Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

So I will keep the back story short here. As most might guess from my user name, I am a professional photographer. I shoot sports for a living and I travel pretty much every weekend 10 months out of the year. I shoot Canon gear (please no gear debates here) and I love it. But for one flaw. My largest client who keeps me on the road every weekend is a very unique style of sports photography which only uses a 70-200 2.8 lens. For the last 5 years I have been faced with a nagging issue. The canon lens has a flaw in the tripod mount on the lens used to mount to a monopod when shooting for 15+ hours a day. The design is pretty simple but flawed. It uses a set of four unevenly spaces screws with small brass bushings on them to ride inside of the tripod foot track/raceway to allow the lens to rotate and when turned just right, to remove the tripod mount foot from the lens by 4 cuts in the raceway wall which line up when turned just so, to allow the tripod mount to slide off the lens. Great in theory. But junk in practice really. Those same four small cunts in the raceway wall which allow the collar to be removed, also dent and deform the brass bushings mounted on the screws, which leads them to fail and they have a raw crew head digging into the collar raceway and seizing the lens rotation at the worst moment in an assignment. Each repair costs over $400 even with a Canon CPS Platinum level 30% discount and we do this repair 2-5 times a year. So enough was enough and I set out to replace the design as best I can... In short 3D printing and putting a $8,000+ plus camera rig at the mercy of a 3D printed prototype design before it is milled from aluminum on the CNC. Nylon 910 came out and i decided to give it a try after having found Bridge and a number of other nylons and other 3d filaments lacking for everything I needed, strength, lightweight, low COF for a bearing function, ease of printing and affordability. The design is still being refined but I have produced a prototype and I refine the design each weekend after shooting with it. So far the 910 has been truly amazing! It is super tough and takes post printing manual and CNC shaping very well with endmills, burrs and sanding discs as the design is refined and tweaked. Screws hold fast and tight in the 910 (printed solid) and supports and rafts are removed with very little effort or cleanup (though 910 is TOUGH and holds FAST if your supports are not planned well). So far the design ( a bearing ) has held up to everything I can throw at it for the normal usage I seek to replace from the stock Canon design. In the end the body will be Alca 5 tool plate aluminum with a 910 liner and 910 ring (mounted to lens) Here is a small snap shot of the first BETA mount which worked perfectly. It is made up of an inner 910 ring fixed to the lens, An outter body peice that surrounds the inner ring and a small ring plate that holds the inner ring in place to the outer body.

I know most of that makes little sense. The short version is this. the Canon design to rotate the lens about a axis is flawed and breaks all the time which costs over $400 to replace. This design removes the brass bushings in favor of a 3D printed 910 bearing. More pics to follow and CAD renders if anyone shows some interest in how the project is moving along. This is the very sort of thing I bought my MAX for, solving my real world issues with cutting edge filaments to rapidly prototype designs. This will save myself and all the 80+ sports shooters who work for me several thousand dollars a year and allow infield replacement of worn components as needed without the need for special tools or a service center.

I love these kind of stories. It inspires the rest of us to think of useful jobs for our MAX that will make life better for us - in the way this prototype did for you. In fact, perhaps you can sell these to other photographers. You're kind of like BASF. You don't invent the things, you just make them better

I'm also very interested in people's review of Taulman 910, what settings they used to print successfuly and what they used to get bed adhesion. I have been holding off installing the Prometheus v2 hotend I puchased last month because the stock hot end has been working so well but filaments like 910 can be a justification for "fixing what ain't broke" due the the higher temperature requirements.

Please keep us updated on this project.

these stories are what prove to me the 3D printer is truly disruptive technology. mini lathes and DIY mills were the first step, then simple CNC came along, now with being able to "print" bearings and rapid prototype designs, the world is going thru a C change.


