Attack of the Panoramic Robots part 2 - more pics.

Closeup photos of the current prototype.

Geartrain driving the main rotation of the head.

Currently it rotates on a standard LEGO turntable. This would just about cope with the weight of a small compact, but definitely not a dSLR. To be replaced with an over-engineered bearing, rather like the one found in the base of the 360Precision head. This is geared down quite far - probably more than is actually needed as there should be relatively little force as long as the head stays upright.

If you are used to older LEGO the new 'studless' construction methods take quite a bit of getting used to, and there are very few ways of mounting the new servomotors to drive a geartrain. This photo shows pretty much your only option.

Pitch geartrain.

This is the movement that would require a lot of strength, and the final version will have a higher gear ratio. If you think about the weight of the camera body-plus-lens and how far offcentre it needs to be for the parallax point, there will be a HUGE pressure on this area. Ideally there needs to be some form of counterweight or spring. Especially when using the 70-200mm monster...

Size comparisons, left-to-right: Canon 5D with 15mm fisheye, Canon 70-200mm f4L, Panobot mk.0

The head doesn't need to be much larger than it is now - the middle frame just needs to be large enough for the lens plus a rear arm to hold the camera body. Compare to the Karline Rodeon head in part one and you can easily see the size advantage possible when designing around a specific camera.

More to come as it happens...

Ian