Aluminium Camera Cradle

Started work on construction of the aluminium cradle for the camera. The aluminium came from B&Q of all places! Spied on one of my regular DIY trips at the weekend. There are three different peices of aluminium used to make the cradle -:

• The first is 2mm thick, 25mm wide and length 1000mm.
• The second is U shaped 12mm wide, sides of 10mm and length 1000mm
• The third is tubing with a diameter of 6mm and length 1000mm

The thin aluminum was bent into a U shape in which the camera slots into. The U peice of aluminium is used as a brace to hold the cradle in place this is secured to the base of the camera using an old tripod mounting screw I had kicking around. If you want to get one of these the spec is a 1/4" BSW bolt. The tubing is used as a pivot arm on the opposite side of the servo. The tubing was secured using a 4mm x 16mm bolt by screwing it into the hollow end of the tube after first passing the bolt through a hole drilled in the side of the cradle. See pictures below to get a better understanding. The servo needs to be attached to the frame using some very small bolts (M1.6x4mm). I managed to source these from a company called Precision Technology Supplies it's worth bookmarking this site if you are ever going to need very small nuts and bolts as it was a bugger to locate a supplier with a reasonable price.

Pictures of aluminium camera cradle can be found here.

Video of aluminium cradle being driven by the servo.

Spent quite a bit of time working on the website making sure that everything to date has been documented and that the structure flows.