Cody Designs Group Buy?
 

My best friend is the owner of a machine shop with over millions of dollars of equipment. They have some of the most amazing equipment and technology there. From Laser cuters, plasma and even water jet cutters for super clean cuts. They also have mandrel bending machines and do a lot of stuff for NASA. He has built stuff for Toyota, Nissan, and lost of major car manufactures. Building this would be a piece of cake. Im thinking of getting the plans and having him make one for me. Anyhow, my question is are you guys interested in a groupbuy purchase that I can possibly arrange with him? I don't know the price yet, he needs to see the plans first but if its something around $1,000 shipped or maybe less, will you guys be interested? I think this would benefit all of us because that way he can give us the BEST possible price, regardless I am having him build mine. Also turn around time is fast, once started it should take about 2-3 weeks MAX! not per piece but for a mass production set of 50+ units. I think this is a good opportunity for all of us. Im just gauging interest?

excuse my ignorance
 

What are we talking about? What is a Cody Design?

He means Cody Deegan plans for building a stabilizer.

Re: excuse my ignorance
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Mel Williams : What are we talking about? What is a Cody Design? -->>>

http://www.codydeegan.com/

Sells blue prints to manufacture your own Camera Stabilizer. Although I personally haven't seen the prints myself, it is intended to be done by an intermidiete level "handyman". Although most parts can be done at home with some heavy duty machinery, a lot can be easily acomplished at a machine shop with precision equipment. So I am having my best friend build mine, but I figured if he is going to program everything on those machines, why not pop out a few extra say.... 20 pieces? This will make it more worthwhile for his time and of course make the cost for EVERYONE cheaper. Just want some input?

I'd be interested below a certain price point. Let us know when you have a firm number.

Yeah, I'd be interested as well, granted it doesn't cost a LOT

<<<-- Originally posted by Dylan Couper : I'd be interested below a certain price point. Let us know when you have a firm number. -->>>

OK, yeah I need to get a basic number of how many people are interested, this will help in finalizing the number. As of now it is safe to say it will be under 1K SHIPPED. But the more people we have the cheaper it will be something like 20 people involved can lead the price to being $600.00 which is a HUGE saving for everyone. One thing and I want you to keep in mind is that the material used will be of the best! No cheap parts, and you will see as I start taking pictures when I actually start the project. SO don't be shy, and post if you are really interested.

Thanks!

I might be keen as well - I'd need shipping to New Zealand though.

Also, are you looking at the new armature that Cody has on for sale, or the old one that came in the initial book?

Aaron

I might be interested, particularly under $1000.

I have been thinking about something concerning this venture. If you are going to be doing this for everyone based on Cody's plans than you have just cut the legs from under cody.

By this I mean that now all those who are interested or will be interested will now get orders from you instead of buying Cody's book which will mean that it will be you making money from Cody's work. I'm not trying to start a fued or anything but am concern where this is going.

I know you mean well but it's someting to think about. Have you thought about that? My suggestion is to let Cody know what your plans are and see if he will be alright with this venture. This way, you'll have a clean conscience. Just a thought.

Just curious.

Good point Charles - why not simply donate the cost of the book from every order to Cody. So he gets his $50 or whatever it is from every order? Although, I have his book so I should get a discount :)

Aaron

<<<-- Originally posted by Charles King : I have been thinking about something concerning this venture. If you are going to be doing this for everyone based on Cody's plans than you have just cut the legs from under cody.

By this I mean that now all those who are interested or will be interested will now get orders from you instead of buying Cody's book which will mean that it will be you making money from Cody's work. I'm not trying to start a fued or anything but am concern where this is going.

I know you mean well but it's someting to think about. Have you thought about that? My suggestion is to let Cody know what your plans are and see if he will be alright with this venture. This way, you'll have a clean conscience. Just a thought.

