RingFlash Creator
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Very Cool!
This is a great contribution to the diy realm. Thanks for sharing. Would you add a diagram indicating the required measurements.
re: measure
Hi Gary,
I am not sure I understand the question, but I am going to take a stub. There are two diagrams on the top (you can flip 'em by clicking the small icons).
Each diagram is a view of the mounted flash on the camera: profile and frontal.
Each colored part shows the measure to be taken (note that the camera and flash can be "seen" through the colors).
Hi, only the front view
Hi, only the front view shows the mesurement clearly, the profile view dosn't
Measurements not crear for frontal
I can see and understand clearly from the profile photo the FW, R1 and R2 because they are marked.
In Frontal, there are no markings.
I look at the green rectangle in frontal. Should I take the hieght of it or the width of it?
The pink rectangle, not sure how to measure it? I am guessing camera axis to Flash head bottom edge length minus R1.
It would help if you mark the frontal image with HW, FH, N and RW.
Thanks,
VV
re front view
VV, Steinar and Gary, thanks for the input. The frontal view now shows the exact places to measure.
Thanks for the clarification!
The new input names make it much clearer, almost gary-proof. Thanks.
Since the template prints some parts on multiple pages, I'm thinking of using it, taped together, to cut coroplast (if I can find it) or mat board, which can be bought black on the face and white on back. The rigidity would make it pretty durable.
re: coroplast
Hi Gary,
thanks for the great feedback. If you're gonna use coroplast note that it has thickness and some adjustments will have to be made to compensate where parts wrap around each other.
Both Diego (the designer) and I used thick paper which is kinda thin comparing with coroplast.
OK, that said, I would love to see any results you may have, and if you could document the process it would really, really rock.
Scaling Problems
First this is a great idea and I am thankful for the pdf creator. However, the pgm does not scale properly to 8.5x11 for me. The A3+ format looks ok on the screen - I cannot print that size in my printer. Several things go wrong at the US Letter size. In particular r2 is too small and r1 is too large. In addition the strips that represent the inner and outer walls do not work at all. Both strips are too short and the red cut lines are not where they should be. In fact, they are not anyway usable. I am not altogether sure that the dimensions in general are ok. I understand that rounding/conversion errors may be at work here.
Maybe I am doing something wrong that I do not see. Please advise. Especially since no one else has mentioned this problem.
But if a) you do not have the time, and b) I am familiar with your program's language, I am willing to help code/test the changes needed to make 8.5x11 work.
My parameters in cm are HW 5, FH 4.5 FW 8, N 2, RW 6, R1 6.5, R2 4.5. print to 8.5x11.
Thanks
re: bug
Hi Darnell,
thanks for pointing this out. we Europeans dont really have letter paper :) a fix was made and let me know if this works for you.
Am Getting Better Results.
Thanks for the rapid and accurate modification. The 8.5x11 PDF layout is improved. The cut lines now appear the same as in the A3+ format.
I have a further improvement (in my opinion) and a question.
Improvement - The page that contains the back of the ring could be moved to the right (move the straight portion closer to its edge). The outer most circle (the glue ring) is being clipped with my dimensions on my printer. I have about a 4mm no-print-zone on my laser. Admittedly, no big deal.
Improvement - Adding logic to determine the best orientation to print the back circle layout (page 2) would save paper. With my dimensions (in A3+), a small bit of the "wings" above the circle carries over to the next page. Such a small bit, that it probably can be ignored. In US Letter, the carry-over is non-trivial. This mod may help those who can print the A3 pages.
The question is what to do with the shorter piece on the page that has the inner tube layout. The inner tube layout has cut lines on one edge. The shorter piece has cut lines on both sides. My guess is that it will connect the front ring with the back of the ring because it looks like the "wings" that are on the flash deflector.
I can not see where/how it is used from the assembly instructions.
I really like the work you have done because of its flexibility. The ringlight that is created can be used as is or to mock up something more permanent using different materials. