Design and manufacture your own mechanical intervolamerter trigger for your old digital camera.
In this project we'll see how to make your own camera trigger from recycled, reused, and re-purposed materials, many you may find laying around your home!
Prologue:
One starry night of sleepless lasagna-tummy, my mind wandered to my bloated Bolognese belly.
After the third antacid and mouthwash I had an epiphany. Maybe it was the double chese and garlic turf war, maybe the chalky effervescence creating a toxic nerve-gas, I don't know. I lost track of everything over the last 5 glasses of red.
I had a vision of my expanded belly carrying me upwards, all I was able to grab before my feet left the ground was my sunglasses and camera. I was carried to the sky photographing my way upwards. I had broken into the stratosphere when.... *blink*
It was over.
A quick look on Google the next morning revealed that apparently more than just me has a reaction to a cocktail of food, alcohol and medicine, and as far back as 100 years. Intrigued, I checked Instructables to see if anyone had done something similar, to my surprise (and to date of publish) they had not. I was inspired to create my own aerial photographs. Since I am not familiar with the methods of making my trigger from 555 timers, I needed to make a mechanical trigger. As a twist I would use recycled and re-purposed materials and combine it with an old abondoned digital camera to take photos from my kite.
While electronics may be second nature to some, to others (myself included) they are a mystery. I did not want wiring or programming to be a deterrent, for this project this element is removed entirely. In addition I wanted a design that would not compromise the camera housing. This rules out opening the camera to solder on a trigger.
My guidelines for this project were:
Enough talk...... let's build!
In this project we'll see how to make your own camera trigger from recycled, reused, and re-purposed materials, many you may find laying around your home!
Prologue:
One starry night of sleepless lasagna-tummy, my mind wandered to my bloated Bolognese belly.
After the third antacid and mouthwash I had an epiphany. Maybe it was the double chese and garlic turf war, maybe the chalky effervescence creating a toxic nerve-gas, I don't know. I lost track of everything over the last 5 glasses of red.
I had a vision of my expanded belly carrying me upwards, all I was able to grab before my feet left the ground was my sunglasses and camera. I was carried to the sky photographing my way upwards. I had broken into the stratosphere when.... *blink*
It was over.
A quick look on Google the next morning revealed that apparently more than just me has a reaction to a cocktail of food, alcohol and medicine, and as far back as 100 years. Intrigued, I checked Instructables to see if anyone had done something similar, to my surprise (and to date of publish) they had not. I was inspired to create my own aerial photographs. Since I am not familiar with the methods of making my trigger from 555 timers, I needed to make a mechanical trigger. As a twist I would use recycled and re-purposed materials and combine it with an old abondoned digital camera to take photos from my kite.
While electronics may be second nature to some, to others (myself included) they are a mystery. I did not want wiring or programming to be a deterrent, for this project this element is removed entirely. In addition I wanted a design that would not compromise the camera housing. This rules out opening the camera to solder on a trigger.
My guidelines for this project were:
- use as much recycled content as possible
- budget of around $50
- able to function with any digital camera
- no special camera function (or special plug)
- no specialty knowledge (eg: no electrical / arduino / 555 timers etc.)
Enough talk...... let's build!
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Signing UpStep 1: The kite
Researched pointed me towards a few possible options to ahieve the required height. The original idea was to use a balloon filled with helium to generate the lift. This idea is still good, however I wanted to make something portable, and riding the bus with a giant balloon isn't a great way to make friends (or is it?). Instead I opted for the more passive method of a kite.
Kite design is everything. There are countless varieties of kites, and luckily there are a few that lend themselves well to this application. I suggest doing your own research to determine which style fits your needs best. I chose a design that was simple, easy to fly, able to achieve lift in any wind, and large enough to accept a payload. The delta conyne satisfies all my criteria. With a little sleuthing you may find dimensioned plans online that you can use to build your own.
As I was on my way to find materials to make my kite (rip-stop nylon and wooden dowels), I happened upon a kids store nearby which had the exact kite I was looking for, in the size I needed (6'+ or 1.8m+ from wingtip to wingtip), and was on sale!
An actual quote from the cashier "I can't believe you're buying this, it's been in that corner of the store for years."
really??!
The kite cost $30. The remainder of the budget was spent on the line, more on that in step 9.
The only downside is that the kite is kinda pink.
Kite design is everything. There are countless varieties of kites, and luckily there are a few that lend themselves well to this application. I suggest doing your own research to determine which style fits your needs best. I chose a design that was simple, easy to fly, able to achieve lift in any wind, and large enough to accept a payload. The delta conyne satisfies all my criteria. With a little sleuthing you may find dimensioned plans online that you can use to build your own.
As I was on my way to find materials to make my kite (rip-stop nylon and wooden dowels), I happened upon a kids store nearby which had the exact kite I was looking for, in the size I needed (6'+ or 1.8m+ from wingtip to wingtip), and was on sale!
An actual quote from the cashier "I can't believe you're buying this, it's been in that corner of the store for years."
really??!
The kite cost $30. The remainder of the budget was spent on the line, more on that in step 9.
The only downside is that the kite is kinda pink.
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http://youtu.be/Q1o4mw0ug14
This is a really easy make and may help you with launch and landing.
It can also help put your kite in just the right spot to get the view you need.
I'm hoping to use this in order that I can lift an airborne wind generator into the sky.
wish me luck
You should watch this for more inspiration!
Even though they're backed by google and ARPA-e, I fully intend to wipe the floor with that design.
I built my bamboo monopod with similar parameters. All materials except the bamboo had to be on hand, no trips to the hardware store! I like the challenge of doing things that way, if forces me to think up solutions I might not have otherwise.
Though I did not consider k'nex I did consider some LED's for some possible dusk photography, but found that the streamers I made stand out amazingly well against dark sky. The other part is that the already unstable shots only get worse during darker hours (version 2.0 may aim to solve this problem as well with better equipment).
Thanks for your comment! (I also liked the monopod and especially the trugs!)
Where is the link?
Where would you have found the rip stop nylon?
I know where I can get a delta conyne, but I was hoping to find a deal like you did. Only I was going to ask for a big discount being as how it was an old kite. I made a double delta conyne (my own design) about 10 years ago. It only flew successfully for about 10 seconds. It flew unsuccessfully for about a minute in all. I was very surprised at the power the kite had. Once I got it tuned up and aligned (nearly impossible), it shot up like a rocket. It went nose down hard into the ground many times in its brief life and finally was not reparable. I think the standard DC would be a good choice for carrying a relatively heavy load like a camera.
http://hacknmod.com/hack/incredible-diy-aerial-kite-photoraphy/
Link:
The quote should have the words 'delta conyne' highlighted in orage, which is a link you can click and it should take you where I was referencing. But here's the link anyways:
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=delta+conyne&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2
Nylon:
As for the rip-stop, I'm glad you asked. I found rip-stop nylon in a store that services backpacks and hiking gear. They supply just about every belt, clip, strap, and fabric imaginable. It was priced at $20/yard, I figured I would need about a yard and a half.
I haven't tried searching in a regular fabric store, but I imagine they'd have soemthing. A little sluthing around some industrial sites could also be profitable.
As for your kites, it sounds like I avoided a similar fate by buying instead of making attempting to make. Though making a larger DC from scratch is on the board for a future project someday.
The standard DC I think was a good choice based on it's simplicity, single line, and forgiving nature. Though, I'm sure there are some who would say otherwise.
Do you have any plans to try to build another?
http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=21&m=331526&g=331882
I'd like to see more of your pictures,
Mike
If the objective was to just take pictures from the air, I would have got one of
these, but that's not really in the spirit of what I was aiming for.
What is not included in this instructable are the ideas that didn't make the cut. I did plenty of research before I committed to what you see here, I chose this path due mostly to simplicity, function, and weight.
The idea of IR or bluetooth was tossed due to range issues. While they would have worked to a certain point, the idea is to let the line out as far as you like and still achieve pictures. Besides, using a transmitting device would have required (some) electrical knowledge. If you read the intro you will see that this was outside the guidelines.
As for a separate line for a trigger, this idea was also explored, but why add additional weight of an second line? What if the line were to get tangled? What if it was 200' in the air and wouldn't take a picture? There were too many variables.
As I was researching my ideas I heard plenty of alternatives, many of which involved some derivative of what you suggested. While these ideas were good, they were too complicated, or too involved for a project the required plenty of QA and a deadline of less than 2 months. My reply to all these ideas was, and still is: "in version 2.0 we can do whatever we want. For version 1.0 to be a success it just has to work."
As for video, most digital cameras have the ability to do both still and video. This rig can accept this as well, simply by not activating the motor. I have shot some video on my rig, however the majority of it was very shaky. Again more on version 2.0 I guess.
If you are able to create a kite rig using your ideas I would really love to see it. This method wasn't too hard and has given me loads of ideas for future designs. My next version of this will involve a better cradle to achieve more stable shots, and a smaller motorized assembly to reduce engagement error.