 x 1" aluminum tubing
collapses into three 4ft sections

swivel barstool used for stand

IMG_5537.jpg


IMG_5539.jpg


IMG_5541.jpg
 
Haha thanks,

I do have footage but it is not uploaded, will upload some later if I get the chance to.

Yours seems very smooth, footage looks very nice!
 
What mattin says about a simple crane is true, before I started adding all the electronic gizmos to my crane, it looked like this:


crane

That is a simple bit of aluminum on the bike fork, some cable and bungee cord and a cheap £100 portable TV from maplin. It worked very well, and the next day after I took this photo we did this shot with it:

link

total cost was fairly low, the bit of aluminum was £50 from a local aluminum warehouse (Aalco in Slough, really good place, I went back again today) The bike fork was a fiver, I already had the stand, the cable, snap hooks, thimbles grips and turnbuckle added up to about £50 (proper stainless steel tensile rope is expensive) and the camera head is a few bits of wood :-)


About £200 will cover it, plus however much the monitor costs.
 
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