Big things have happened!
As I mentioned in another post I was recently in AZ visiting family and friends. Well, one thing that happened on that trip was that my father and I took a look at all the parts I had printed for a camera and then put it all together. Right before heading to AZ I had the last few parts printed so I won’t call those out directly.
It was fun putting a camera together again. It was like old times, except that there were some hiccups, and the pieces were almost all plastic.
But here you go:
Yes, there is no bellows – I wasn’t wasting a bellows on a temporary frame.
Then my father and I put the camera through a range of tests that would judge what parts would last and what wouldn’t last. What would get screwed up by users, and what couldn’t get screwed up by users. Since this camera is based on the DLC we knew all the places that users would judge and wreak havoc on this camera.
And boy did we learn a lot. The rear bellows frame needed to be made slightly smaller. The T-knobs would have to be metal set screws in plastic knobs, not all printed plastic. The first all plastic T-knob snapped as soon as it got even slightly tight. All the places where the T-knobs would thread into another part are going to need metal inserts. As a result some of the parts had to be redesigned to accommodate those inserts. The lock levers needed a redesign as well to have a shoulder put on them to act a bit like a washer to help hold them away from the camera slightly. We found that the shift system worked really well. That was nice.
The biggest issue was the swing. We could not get it to lock down completely. We tried all kinds of things to make it work. The only thing that made it lock down tight was to swap out a 3D printed part for an original metal part. Then it worked GREAT! But that isn’t a long term solution so we needed to figure out what to do. My father and I sent a lot of time talking it through and coming up with different ideas on how to get the interconnecting parts that allow for and lock down the swing to actually lock fully. After much talk we came up with a potential solution.
The other issue we had was that the camera seemed to “vibrate” when bumped a little. In reality it isn’t a big deal for photographing, but after years of working with my father, we both knew that customers would see that vibration and think the camera wasn’t ridged enough. We spent time talking through ideas here as well. We think we have a few good solutions for it as well.
But all these new fixes and modifications have to be reprinted so we can determine if it is going to work or not. We are pretty confident that these new adjustments are going to work out well. My father has been working on all the modifications and he is getting me all the new part file so I can get them printed.
One thing we talked a lot about was the filament choice. I have printed all the parts in PLA so far. I did this because it is cheap. Now I need to figure out what is the best material for these cameras. After talking with a few people I am going to start with PETG. I am not convinced it is the best choice, but I am going to start there. Another idea is something like PPA, but I have read that it is hard to work with and is hard on 3D printers. Not something I want to do if I don’t have to. I want to try and stick with just 1 filament for the entire camera. This is because I want all the parts to look the same, and to act the same once printed.
Which leads to the next big thing – I am going to start my own business. This was coming anyways to be able to sell Kodak film, but now I am going to work on selling 3D printed cameras as well. I am looking into how to do this in Idaho.
Some may ask if this is a wise idea? Is there a market for it? Well, after talking with a few people over the last couple weeks, there may be a bigger market than I expected. With the price point I am hoping to put the camera at, and the fact that the camera is base on the hugely popular DLC 4×5, there is a chance there could be a lot of people interested in the camera. So, who knows where this will all go.
I am quite excited to tell the truth. I always enjoyed building cameras.