Lightweight, high strength, fast-moving, tall camera tower?

Thread Starter

DMahalko

Joined Oct 5, 2008
189
(This is probably less of an electronics question and more of a mechanical design question.)


For quite a while I've been thinking it'd be fun to have a camera that is about 4 meters off the ground and moves around with me at about 25 m/s.

This way I can have a "bird's eye view" to see things around me more easily, in those situations when I am moving around at that rate of speed.

The base would be restricted to about 1.5 meters wide and maybe 2 meters in length, and the base would be located approximately 1.5 meters off the ground on the method of conveyance, so this camera tower has a fairly small footprint.



In general the concept is simple, but probably the more important question is making it safe, so that the camera (and mount) doesn't become a projectile in the case where I need to stop moving rather quickly.

A guyed tower is possible, and would be highly stable, but the cables are likely to become whipping shrapnel in the event of a catastrophic motion arrest. Also I do have some concerns about airflow at 25 m/s causing unwanted resonance of the guy cables.

Also there could be an issue of the camera mount/tower possibly separating from the base support platform in the event of a sudden rapid loss of inertia.



Probably a more realistic and stable approach would be a lightweight aluminum truss framework of multiple welded rods with triangular framing for strength.

I've been looking around for anyone who might already make a lightweight, high strength, fast moving, tall camera tower that can be adapted to my application, but so far I have not had any luck.
 

Adamf001

Joined Sep 5, 2011
67
what will this camera mount be mounted to? bike, boat etc

how flexible would you be about the camera size? the bigger the camera the harder it might be to mount??

after these questions have been answered we might be able to visualise how this support will work, designed
 
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