my new motion control rig

Jason Miller

Jason Miller

Veteran
here is my new motion control rig, no welding, took all of my spring break to build, it can be controlled by the computer of by joy stik function, has 3 axis of motion will eventtually have 4, as the stands are crank up stands and can use motors to left and lower them. however now it only has pan tilt and dolly, it can be inclined, to roll up hill or down, and the camera can be as much as 13.5 feet in the air, or 1 inch off the ground. There are no operating parts off the dolly except the computer chips, so storage is pretty easy, as its easy to take apart and put together, the hardest part to transport is the 16ft ladder base. will post video from it within the next couple weeks.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt6RL3BiCLg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgIv1q7zqlA

hope you like it.
 
Wow! I am impressed.
Ab bit noisy thou. Can you "programm" it with the computer? Speed ramps? Ease in/out?

Frank
 
yes yes yes, and yes, but its actually quiter than the "pro" moco rigs out there, those suckers are loud. lot of adr.


this one still has a few bugs to work out, the motor I used for the dolly has a ton of power, but no real speed, so I need to find a better one. and I need to make a few adjustments to the gear rack, and in these videos the ladder is not bolted down to the stands, its just sitting on them, its much more stable when its bolted down. I have a really nice test without it bolted down, but there are a few imperfections in it, I'll try again when its bolted down propper.
 
Looks cool, but in the videos it seems quite erratic... Can you actually program in reliably and accurately repeatable moves with this system?
 
Keep us updated on this? I love motion control stuff and would like to see how your system progresses as you add functionality. How are you controlling it - is it an off the shelf motion-control program or one you wrote?

As a total side note, I had the pleasure of putting my hands on the orginal Dykstraflex system at Apogee in the early 1990s, which was the one they used in Star Wars. Having Dykstra and Jon Erland explain that beast in person was one of those incredible high points in my early filmmaking career.

Good luck!

e
 
hoarp, yea I made it look erratic so people would look at it and say oh wow man thats awesome, I've noticed that when things rund smoth and steady people are like um yea so what, they dont get slow and steady are very hard to get, and erattic while exciting is much easier,

but to answer your question, yes I can program it for repeatable motion.

this next two weeks will be hell on wheels for me as I have to catch up in my renderman and fluids classes, so I will only be working with this off and on, now its basicly fine toning and desiding which program I like best.

as well while the motor has 55 tourque inch pounds, its some what slow, so I'm going to be looking for an alternative dolly motor. and sugestions on something cheap fast and strong what runs on 12 to 18 volts?

Jason
 
Erik thats very cool, Ive seen video footage of that system working, Id love to see it in person. I'm sure at some point I will as I now live in the bay area. working on my MFA in VFX, if theree is an episode 7-9 I'm sure I'll work on them.
 
dude this is pretty awesome!
I wish you lived down in SD, I'd want to help you with this thing. I don't know much about it, but it would be fun to test out and perfect.
 
I spent a good deal of time at Kerner Optical back in the day. Hopefully, they still get call to do some analog work over there!

e
 
here is another video clip of the rig in action, this time is slow and steady and going up a preddy good incline. I hope to get it to go up a much steaper one soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9kImnvMs_k

there are a few other videos posted but just check out the videos under my name, more small tests 3 axis slower smoother motion than the first ones I posted.

Jason
 
what kind of stepper motors you got in that? my old roommate runs gecko drives, which are pretty nice steppers ... in fact, i think they are in the space station.
 
What controlled do you use to control it from the computer with? Also what software is it linked to?

Wish I had broadband to watch those video's
 
Nomadic, they're not steppers, they are just now starting to make 12v steppers, two of them are servos, and one is a 12 2.3 amp motor with 55 inch pounds, controlled by a motor controller hooked into a servo controller which is also hooked to the other servos, and my computer. I'm really shocked at how few motion control rigs are out there considering they are not that hard to build. with the servos so cheap, and the servo controllers working so well, I mean the scott edwards servo controller has been around for over 10 years now.

and it works, everyone keeps asking me how accurate my system, and I'm here to tell you that with motion control you do not need accurate motion, you need repeatable motion,

what i mean is, say you want you motor to stop at point c, and you can only get it to stop at point c + 3 degrees, that isn't very accurate but it is fine as long as everytime you run that motion it stops at point c+3 degrees. then you have the same motion repeating over and over again, you can do all sorts of things.


_______________________

I'm wondering what you all think its rental value might be, it currently has 3 axis of moco movement, dolly, pan and tilt, and it can shoot from anywhere form 1 inch off the ground to around 13 to 14 feet of the ground.

I am wondering what you all think its worth to have a 3 axis moco and operator on set?
 
Just replaced the 2in sprocket with an 8.5 in sprocket, the thing has some speed now, will post videos of it when I get the sprocket installed properly rather than with c clamps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top