GoPro Cable Dolly by kowomike

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Simple dolly with a GoPro-Camera mount to be used with one single rope or cable with a diameter up to 12 mm.
It was originally designed to be hoisted up the topping lift or backstay on a sailing yacht but can be used on any rope or cable as long as it is not vertical or close to vertical.
Of course it may swing. That can hardly be avoided with only one cable.
You need to print:
1x set of chassis (2 parts in one file or see separate left/right-File); The left and right parts are different!
2x wheel
2x set of screw and nut (file containing the screw and the nut or see single files for screw and nut)
You additionally need:
1x M5 nut
The chassis needs to be printed with support. It is only little waste that is printed but the overhanging part of the camera mount needs the support.
The screw should not need support. At least for me it worked fine without.
The wheel definitely needs no support.
I am not sure if all types of M5 nuts fit the hole in the stl-File. If yours doesn't, take the scad-File and change the value of the variable named 'nutwidth' right at the beginning of the file.
The dolly was already successfully tested with a standard tripod mount adapter and a heavier camera (Lumix DMC-FT5). See picture.
Just be sure to add an additional retrieval line to the lower end to hoist it down if not easily accessible. In slightly higher winds, the wind catch of the hoisting line may prevent the whole thing from sliding back!