The Redstone Rig and Picavet with Canon PowerShot A2200.

The menu bar above will guide you to the downloadable files and the products for sale.

I have completed designs for a few aerial photography rigs based on parts manufactured by a 3D printer. These are rigs to hold cameras, and devices for suspending the rigs from a kite or balloon line. The files to print these rigs are open source (CERN open hardware) and freely available at Thingiverse. I have posted guides to printing and assembling the parts at this site (Kit information, above). Let me know if you try printing any of these. I hope to continue improving the designs, and any feedback is welcome.

The pile of rigs in the foreground is mostly early prototypes. In front of the chair are the first Redstone Rigs printed in ABS.

I ordered extra hardware to assemble the printed parts, and have built a store here (see menu bar above) to sell kits with exactly what you need to make each rig work.  For those without access to a 3D printer, I am also offering kits for sale with all the printed parts. These all require assembly, so check the kit information to see if you are comfortable with the required procedures. I will try to have a few of each of the 3D printed parts on hand so I can ship as soon as an order arrives. International shipping is too complicated for the free WordPress ecommerce plugin I found, so I can only ship to the US for now.

I can also do the messy parts of the preparation and assembly of the kits for an extra fee. This includes all the gluing and drilling, and the kits will be delivered mostly ready to fly. Unfortunately, I can’t do this for the Redstone and Titan 2 rigs without some very specific measurements of the camera(s) you will be using. Check out the details here, and contact me (below) to see if I have a camera similar to yours, and maybe we can figure something out.

The MakerBot Replicator 3D printer I have been using to prototype these designs was donated to Public Lab by MakerBot Industries. This aerial rig project seemed like a good exercise to see how 3D printing could advance the development of Public Lab tools. I hope these designs will improve with your help, and maybe more people will be able to get better aerial photos and make more useful maps of places important to them.

Material acknowledgement of Public Lab’s contribution to this project.

Note about shopping: The first time you go to your shopping cart, I think it never shows the shipping cost. Just continue two steps into checkout (you will have to register at the site), and the shipping charges will appear. From then on shipping charges will be included in your shopping cart. Typically, an order with a rig and a suspension can be shipped for $10 to $12 and will arrive in 3 business days.