PLEASE Help with a DIY camera jib!

[snurkyea]

I'm in the middle of building my own camera jib and everything was working great until I needed to figure out how to balance the camera head so that it's always level.

I'm essentially copying this design here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CGEQpxpM2I

I have the cable, and everything, but no matter what I've tried, I cannot get the camera head to remain level as the jib arm raises and lowers. I have tried adding a spring with more tensions, a spring with less tension, a spring with the same tension, and no spring (no spring is how it is in the video) and still nothing works.

I thought there might be something about the height of where the cable attaches at both ends, but I'm not sure. At the tripod end, there cable is 4.5" higher than the jib arm. At the camera head end, the cable is 9" higher than the jib arm. Could this be the problem? (I'm not entirely sure because this person's design also works http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTv4gYdRLKY)

I appreciate any and all help.

Thanks everyone!

 

[edinc90]

The height is definitely the problem. You want to create a parallelogram. The definition of a parallelogram is a shape with 4 parallel sides, so if the wire (the top of your parallelogram) is attached 4.5" away from the jib arm at one end, then it needs to be 4.5" away at the other end.