Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Testing my Chase-Cam

I've been working a project, off and on for about 3 months.  I found a general plan for a home-made chase-cam online and modified it to fit my needs. 

The basics parts are:
  • A 2 liter soft drink bottle
  • a 1/4" screw and nuts and washers
  • a swivel mount ( I used an unused suction mount for an auto GPS)
  • a couple of small carabiners
  • a used paraglider line.
  • a bit of webbing 
  • material for fins (I used remnants from a RC glider kit)
First cut the bottom end off the 2-liter bottle.   Then put three equally spaced, 1" diameter holes in the "shoulder" of the top of the bottle (see photos) to allow airflow through the body of the bottle.

Attach the fins to the bottle with epoxy cement.

Drill out a !/4" hole through the bottle cap and the mounting swivel.

Assemble using washers and nuts to provide a secure attachement for the camera mounting swivel.




Your camera and swivel mount may require different balancing; use small weights to make the rig balance properly.

I attached the webbing on the camera mount to the spare paraglider line and then attached the top of the line to a rear attachment point about 5 feet left of centerline.  You may want to try other mounting points.  B-lines or C-lines may be more stable.  I used the trailing edge on my Icepeak 6 since options are few for mounting points on a 2-liner.  The camera is aimed to provide a view of the pilot and ample view of the forward panorama.  

As can be expected,  this additional line and the mass swinging from your trailing edge can result in tangling during launch or accidental collapse.  I would caution use of this set-up to be limited to benign conditions and experienced pilotos.

Here's the result - 

A challenging day at Cayucos. Fun to fly the Icepeak 6 this season. First good test of the chase-cam.
 

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Tim, a few questions

where did you attached the chase cam?

how many lines did you use?

is the camera fixed to the bottle or does the camera swivel independently of the bottle

Looks great by the way - really works

William

Tim said...

The chase-cam is attached to the wing with one old PG line that is attached to the trailing edge approximately 6' left of the wing centerline.

The camera is fixed with respect to the bottle attachemnt. I went of the principle that simpler is better, and it seems to work. I do need to attach a weak link to the suspension line, however.

Tim

Manjeet Thakur said...

well this is a great idea about this Chase-cam.Really its a new and unique technique, i hope it wil much helpful for all paraglider pilots.
Anyways thanks for sharing this idea, i'll definately try to use it.