(almost) fully printed GoPro steady cam

youmagine

I built a steady cam using just a few non-printed parts and the rest printed out perfectly fine. The Z rotation is enabled by a trusty 608 ball bearing, while the other two axes run smoothly thanks to M4 screws. This design works amazingly well - of course, a "pendulum type" steady cam like this one has some drawbacks, but it's still good enough for really nice action footage! After designing this, I found another simple and affordable option that also features a very cool design: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:84142. Maybe I should have searched first ;-) I loved MaximFilm's idea of using handles for the threaded rod, so I decided to adopt it and add one above and below the gimbal too. This one is even cheaper than my original build. I picked up a 1m M8 rod for just 1 Euro at our local hardware store and about 3 Euros worth of nuts and washers. The most expensive part was the bearing - if you have to buy it. Luckily, I had an old pair of rollerblades lying around that gave me exactly what I needed. With approximately 20 meters of PLA, my total cost came out to be much less than 10 Euros. This thing is also available on Thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:283925