It may not seem like much, but I finished the Handle/Gimbal to my upcoming "SmugCam" Video Camera Stablizer.

I might have mentioned I am stealing the research done by WSCLATER, and took his advice on Gimbals, with my own touch.  My own touch doesn't necessarily mean better, it's just I have to work with what I can find.

I went shopping at my local Cainz Home Center this morning and after browsing a while I found what I wanted to make my Gimbal and Handles.  I found some nice wooden dowels that were 22mm in diameter; the same size as my bearings. The dowels also have a 10mm hole cut in the center.  So what I ended up doing was cutting my dowel to the same size of my foam handles, carefully glueing my bearing to the dowel, ensuring no glue interfered with the bearing operation, and then covering them with the foam handle.  After which, I insert my gimbal assembly into the bearing mounted to the dowel.  When that is complete, you place the handle and gimbal into the gimbal upper housing, which will mount to the camera sled assembly when finished.  Still working that out in my head.

I pulled the foam back a bit, so you could see the bearing glued to the dowel. Another dowel (before being cut) lies in the background.  You can see the u-joint with bearing. The shaft fits snugly in the center of the handle bearing, and the top bearing fits very snugly in the orange "upper gimbal assembly".  All in all, I'm pleased with the outcome.

 A View of the completed assembly. When I get closer to completion I'll put up a view videos, but it's pretty lame content right now, heh.

 A Close up of the gimbal and bearing snugly placed inside the "upper gimbal assembly" which, in reality, is some kind of plumbing part I found at Cainz.  I think it is some kind of plug.

An inside diameter of 11mm is plenty of room to allow my shaft to free rotate with no hinderance.  And the bearing is the same diameter; 22mm.  So it fits the grips snugly and perfectly.  If I can learn to saw straight.

 22mm is the same diameter as the dowel.  I used my hot glue gun to precariously lay a bead of glue on the dowel, and only glue the outside rim of the bearing, ensuring that the bearing can still spin normally.  Yes, it can be done. No it's not that hard to do. Just watch what you're doing.

 The completed handle and gimbal assembly.  Now I need to work on getting the sled and frame going.  I want to use a piece of aluminum stock, but so far I cannot find any place that has it.  I know I can go to Akihabara and find it, but I was hoping I would not have to.  But I'll start working on that next.  I have some ideas in my head on how I want to put it together, but I always have to hybrid my ideas with my reality; finding the right stuff.  Wish me more luck, heh.

Cheers!

-- SmugWimp

I did find some really neat foam grips that make it look very nice.

So I've been goofing around with my camera, but I'm like millions of other "wannabe" directors and filmmakers: I can't hold my darn camera straight to save my life.  I'll never get an Oscar, or a Golden Globe without finding a way to keep my camera steady without taking a dolly with me everywhere I go.

Enter the SmugCam stabilizer.  I've been looking around at Camera Stabilizers since I got my camera, and so far the best I've found is the Tiffen Merlin.  However, the least expensive one I can find is around $700.  That's a big pill to swallow for a normal hobby.   So me being the economical sort, I started looking into other manufacturers, that offer the same quality for a lower price.

I found a few, most notably the Manfrotto 585 and the Hague Mini-Motion Cam. Both are very affordable, considering.  About (US) $100 not including shipping.  But when I saw this YouTube video with a comparison between the Manfrotto and the Merlin, I knew I'd never be satisfied unless I had a Merlin.  But I also knew I'd never pay $800 for one.  So I decided to build one

A bit of googling brought me to the Home Built Stabilizer Website, and through that found a really nice website by a gentleman that goes by the moniker "WSCLATER".  His solution, I think is the closest to the Merlin and by far the best documentation I've seen on building one.  So his is the design I am stealing from, heh.

 So far I'm only working on the Gimbal.  It seems to be the most important piece, and I wanted to ensure I got it right, as it is critical in the overall work.  In the photo, you can see where I am gathering up the parts required.  I have a couple of pieces of PVC tubing that will be the upper part of the gimbal assembly, and the universal joints I found at an R/C shop in Tokyo.  The bearings were obtained at a nearby hardware store, as well as the foam handles I will be putting over the handle, when I find one I like.

I'll let you know how things are going as we move along, but for the moment this is all I have, lol!  I will show and tell as I get more to show, and more to tell.

Cheers!

-- SmugWimp

My friend Kirt and I have been getting into R/C Helicopters. I've mentioned that before.  The other day he stopped by for a bit and we were messing around with my video stuff, which I also mentioned I was starting to revive a bit.

I've always loved movies, and have been intrigued by video.  But like many, do not have the discipline to correctly perform the menial tasks required to professionalize the results. However, that doesn't keep me from producing effective but junky looking video, heh.

So, in my long and winding road to some kind of video masterpiece waiting to be made, I'm messing around with blue/green screen shots to get some kind of technique and work-flow down.  I took a photo that I had from my trip to Diego Garcia.  The original looks like this:

 Pretty, isn't it?  I really enjoyed being there, if only for a week.  Anyway, that is the photo I selected.  Then I shot the helicopter "in my studio", which roughly translates to a slash of blue cloth over a monitor.  This was the result:

From there we used iMovie 6.  I know that I should be using iMovie 9, which came with my new MacBook Pro.  But I spent a lot of money on the Gee Three Plug-ins back when it was iMovie 6, and all the subsequent releases of iMovie are NOT compatible. Annoying, but not a deal breaker. With the plug-ins I can still do more with v6 than v9.

Now, you don't have to buy the Gee Three Plug-ins to do this; you can use a different brand.  It's a demo, but one of the two free filters in the demo pack is a blue screen jig, so you should be able to use that too.  If not, google it. the answer is out there.

So using the Gee Three "Vid Mix" filter (which is actually does ANY color, not just blue or green) I overlaid the copter footage on the still picture of the beach.  It looks a little cheesy, but it's my first attempt, and I can already moan about lighting, smoothness of cloth, etcetera but I won't. I still giggled at the results, which are here:

It looks like an old 'B' movie, which is almost exactly what I want.  I mean, of course I'd love to have "PIXAR" quality effects, but sometimes I like the old style screwups that remind me of the movies I saw in my childhood.  And hobbies like this, that allow me to take my  mind off the pressures of the day, is a good thing.

Cheers!

-- SmugWimp

Happy New Year to everyone! I guess by now it should be past midnight everywhere.

One of my resolutions is to attend to the site at least monthly. We'll see  how good that works out...

I was going through my pages deciding on a organizational path to take, and followed a link to www.r00t.cz, the site of the folks that wrote the PCRSCH.DLL that allows you to use your Icom PCR-*500 to work with Parallels or VMWare on the Mac.  His site was down for a bit, but he seems to have resurected it, and has made several improvements.  Cool. Glad to see him back.  If his content is any gauge, he's a pretty sharp cookie.

I still feel like I am being gravitated back into PIC Microprocessor programming and design, so I've been clearing my desk in anticipation of having more components scattered about.  My friend Kirt and I are also sidetracking into Remote Control Helicopters. He's gone further than I have, investment-wise, but eventually it will all pan out, as the remote control and servos will dovetail nicely in a couple of projects I'd like to see get off the ground.

I've also gotten back into video a bit.  I've obtained a replacement Panasonic HDC-HS9 HiDef HD Camcorder and am working with a few of the basic accessories.  I'm not real sure where it's going to lead, but it seems like fun in the interim. We'll see what happens.  The size of the files are enormous, and take forever to process, it seems like.  If I do continue, I may end up with a separate computer just for processing. I hate waiting so darn long.

Cheers! 

-- SmugWimp