Just curious. -->>>

Totally understandable, I don't plan on selling this and making a living or some sort at all. Basically its a ONE TIME DEAL ONLY! The way I looked at it was this, if my buddy is cutting material making it. Wouldn't it be worthwhile to make a few extra pieces? Regardless if the plans are already made, their is still programming involved into the machines that will be laser cutting, robotic tig welding etc... So I figured why not cut the cost down, and help our community. I don't mean any harm to anyone, specially if they are doing a business out of it. But understand also, Cody's plan's are for sale and once you buy the book, you are entitled to do whatever you want with it. I look at it like a recipe book. Just because Martha Stewart sells cookbooks, doesn't mean someone can't open up a restaurant and sell the same style of food that is in her books to the public. She is selling the book and you are buying the rights to that book. Now unless Cody's designs are patented in a way that nobody can mass produce his designs but just be allowed to make 1 than I rest my case. Again, I don't want to step on people's toes and don't intend to market or sell these, regardless if this goes through or not I will be making my own with my friends manufacturing capabilities. Are these things even patented? I see so many Copies out there or similiar designs its even hard to see who is the original manufacture. I was VERY interested in the desing you tested Charles, it was a great review! At the same time 5K is a bit to much to spend for what I will be using it for or others too, and I am sure 80% of this message forum if not more will agree with me on this. Again, I don't mean any harm and just want to be helpful on the same note should I contact Martha Stewart for making the exact Filet Mignon that she has in her book to sell in a restaurant? Let me know your thoughts please?

Count me in too.
 

Does anyone have any pics?

<<<-- Originally posted by Aaron Koolen : Good point Charles - why not simply donate the cost of the book from every order to Cody. So he gets his $50 or whatever it is from every order? Although, I have his book so I should get a discount :)

Aaron -->>>

I still don't see your point? I can see if I took Cody's design, and altered it 25% and called it my own and sold a book. If I buy the books, I am free to do what I want with it unless of course it holds patents and what not, but unless it doesn't its free game guys. And if most of you think its morally wrong than that's understandable and won't go through with the groupbuy, I figured that mostly all of us can do Cody's designs, but not all of us have access to precise machinery with ultimate quality in mind. Now if Cody is interested in selling these and having my source manufacture for him than I can give him the lead...

Hey Armando
 

If you have such an incredible resource, why don't you concentrate as well on the two or three other areas that so far have been bottled up and sold very expensively?

a) dovetail camera support and 15mm support rods for

b) follow focus unit (with the ring that goes on the DVX lens), and

c) matte box/filter holder for 4x5.65 with and without anamorphic adaptor, wide angle adaptor, tele adaptor? (i.e. a series of plates for the back in 72mm, 4,25"x4.75" rectangular, etc)

These would be smaller, easier projects for your machinist friends and would be incredible to bring to the market (i.e us guys) for a reasonable price instead of the monopoly prices that are now being demanded.

Cheers
Chris

Re: Hey Armando
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Leong : If you have such an incredible resource, why don't you concentrate as well on the two or three other areas that so far have been bottled up and sold very expensively?

a) dovetail camera support and 15mm support rods for

b) follow focus unit (with the ring that goes on the DVX lens), and

c) matte box/filter holder for 4x5.65 with and without anamorphic adaptor, wide angle adaptor, tele adaptor? (i.e. a series of plates for the back in 72mm, 4,25"x4.75" rectangular, etc)

These would be smaller, easier projects for your machinist friends and would be incredible to bring to the market (i.e us guys) for a reasonable price instead of the monopoly prices that are now being demanded.

Cheers
Chris -->>>

Where can I get the plans or samples? Do you have a website for all these parts?

Thanks

<<<-- Originally posted by Aaron Koolen : Good point Charles - why not simply donate the cost of the book from every order to Cody. So he gets his $50 or whatever it is from every order? Although, I have his book so I should get a discount :)

Aaron -->>>

Hi Aaron,

Why not buy a copy of steadicam, this way you donate money to the inventor?

