Post a photo of your crane!

[Nick Jensen]

Here's a link to a photo gallery of a DIY boom constructed from various bike and snowmobile parts. The beam is just a light rail for a DJ lighting system. Worked great for getting no bounce.

http://www.njfreelance.com/boom2

[Jim Ross]

Nick, that has got to be the most ingenius remote control system I have ever seen! Looks more like you "steer" the camera. And especially dig the use of the hand brakes. Any links to your final shots? Would love to see some of the work you shot!

[Jim Ross]

Originally Posted by Dan Copeland

I built this crane a few months ago and if you look at it it is ajustable in length it goes from the shortest of 8 foot to 21 foot in length I have photos on my web site as I can not upload attachments yet.

Awesome looking rig, Dan.
Looks hi-tech, not homemade! Does it also pick up Ham Radio? Looks like an antenna! Just kiddin' of course. Does it take a while to assemble? Looks almost like you made it telescoping- is it?

Jim

[Dan Copeland]

Originally Posted by Jim Ross

Awesome looking rig, Dan.
Looks hi-tech, not homemade! Does it also pick up Ham Radio? Looks like an antenna! Just kiddin' of course. Does it take a while to assemble? Looks almost like you made it telescoping- is it?

Jim

Yes it is telescopic I can use it from a short 7 foot to a 21 foot jib . I know it looks like an antene but it keeps it from bowing at the longest length.

It is does not take to long to assemble as it is self contained and when you know what length you want you extend it and lock the sections with pins and select what cables to use and add the spreaders if you need them on the longer lengths.

I am in the middle of building a hydraulic turet. it is about 50% done I just need to fabricate the control end. It will make the head feel more a tripoded camera where you have a better feel of what the camera is doing (A fluid head), not like a joy stick control where it moves but your only feed back is what you see in the monitor. No feel of the movement.


DaNc

[Joel Ayuk]

Originally Posted by Bill Hamell

Here's m DIY jib.

Bill

can some body help me please i'm looking for a blue print to build a solid dolly and crane like u guys. Can some one help me out?

[Dan Copeland]

Originally Posted by Joel Ayuk

can some body help me please i'm looking for a blue print to build a solid dolly and crane like u guys. Can some one help me out?

I purchased a Kessler Crane and still use that some times but I wanted a longer crane so I built my from my own design, that I thought out, after looking at other cranes. No actual Blue prints or plans.

DaNc

[Peter Hoare]

Hi,

I have been building a crane for a while, and what started out as a pretty quick way of getting my camera high up has turned into a pretty major project. The crane now has a full pan tilt head with a programable computer controlled fan cooled progressive joystick controlled controller. I also have a fairly unique cable and bungee cantilever system to keep the head level, which replaces the solid bar often seen on home made cranes.

Let me know what you think,
Pete. any questions, email me: pete<dot>hoare<at>gmail<dot>com

www.whogivesatoss.com/crane1.jpg - The crane in the sky

http://www.whogivesatoss.com/crane2.jpg - the single plug bulgin connection that carries voltage and signal to the motors and it will also carry the remote lanc control when I have installed it.

http://www.whogivesatoss.com/crane3.jpg - The crane looking up at a second story window. The second cantilever is wonky at the moment, I need some turn buckles to adjust the angle, but it still works anyway.

http://www.whogivesatoss.com/crane4.jpg - The head, this pic shows the motors, drive belts, and my paintjob :-)

http://www.whogivesatoss.com/crane5.jpg - This is the head controller. It still needs two rocker switches that will disable and reverse the motor direction. It also needs a 2.5mm jack socket to plug the LANC controller into.

Heres a video of the crane afew weeks ago.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rbn_EgOq1jc

The head is unpainted and it only has one cantilever thingy. The reason I added a second was because the corner of the head kept twanging on the cable so I added the second one to transfer the cable to the top to avoid this.

[Becky Wills]

Terry, I'm in Louisville also and you can go to my site and see everything about my jib, how it's used and different set-ups involved. Call if you have any questions.

www.kyvideoservices.com

[Paul Mailath]

it needed some reinforcing from the original design but it seems to work pretty well. I'm going to double the length but it would only take the weight of the A1 not head, LEX and lens.

[Gerry Gallegos]

Its a Pro Jib 9.0 with a Bescor pan-tilt (good enough for what I do), I use the bag to hold a 2 liter bottle so I can "fine" trim the balance. It stands on a JBL speaker stand (roughly 24lbs of weight plus the crane is about 16lbs and the cam and head are about 5lbs or so). I have pics of how it is attached to stand on a different thread.

I like the low profile of this crane. I will probably upgrade the head to one of those Servo City ones in the near future. one of the things I really like about this crane is that it easily breaks down into 3 x 3' sections, so I can use it as a 6' er as well. I am trying to get a hold of another section so I can go to 12'

If you're into Cricket , you might see shots from it on Stanford 20/20 tournament this February.

[Terry Lee]

I posted this thread months ago promising I would post a photo of my crane when it was finished...well as it turns out, my engineer pushed the job aside to work on a rat rod he is building. Understandable since the purpose for the crane was to film a video for a historical site I work with from time to time but never got my grant. As it turns out, it is a good thing we didn't completely finish it. I have been looking at other designs lately and think for my purposes a different design would be more beneficial for my time spent in its construction. My original design was almost exactly like the Kessler 12" crane. The problem with their crane is that there is you can't pan or tilt the camera...it just simply sits in position however you have it fastened. What I am looking into now, is a design that will allow me to achieve these pan/tilt shots. However, what I keep finding are these crazy expensive electronic pan/tilt heads that we would not be able to build. are simple mechanical pan/tilt heads?

[Gerry Gallegos]

Terry.

Look into the Servo city unit that is about to be released. it looks very promising and cost around $500 us (theoretically)

[Terry Lee]

Gerry, Thank you, i'll look into it.

and sorry for the typos lol, I have to stop trying to construct ideas when I am half asleep :)

[Allen Plowman]

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

My original design was almost exactly like the Kessler 12" crane. The problem with their crane is that there is you can't pan or tilt the camera...it just simply sits in position however you have it fastened. What I am looking into now, is a design that will allow me to achieve these pan/tilt shots. However, what I keep finding are these crazy expensive electronic pan/tilt heads that we would not be able to build. are simple mechanical pan/tilt heads?

The Kessler crane does tilt manually via the lever. you would only need a device to pan the camera

[Terry Lee]

Allen - Yeah, haha I know I even built the thing. My brain must have not been working or something.