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Custom battery mount for Archer...


Peter Hoare

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Hi,

 

Im meeting up with an Archer owner this week to design a second battery mount to go on the bottom of the sled to help balancing. The plan so far is an aluminium plate with two clamps for the rods on the sled with an an IDX V mount. The plan is to get these CNC cut and anodised so Im wondering if any other archer owners out there would like to jump on the bandwagon and take one of these as well? Im not interested in making any profit on this, Its a simple peice to design and my local machine shop will wire them out for me, but obviously the more we make, the cheaper they will be.

 

If anyone would be interested then let me know and I can get some prices sorted out.

 

 

Thanks,

 

Pete.

Edited by Peter Hoare
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I got mine from Richard Lewis a year ago or so. It has been indispensable.

 

Keep in mind that not all Archers are created equal. Richard had his created to fit his Archer, but it didn't fit mine. I had to buy a couple of drill bits to further bore out the holes so it would slide on without a rubber mallet. The spacing of the rods was off just enough to necessitate this.

 

Without sacrificing stability, try to give your tolerances a little wiggle room, just in case.

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I'm sure the diameter of the individual rods is always consistent, it's the distance between the two of them that I found to be off. Drilling the holes wider was the only reasonable solution.

 

It might not be a bad idea to take a survey from Archer owners, see what the varying distances between the rods are.

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Hi Peter,

I'm defintely in for a piece like that. For now I'm doing with a spare batt taped on the rods but I see Alan' one and it's very good and helpful.

If you need some infos let me know, I'm an Archer owner...

 

By the way today I practice with a Panasonc HPX 500 with cinema lens on (actually it was a 20mm) and Varizoom FF. Cool and heavy but it works very good and smooth.

 

Matteo

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Hi Peter,

I'm defintely in for a piece like that. For now I'm doing with a spare batt taped on the rods but I see Alan' one and it's very good and helpful.

If you need some infos let me know, I'm an Archer owner...

 

By the way today I practice with a Panasonc HPX 500 with cinema lens on (actually it was a 20mm) and Varizoom FF. Cool and heavy but it works very good and smooth.

 

Matteo

 

Cool ok, well when Ed comes with his Archer, il design something and get it machined.

 

Tiffen quoted the rod distance as 50mm too which is odd... but oh well.

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Hey all,

 

I just got an Archer a couple of month ago, love it, I've used the RED (naked) and Panasonic HDX900 so far and dynamic balance was easy to achieve.

But, you never know, so I'd be interested too. Any idea on the price yet, and could you ship it to the U.S?

 

Let me know, thanks.

 

Sebastien.

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Hi Sebastian,

 

It depends entirely on the complexity and the numbers we make. Looking online, the actual battery plate is a bit more expensive than I first thought, but the actual bracket (minus the plate) should be 3-4 aluminium parts. Depends entirely how many we do. If we make 2-3 it will be a lot more than making 10.

 

Once I can see Eds rig I will draw something up and see what the machine shop can do for us.

 

 

Thanks,

 

Pete.

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Hi Peter,

 

got some numbers for you... From rod to rod, meaning the inside space between the rods in my Archer is 35mm. The outside space, from the end of one rod to the other end, it's 65mm. And this gives standard industry rods dimensions of 15mm each... Cool!

 

I suggest we all take care of the battery plate by ourself, I have some spares and the mounting holes are the same for all of them. It could be very good to have the aluminium or whatever metal is done plate and then we put the battery plate on... If it makes sense ;)

 

Matteo

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Mm not quite home made, these brackets will be made on a quarter of a million pound CNC machine thats taking a break from cutting out parts out of titanium for F1 cars. The tolerance on the Hoare Archer Bracket is +/- 3 microns :-D

 

Just helping out the steadicam community with my contacts, anyone needs anything else making, let me know. We can make pretty much anything.

 

 

Pete.

Edited by Peter Hoare
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I think there have to be a lot of homebuilding skill in each steadicam op.

 

Peter, thanks for the great piece of machinery available and for helping the comunity, how do you want to connect the power out of this plate to the system? I'm interested in this even without the power connection because it's very helpful for the balance.

when do you think they're going to be available?

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Hi Matteo,

 

Well we can get a plate with a tap plug on it. If you really want I could probably machine a pocket and set a lemo connector into it for power output.

 

Once I have an archer in hand I will design the bits, make one to check it works, post some photos and then you can say if you want one or not. Once I get the archer infront of me, probably will take a week to get a prototype done, and then depending on how many people want, will take a few days to get the rest made up. The machine runs overnight so we can load it up and go home come back next day with them all finished. Clever eh?

 

What colour do you want? ha.

 

 

I think there have to be a lot of homebuilding skill in each steadicam op.

 

Peter, thanks for the great piece of machinery available and for helping the comunity, how do you want to connect the power out of this plate to the system? I'm interested in this even without the power connection because it's very helpful for the balance.

when do you think they're going to be available?

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I have an Archer base if you want to keep it as a test unit for any batches etc...

Could be that I measured mine wrongly, infact, I think the engineer who made mine did something similar for someone else shortly after, and he measured it with a greater accuracy. The one Alan had off me took a bit of effort to get on the rods, but it didn't phase me as it lived on there...

 

Make me an offer if you want, it's just sitting here doing nothing.

 

Rick.

 

 

Hi Matteo,

 

Well we can get a plate with a tap plug on it. If you really want I could probably machine a pocket and set a lemo connector into it for power output.

 

Once I have an archer in hand I will design the bits, make one to check it works, post some photos and then you can say if you want one or not. Once I get the archer infront of me, probably will take a week to get a prototype done, and then depending on how many people want, will take a few days to get the rest made up. The machine runs overnight so we can load it up and go home come back next day with them all finished. Clever eh?

 

What colour do you want? ha.

 

 

I think there have to be a lot of homebuilding skill in each steadicam op.

 

Peter, thanks for the great piece of machinery available and for helping the comunity, how do you want to connect the power out of this plate to the system? I'm interested in this even without the power connection because it's very helpful for the balance.

when do you think they're going to be available?

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