Regards
Leigh

Re: Re: Hey Armando
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Armando Ferreira : <<<-- Originally posted by Chris Leong : If you have such an incredible resource, why don't you concentrate as well on the two or three other areas that so far have been bottled up and sold very expensively?

a) dovetail camera support and 15mm support rods for

b) follow focus unit (with the ring that goes on the DVX lens), and

c) matte box/filter holder for 4x5.65 with and without anamorphic adaptor, wide angle adaptor, tele adaptor? (i.e. a series of plates for the back in 72mm, 4,25"x4.75" rectangular, etc)

These would be smaller, easier projects for your machinist friends and would be incredible to bring to the market (i.e us guys) for a reasonable price instead of the monopoly prices that are now being demanded.

Cheers
Chris -->>>

Where can I get the plans or samples? Do you have a website for all these parts?

Thanks -->>>

My suggestion is that you need to respect others IP. You can't simply get it and make a copy of it and sell it.

Regards
Leigh

I was only offering an option, seeing as the dilemma was raised. That is all.

I made my own dolly and I did not, and would not feel I had to donate some money to whoever it was that invented the dolly. If I made my own steadicam I wouldn't feel I needed to pay either Cody or Garret Brown - although I'd buy either of them some beer if I ever met them for doing something so cool :)

Out of interest, how does patent etc work on this stuff? I assumd Cody wasn't breaking any patent that Garret Brown had? Just interested.

Aaron

<<<-- Originally posted by Aaron Koolen : I was only offering an option, seeing as the dilemma was raised. That is all.

I made my own dolly and I did not, and would not feel I had to donate some money to whoever it was that invented the dolly. If I made my own steadicam I wouldn't feel I needed to pay either Cody or Garret Brown - although I'd buy either of them some beer if I ever met them for doing something so cool :)

Out of interest, how does patent etc work on this stuff? I assumd Cody wasn't breaking any patent that Garret Brown had? Just interested.

Aaron -->>>

Hi Aaron,

Me too.

I was only offering an option too. That is all.

Regards
Leigh

Re: Re: Re: Hey Armando
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Leigh Wanstead : <<<-- Originally

My suggestion is that you need to respect others IP. You can't simply get it and make a copy of it and sell it.

Regards
Leigh -->>>

Uh... I take it you don't live in America? Not being disrespectful, but unless something DOES NOT HAVE A PATENT. You can do whatever you want with it. I have "copied" TONS of stuff before that is available to copy. I don't believe in infrigment on somebody's design and I respect it 100%. Again, the reason of this post is not to sell this. For those who know me personally I own a business and my partner has a manufacturing plant in CHINA. If your in Southern California and want to see our Massive warehouse of stuff that we manufacture swing by and I will give you directions. Do you know how much this thing will cost in CHINA to manufacture, I can SAFELY SAY under $200.00. Do you not think I can make this or STEADYCAM's DESIGNS and SLAM EVERYONE? That is not my purpose to do that, I have accounts that are worth millions of dollars and to be honest with you this is just PEANUTS. At the same time, we have relationships with manufactures here locally, my friend is one of them. I don't want to star a WAR, specially on something that I don't even know if it has a patent or not, basically the purpose of this threas was to gauge interest on a group buy for materials and labor parts that is all ONE TIME DEAL ONLY!

If it does have a patent PLEASE LOCK THIS THREAD and forget it, I'll just have my guy build my personal one. If any of the manufactures that has a patent is reading this thread and wants to better their price E-mail me at wicked4u2c@aol.com so that way WE can build it for them and they can distribute it. Again, Im not here to ATTACK their market. At the same time if no patent exist I really can do whatever I want, or what I feel MORALLY is correct.

Aaron Koolen brought up something very important, he made a DOLLY should he give a royalty fee to the inventor? Are these things even patented, I have seen so many damn copies I am almost doubting it...?

Armando

Just google "DVX follow focus" or "DVX matte box" and you'll come up with a lot of places that sell them.

And no, they're not patented, any more than an umbrella is patented.

