I never really got around to doing an official build thread on my Cineroc clone, though these pics are in the big gum cam thread. After a question or two, I thought I'd whip a build thread up real quick.

After doing a complete scratch build with Cineroc Clone #1 including turning my own nosecone and transition, this project was super easy in comparison. The first clone used a heavy video downlink, this one uses the cheap gum cam that Rocketflite turned us on to.

I used SEMROC parts:

Nosecone BC-1834
Transition BR-60-18
Body tube ST-18

I used Mike Jerauld's scale Cineroc drawing to cut the correct length of body tube and for correct camera hood placement. The hood was made with scrap bits of balsa. Since the gum cam sensor is fairly large, the hood is slightly over sized, but is shaped in the spirit of the original. I painted in cold weather and I'm not happy with the black finish, but I decided not to redo it. The original Cineroc's black plastic wasn't exactly pretty, so I'm probably just a bit ahead of the game in comparison. I masked off yellow painted stripes on clone #1, but this time I decided to make it like the original Cineroc, so I'm using yellow electrical tape cut to width.






Once the hood was in place, I started working on the gum cam. The camera I'm using has the CCD attached by ribbon cable and is stuck down to the board with sticky gunk. I pried it off and glued a chunk of balsa down to mount the CCD. I shaped the balsa so that it would easily fit into the camera hood, and added a small notch that engages the body tube and holds it in place. Once I got everything shaped correctly, I soaked the balsa with CA so it won't split.

My gum cam was severely out of focus when I received it, so I had to break the glue loose and adjust the focus. After getting the focus as good as I could, I glued the threads again to make it permanent. You can see some glue residue on the edge of the focus ring, along with some roughness where I sanded the whole unit to fit in the camera hood. BTW, I taped over the lens to prevent damage and contamination while sanding, fitting, etc.

If you notice, I angled the camera just a few degrees out from aligning parallel to the body. This was a bit of trial and error to get the plenty of ground view while still having a bit of the Omega booster in frame. Some people have half the frame wasted on an out-of-focus airframe and I just didn't want to do that.




As I said above, the gum cam CCD slips into the hood and the balsa notch catches the body tube to hold it in place. I notched the transition section to firmly hold the other end of the camera in place. I decided not to glue the nosecone and transition section. I'm using the tape to secure them to the payload section. This is mainly due to starting and stopping the camera. I didn't want to fish around in holes in the payload section. This way I can turn the camera on, slip it in and tape the transition section to the payload section. It takes just a few seconds and holds well.

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I love sanding.