RC Car Hack Evolves Into Hyper-Engineered Cable Cam

The universal rule of starting a new project is that it will always take longer than you think. The idea might start small, but a bit of scope creep and a few design hiccups end up turning what would have been a quick weekend project into a behemoth of an undertaking.

Kasper Mortensen from the YouTube channel MAKESOME exhibits this phenomena with his cable cam build. After his friend Mick asked him to make a cable cam — a camera system that moves along a taut cable using a motor — Mortensen figured it would be a quick hack and he'd be finished. An RC car + some 3D-printed parts = done! However, the reality was not quite so simple.

When Mortensen first tried using the motor that came with the RC car, he quickly realized that it didn't have anywhere near the power needed to move the camera. General friction in the system and his 3D-printed worm gears made it difficult for the motor to spin.

After a full night of redesigning, he decided to not limit himself to using the logic and motor driver from the car, and instead use his own microcontroller that interprets the signal from the RC receiver. He also added a nice beefy motor driver, a gearbox to help increase the torque of the motor, and a 9V battery. Mortensen had scrapped everything from the car besides the RC receiver and a single wheel.

Unfortunately this still did not quite do the job. The gear ratio in his gearbox and the fairly underpowered 9V battery didn't give the camera the energy it needed to go flying down a cable. After testing a couple gear ratios, Mortensen found a sweet spot that gave him a good top speed, but also had enough torque to move the camera. He also exchanged the 9V battery for a high-current LiPo, which made a world of difference for the device's performance.

In the end, he was left with an incredible little machine that results in some excellent shots.

To see the full build, check out Mortensen's video below!