I could design something for you but then we'd be in partnership, wouldn't we :-)

Cheers
Chris

Armando, don't despair - the offer is appreciated and a lot of us are interested. Keep us informed!

Again, I'm interested to know if you're thinking of using the alternate arm that Cody has or the original one. Might be better to use the new arm if you're going to all this trouble and people are going to be paying the $$ for it.

Cheers
Aaron

<<<-- Originally posted by Aaron Koolen : Armando, don't despair - the offer is appreciated and a lot of us are interested. Keep us informed!

Again, I'm interested to know if you're thinking of using the alternate arm that Cody has or the original one. Might be better to use the new arm if you're going to all this trouble and people are going to be paying the $$ for it.

Cheers
Aaron -->>>

Yes, I will be using the NEW and Improved arm from his designs. I always tell myself this, if im going to do something im going to do it ALL THE WAY, a reason why I own the XL2 considering the projects I use it for, I could of gone with something less expensive Like panasonics camera, but I always go overboard. So yes, the new ARM design will be used.

Hi Armando - This is my first post to this forum and I've was reading with interest your idea of pooling resources to create some reasonably priced rigs until the thread got a bit side tracked.

Back on topic. I would be very interested in being part of this as I am in need of a smooth ride for my XL2 without having to take out a second mortgage on mi casa. What a great resource to have a friend with a CNC machine shop. Getting the perfect parts is the major part of putting a rig like this together.

Not too many years ago I used to race radio controlled airplanes - I was a national competitor for over 12 years. These were extremely fast (150-200 mph) aircraft. Typically most of the planes I built were from plans I purchased for $25-50 from somebody. There were only a few dozen or less designs to begin with. All of these things were built using carbon fiber and fiberglass composites, special epoxies and glues, laser cut foam, etc. Wings especially, some 5-7 feet in span, had to be made with special expensive bakeable molds. THERE IS A POINT HERE. This stuff required such specialized equipment in order to produce it and there were only a few people that had that kind of gear. These people would make the parts based on the plans someone else made and sell the parts to the rest of us. But ONLY all the parts. They would NOT come assembled. The end user would have to buy the plans in order to see how the parts went together for themselves.

I'm slightly oversimplifying the process but in the form of a humble suggestion - why not just crank out all the parts and let the end user do all the assembly and tweaking. That would most certainly require the purchaser to buy the $35 book from Cody.

Moving off topic – The reason there are so many different designs and plans for stabilizer rigs out there is that the original Steadicam patent expired in 1997 allowing others to create and market their own version. In fact, if anyone’s interested Garrett Brown’s original patent drawings can be found here: http://www.intervalometers.com/resource/sc/index.stm.

Thank you again for your great offer, count me in. BTW – I’m heading over to Cody’s right now to get the book :)

Hello everyone. I just wanted to jump in here for a moment. First I want to thank my friend from Sweden for looking out for me (Hi Charles - do they say "SVEEDEN" over there?). I appreciate the concern. I'd also like to say hello again to Leigh. In regards to building your own dolly, yes many of us have done that. There are many different ways to build a dolly - and a stabilizer for that matter. Very few have taken the time and effort to document the entire process. Why? Because it is a lot of work. If Garrett Brown had sold plans that showed step-by-step how to recreate his invention and I then purchased those plans with the intent to mass produce a product from his design, then I think I have used him as my designer. This scenario is much different then taking the time and effort to come up with my own method. Garrett Brown did not design my stabilizer - I did.

Before I started production on my last feature, I went to great lengths to get a letter to my favorite author asking if she minded me using some of her ideas. Her writing had greatly influenced my screenplay, and even though I never plagerized, her influence was weaved throughout my story. I admired her greatly and wanted her blessing on the project. And her blessing I received.

Looking back, I now wish I had done the same with Garrett Brown.

Now about this building venture you all have going here - by all means go for it. And good luck to you Armando. The movie makers need to make movies and they want better equipment.


