Optical Support Ltd
June 2021 - October 2023
Optical Support is a Lens and Camera Stabilisation company that was founded on servicing and selling other people's products. I was brought on as part of a push to quickly expand and grow the company's own product offerings. Working closely with other members of the design team as well as members of staff from other areas of the company. As this was a small company, I was working on projects, cradle to grave, meaning taking an idea from initial concept through iterations and prototyping, being the person to find manufacturers, purchasing hardware, and even a part of the assembly team. I was part of the whole process.
Docking Bracket
My first project when I joined was to work on the Optical Support Docking Bracket, camera sled rigs such as Steadicam need a place to hold the rig when not in use and a place to balance and test the drop time of the rig. Some of the existing products were seen as not robust enough or not fully satisfying the job they were intending to serve. Chris, my manager and the Company Director, had an idea of a more robust design with a two-bar system, a design that could be manipulated to allow minimal lift distance for the operator when switching from the balance pin to the dock, he also wanted a design that could be adapted to normal and goofy operators (sort of like left and right-handed). The design changed over time but our final design met all of Chris’ desires for the project. When I left the company the first production run had arrived and was in the middle of assembly ready to be shipped out for those who had pre-ordered it.
Dragonfly
While working on the docking bracket, I was also helping with the post-first prototype design refinements to another project called the Dragonfly, the company’s own camera sled. The idea of this product had existed for a few years before I joined the company but shortly after I arrived, we received the first prototype, and I was also tasked with helping Gareth, the main designer on the project, refine the design though the main concept stayed the same we made a lot of changes to refine the design and allow it to be more adaptable. As someone who came from a more design background than engineering, I was also the one to help refine the overall look of the product, helping take it away from its more blocky design and stylise it slight without compromising any of the fuctionality. We went through two more prototypes before ordering our first full run. By the time I had left the company, we had sold all bar 19 of the initial 25 run.
Trinity Modifications
Another project I was involved with during my time at the company was our modification for an existing product known as the Trinity, this was a rig that had a motorised head that allowed you to remotely control the tilt and roll of the head while also still operating it as a camera stabilisation rig. One of the things that our customers kept mentioning to us was better control of the head from the handle, better balance of the head, and the ability for both motions to be able to rotate 360 degrees. Working within existing parameters was something I had previously done at another job, I had to add new components and change the location of existing components to work around the original frames while also creating new elements like the head control to bring the whole modification together. This project was a little ever-evolving as customers mentioned things they would have liked to have seen in the original, so we kept adding elements as needed.
Camera Stand and Wheels
The final projects I was in the middle of working on were two R&D projects to add to the range of OS Products when the strikes started taking a toll on the company. These were to be paired with a purpose-built stand and collapsible stand wheels. Currently, a lot of stands used are modified lighting stands, and though they work they are not fully suited to the purpose. Along with this, we wanted to make a robust and easy-to-collapse set of wheels. These projects are still in the works, and though currently delayed, hopefully will continue development at the company with the work I have already put in.
Other Responsibilities
Outside of these projects some of my other responsibilities were managing and maintaining the 3D printers, we ran 4 machines 2 Prusa MK3s, a Formlabs 3L, and a Anycubic Photo Mono X. We used these for a variety of things including printing out cable trays for our production run Dragonflies, printing prototypes for our upcoming projects to test mechanisms and style, and printing bespoke parts as needed.
One regular bespoke parts was lens focus gear rings for the serviced lens, some times people wanted a way to remotely control the focus that works with existing gears that fits their lens, so I created an adaptable 3D model that I could input data of sizes of the lens, the nearest gear Dia that was around 10mm bigger than the lens and how many teeth that related to, and desired thickness to create a gear to quickly print and be fitted on the customers lens.
