Hello All, I have this Camera lighting rig that I've been planning for awhile. Basically it consists of a fixed camera facing downwards which takes a series pictures each lit by a light from a different angle (A technique called photometric stereo). I was going to mount the camera on a a cannibalized small rig cage with quick release plate as pictured below, i would 3d print some brackets for the rods to fit into and mount onto the v slot. Then i started think about possibly having the camera able to move on the XY axis, which would let me combine photometric stereo and some simple photogrammetry. So I started looking at the different ways of doing this, Now i need a sort of square frame in the middle that has at least a 200mm opening to accommodate some stuff I have mounted onto the camera lens, being an even square it would allow me to mount my 4 top lights equidistant from the center of the lens and it would also allow me to use the small rig cage to quickly mount my camera onto. All that being said, the camera, lens, lights and other accessories probably weigh about 7-8lbs. I would want to mount all of this to an existing 670mm wide square 20x20mm v slot frame. I don't think I could have gantrys where the plates are vertical because there would be lights and other stuff mounted along the bottom of this frame. So I was looking at using the a bunch of the mini V actuator bundles. Not having access to much tools besides a mitre saw, hand held drills and a 3d printer I would be weary about making a longer gantry plate accurately, so my idea was to tie 2 mini V gantrys together using a length of v slot and double tee nuts and then mount the other pair of actuators on top of that to get my XY movement. I was wondering if I could get away with only using 2 wheels per mini V plate since they would be linked together. I'm looking for any advice or suggestions, I haven't really dealt with a lot of this hardware so there might be pretty obvious methods I'm overlooking. I have attached a fusion screenshot of my mockup sans brackets for a better idea of what i'm thinking.
Just realized that the holes on the mini gantry plates are threaded, so I'll probably have to figure out another way to link the 2 gantrys together or use something else.
You can drill out the threads and still put a flat-head M5 through from the back. You may need to add an extra precision shim behind the wheel to lift the plate off the extrusion just a little to make space for the screw head (or drill a countersink)
Looks good, been holding back to see others' comments too Just on thought so far I'd go with 4, so they work directly on one extrusion, for maximum rigidity. Else pulling on the other extrusion far away, it may deflect, and will be harder to adjust
There are a couple of other options on the connections to the mini-v plates. The simplest is to drill 4mm access holes in the v-slot and screw the v-slot directly to the plate. Note, there is insufficient room to connect the transverse members. Those can be connected either with corner connectors or makerlink connectors. Another option would be using Cube Corner Connector with the cube connected to the center hole of the mini-v plate and cut v-slot ends butting into the sides. Personally not a fan of this structurally but would look the best. Structurally I would go with the method above and the Black Angle Corner Connector