Go create - and respect each other in the process.



Cody

"I have no time for hate"

<<<-- Originally posted by Cody Deegan : Hello everyone. I just wanted to jump in here for a moment. First I want to thank my friend from Sweden for looking out for me (Hi Charles - do they say "SVEEDEN" over there?). I appreciate the concern. I'd also like to say hello again to Leigh. In regards to building your own dolly, yes many of us have done that. There are many different ways to build a dolly - and a stabilizer for that matter. Very few have taken the time and effort to document the entire process. Why? Because it is a lot of work. If Garrett Brown had sold plans that showed step-by-step how to recreate his invention and I then purchased those plans with the intent to mass produce a product from his design, then I think I have used him as my designer. This scenario is much different then taking the time and effort to come up with my own method. Garrett Brown did not design my stabilizer - I did.

Before I started production on my last feature, I went to great lengths to get a letter to my favorite author asking if she minded me using some of her ideas. Her writing had greatly influenced my screenplay, and even though I never plagerized, her influence was weaved throughout my story. I admired her greatly and wanted her blessing on the project. And her blessing I received.

Looking back, I now wish I had done the same with Garrett Brown.

Now about this building venture you all have going here - by all means go for it. And good luck to you Armando. The movie makers need to make movies and they want better equipment.


Go create - and respect each other in the process.



Cody

"I have no time for hate" -->>>

Cody, thanks for replying to this thread. I was going to contact you anyway, but I guess you came in first. Again, my intentions were not to sabatoge your business, which is why I have respect. I felt it wasn't a big deal, and some felt it was a big deal. But by you coming here and saying "go for it" makes it a more peaceful situation. Again, this is a ONE TIME DEAL. I don't want to sell these and be another "stabilizer" company. With all this cleared up now it is safe to say that I will find out final pricing soon and see if their is still interest. I don't plan on making money, just cover the material cost, a bit of my friend time (not mine) and of course shipping. I am doing this to help the community out a bit. So look out for a thread coming soon with pricing and information

Thanks again Cody for coming here.

Feature summary?
 

I've scoured Cody's site and this site and could not find any rundown on the features.

How does this unit compare with a Glidecam? A DVRigPro?

Would this unit work well in tight spaces or crowded locations such as wedding receptions?

<<<-- Originally posted by Kevin Clark : These people would make the parts based on the plans someone else made and sell the parts to the rest of us. But ONLY all the parts. They would NOT come assembled. The end user would have to buy the plans in order to see how the parts went together for themselves.

I'm slightly oversimplifying the process but in the form of a humble suggestion - why not just crank out all the parts and let the end user do all the assembly and tweaking. That would most certainly require the purchaser to buy the $35 book from Cody.

Thank you again for your great offer, count me in. BTW – I’m heading over to Cody’s right now to get the book :) -->>>


I totally agree with Kevin here. Although Cody has already jumped in and given his blessing to this undertaking, I was going to suggest the same thing as Kevin did. Everyone buys their own copy of Cody's book, which is all he sells anyway. Armando's source becomes just that, a source of parts for people to build from. In fact, this might even BOOST sales of Cody's book if folks know there is a readily available supply of precision machined parts to assemble his excellent design from.

Cody, if you happen to read this, I think you might want to get with Armando and see about adding his source to your list of suggested parts sources. Taking some of the pain out of assembling the stabilizer and using precision machined parts would lead to higher success rates.

I too, am interested, Armando because I have Cody's book but haven't built my rig yet.

regards,

-gb-

<<<-- Originally posted by Greg Boston : <<<-- Originally posted by Kevin Clark : These people would make the parts based on the plans someone else made and sell the parts to the rest of us. But ONLY all the parts. They would NOT come assembled. The end user would have to buy the plans in order to see how the parts went together for themselves.

I'm slightly oversimplifying the process but in the form of a humble suggestion - why not just crank out all the parts and let the end user do all the assembly and tweaking. That would most certainly require the purchaser to buy the $35 book from Cody.

