Last week I designed another gear item for my camera and underwater housing. The 60mm focus gear works perfectly, but I was curious if my 17-85mm zoom lens would work in the housing with the current port.

The problem with ‘just trying it out’ is that while I can put the lens on the camera and fit it in the housing & port, I know that at 17mm there will be vignetting as it’s not a dome port. What I really wanted to test was whether or not it could zoom enough to be useful. However, just trying to install the lens zoomed might not fit. What I needed was to be able to actuate the zoom with a proper zoom gear.

Which meant designing and printing a proper zoom gear. Based on my focus gear design, I created a new model based on the focus gear cylinders, but sized for the zoom lens which had quite a bit larger diameter. The zoom lens also has a noticeable bump where the autofocus switch is located. After a few test prints, I completed the final design and printed it. The first print was very good, and fit perfectly.

With the zoom gear complete, I was able to install the lens on the camera (with zoom gear) and then into the housing on wide angle. Once in, I could clearly see the vignetting, and then tested the zoom gear. Again, it worked perfectly, but the lens quickly bumped the end of the port. Sadly, it was nowhere near close-up, and still showed vignetting. In the end I will not be able to use the zoom lens in the underwater housing with the current macro port, but if I ever win a lottery and buy a dome port, it will work perfectly.

In other news, I’ve been watching a lot of youtube videos on “delta printers”. These are 3d printers that employ a triangle pillar system to control three stepper motors, which in turn move a trapeze supported on the three pillars. It’s a very fluid moving system, and most fun to watch. There is one new version that has one extruder but three filaments, and can mix colors on the fly!

Watching build videos it’s clear that some of these printers are extremely well designed for kit building. The only downside at the moment is there are very few inexpensive kits that offers both heated bed AND multiple extruders. The best kit I’ve found so far (for build quality) comes with only one extruder and no heated bed. While the heated bed is pretty easy to add, conversion to multiple extruders is a very advanced topic. The other downside is many come direct from China, and that’s always a bit of a crapshoot when it comes to the thing actually arriving at my door. So far I’m around 90% but still… to lose a $300-$400 kit would not be good.