I am curious as to why an offset tripod mount would not work, with perhaps just a cradle instead of a ring to take pressure off the lens mount ring on the camera body.

are you shooting all Digital? I see that is an eos so no need for film changes just an SD card change.... so you would not be fumbling with opening the camera body except for a lens or battery change

Tom C

Travelphotog, your project is really cool. You should post one for sale here and see what happens. Yes mvansomeren, it is most interesting to see people solve real world problems and save money. Nice work. I rank this up there with so many things I've seen our customers doing. From university research, to NASA, aerospace companies, to Jim Henson's Creature Workshop just to name a few.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQyWTiv ... e&t=12m42s

Thanks for sharing!

While the stock hotend isn't "broken" in the typical sense, and yours is printing what it prints fine, the way I look at it, it is "broken" in another way. There are so many materials other than the typical ABS and PLA, and while you can print a few of these at lower temps, most of them, especially the really good ones that IMO are or should be in the more standard arsenal of most every printer, are inaccessible to hotends with the PEEK/Teflon component. Several kit manufacturers have started selling the E3D, Hexagon, or others standard instead of the classic J-head, because the design of these hotends has matured to the point where the issues they had with PLA are virtually non existent, and they in general perform better and are more versatile. Lulzbot, Ultibots, I think Makerfarm, RepRapPro, and RepRap.me I think all use all metal hotend designs as either an option or standard when you buy a kit. The fact that PEEK/Teflon hotends can't print high temp materials makes them "broken". At least that's how I see it. I can't and won't deny the quality I've seen off of J-heads and Ultimaker hotends.

Anyway, that's pretty slick Photog. Are the different colors in the screen shot separate parts? Can we see an unassbled version of your design? I'm curious how it works.

Yeah in this case a few good pictures would be perfect. I tried to read the story but this is what I got out of it:

- I have a camera tripod mount but it sucks
- The sucky mount is costing me a lot of money
- Lots of people have the same problem
- I 3d printed a better one
- The money I'm saving pretty much paid for the printer and more over time

I'm not bashing you TPG, it was just wordy and I'm not at all familiar with what you were describing. However I think this is really the ideal 3d printer story. Maybe you could even turn it into a cool youtube video or interview somewhere! I think a lot of people would be interested.

Can't wait to see what your next big breakthrough is... keep us posted!

Just wanted to say I appreciate all your designs and especially being so generous and sharing your designs and knowledge with everyone.

LOVE. IT.
What a great story and awesome application of 3D printing technology.
Nice design you made there Travelphoto
You really should offer them for sale.


@Nylocke
I agree 100% about the stock hot end.
by the way, we do have more Prometheus hot ends in stock ready to ship...
http://www.tricklaser.com/Prometheus-Me ... HOTEND.htm

Thanks guys for the feedback. I am on day 11 of 15+ hour shooting days on the lens bearing and it is still shooting like a dream. I am between shoots right now for the day so not able to address all the questions and comments above. But I proimise that I will address each in turn shortly. More photos will also come from the damaged lens and the flawed mount which causes all the issues so everyone will have a better idea of what the root issue was. I will also try to get some exploded model renders done so the inner workings of the bearing can be seen better also.

Thanks for all the kind words guys and it means a great deal that my "real world" stuff helps to inspire and drive more folks to try new filaments and question how to make things around them better. Reading everyone posts here on the boards is a huge drive for me to push my personal limits and try new things.

travelphotog wrote:Thanks guys for the feedback. I am on day 11 of 15+ hour shooting days on the lens bearing and it is still shooting like a dream. I am between shoots right now for the day so not able to address all the questions and comments above. But I proimise that I will address each in turn shortly. More photos will also come from the damaged lens and the flawed mount which causes all the issues so everyone will have a better idea of what the root issue was. I will also try to get some exploded model renders done so the inner workings of the bearing can be seen better also.

Thanks for all the kind words guys and it means a great deal that my "real world" stuff helps to inspire and drive more folks to try new filaments and question how to make things around them better. Reading everyone posts here on the boards is a huge drive for me to push my personal limits and try new things.

Great attitude and we all appreciate the new ideas you come up with.
It is becoming amazing what is accomplished with a 3D printer and some imagination.
Thanks for your posts!