Thank you again for your great offer, count me in. BTW – I’m heading over to Cody’s right now to get the book :) -->>>


I totally agree with Kevin here. Although Cody has already jumped in and given his blessing to this undertaking, I was going to suggest the same thing as Kevin did. Everyone buys their own copy of Cody's book, which is all he sells anyway. Armando's source becomes just that, a source of parts for people to build from. In fact, this might even BOOST sales of Cody's book if folks know there is a readily available supply of precision machined parts to assemble his excellent design from.

Cody, if you happen to read this, I think you might want to get with Armando and see about adding his source to your list of suggested parts sources. Taking some of the pain out of assembling the stabilizer and using precision machined parts would lead to higher success rates.

I too, am interested, Armando because I have Cody's book but haven't built my rig yet.

regards,

-gb- -->>>

Sounds fair, and we are all HAPPY!

Im excited now about this project. Cody what's your E-mail?

You people are definitely enthusiastic. Please - no one needs to feel like they should go buy my book. If you want to, great, and I appreciate every sale, and I appreciate the suggestion Greg. I have other work that supports my son and I, so the sale of my plans is a little added bonus that shows up each month. If you don't need the plans, don't buy them. Use the money to get some DV tapes or something. Armando, if you are providing a service and also doing machine work, by all means you are entitled to be paid. It's worth it to everyone involved. If I were back in the position I was in 4 years ago - wanting a stabilizer with no clue how to build one - I would be pitching in to this idea.

Charles started a similar deal over on HBS where he got a group of us to go in on some socket blocks from Baer-Bel (a German professional stabilizer manufacturer). It's difficult to get people to commit but definitely worth a try. It's so much cheaper.

David - um...I already feel like I'm hogging this topic. You can email me if you have questions about comparisons. I'm not biased - I'll tell you exactly what's better on their rigs. If others are curious I can post here as well, I'm just not sure if it is the proper place to do so. It is only my 2nd post on this great website, I feel like the new kid in school.

To conclude here, I'm going to be manipulative and say if anyone needs to email me, you can get the address on my personal website, which you can find a link to in my profile. (This way I force people into browsing my unknown webspace - a showcase for my work....tee hee...)


Cody

Glad to finally see you over on this end Cody. It was about time ;) glad you could straigten things out here. Well i won't go into any more details has my Friend Cody as already done that and has given his blessings.

BTW Cody, the correct ter or word is 'Sverige' :)

Now, that was what I meant Armando. I hope you understood what I was getting at? Good luck in your venture. I'll keep checking this forum to see how things are going.

Cody, feel free to post here relating difference between the rigs. That's what this site is for - to get as accurate information as possible on all these different goodies we can buy!

BTW: Have your book, great stuff - although I wish there were a metric version :)

Aaron

Sverige? I wasn't even close.

So Aaron is the one everyone has been praying to all these millenia. I think New Zealand is the place most Americans dream of visiting - myself included. I had a metric version of my plans at one time, but I couldn't confirm it's accuracy because I was theorizing on alot of it. Primary unit of measurement here in the States is Imperial. I didn't want to put out a product that I hoped might be right, so I pulled it. Metric is a great system and I wish it was more widespread here.

Okay, let's look at the rigs David mentioned - the Glidecam and the DVRig Pro. First realize that the DVRig Pro is a shoulder support - not a true stabilizer. Shoulder supports provide more stability than handheld, but not near as much as a stabilizer rig. The DVRig is a really cool shoulder support because it allows booming and has a belly post for extra support. I would say this is a good choice for tight and crowded places. You will notice a vast improvement in your ability to get smoother footage. The camera is still relying on you the operator as its means of support so there will inherently be motion in your shots, but it will most likely be tolerable motion.

A stabilizer rig puts the camera out on its own support. It has its own shock absorber arm to help keep your body's movements away from the camera. Stabilizers are a bit bulky and I don't recommend them for tight or crowded places unless it is a choreographed scene for a movie.

Let's compare Glidecam to my original rig outlined in my book CAMERA STABILIZER PLANS:

Know that I never had any intention of competing with any stabilizer manufacturer. My plans are for a homebuilt stabilizer rig. I wanted to make a movie and I wanted a stabilizer but could not afford one. So I looked for plans on building one - there weren't any. So I decided to try and build. My goal was to do it as cheap and with as many easy-to-find parts as possible, but still have the necessary key features to make it work well.

That should tell you one major difference: Glidecam rigs are not homebuilt. They are well made from specially created parts.

Glidecam has a product line ranging from amateur to professional. So let's rule out their Gold series (very high quality stuff that my homebuilt could never compare with). Instead we can look at their V-series. The V-8, 2000, and 4000 sleds to me are undesireable because the gimbal can not be adjusted up and down the center post. Instead you have to apply weights to the bottom until you get it balanced just right. This is not a good idea. It's okay for a novice, but life becomes so much easier once your gimbal can move up and down, which can be achieved on the V-16 and V-20 sleds.

Yes, the gimbal on my rig moves up and down. This makes my sled better, right? Well, let's not forget it's still homebuilt. Every pro operator knows that the key to a fantastic stabilizer is a fantastic well MACHINED gimbal. Mine will get you some decent shots, but know that a good pro gimbal will cost you $4000 or more. Right now I have some plans I made for a gimbal I want to have built, and the current quote is about $600. So back to my original book, I kept it simple and cheap. How does it compare to Glidecam's gimbal? Theirs is made better. But they both use the same principles of 3-axis rotation.

I am a huge advocate of the back-mounted vest. I've been in my rig for over 3 hours straight with my back-mount vest with little fatigue. I went for a half-hour in my front-mount and had to take it off. Glidecam uses a front-mount vest.

I was never too impressed with Glidecam's arm, but they just came out with the smooth shooter - and it looks awesome. I'd take one if I had the chance.

Okay, there's my brief overview - hope it helps.



Cody

I've read a few threads about home-built stabilizers constructed with Cody's plans... and from what I can tell... it 'aint for the faint of heart. A lot of people take 6 months or more to get one done. I'd be really surprised if this one-time deal hurt Cody's sales much... if at all. I've known about Cody's book for a while... and I've wanted to buy it... but the challenging process of actually building this thing has kept it on the back burner for me. If everybody got in on Armando's deal AND bought the book as a royalty... that would be more then fair.

Armando... I'll be in LA in 3 weeks. If you think it would behoove me to stop by... and you're somewhere in the LAX-Hollywood area... I'll drop in.

If you can put together a decent steadicam for under $1K I will DEFINITELY be onboard.

As a guy who is constantly trying to do nice DIY stuff I think it's incredibly generous to extend the favor of your business and connections to the DVinfo members. I'm always torn on whether or not to give away details of my work and R&D money...

I will say one thing though... you don't have hardly any posts and you've come on talking about a group buy of $1K from each member that signs up... LOL... I'll fly back out when they're done and pick mine up in person...

Not equipped to assemble
 

I am not equipped nor skilled enough to take on a hardware assembly project of this scope and expense. While others might feel confident and tooled enough to build this on their own, it would be a near set up for failure for me to invest a lot of money in parts and tools only to put it together poorly and come out with a second-rate product.

Half the success of this product, I would contend, is the accurate assembly of this product. I hope there is an option to buy this unit assembled. The whole is indeed worth more than the sum of its parts.

I agree with David, I'm not skilled enough to put this thing together (unless it's very easy to do).

I would be interested in a assembled solution.

And I'm very interested, please keep us updated on what the situation is with this idea.

can i make a suggestion? why not have cody name on the rig. if you guys don't like the idea, just pretend nothing was mention here. sorry...

ed

what about...
 

"Cody Cam", or
"Codylizer"

;p

FTR, I'm more than happy to buy one of Cody's books if this deal goes through.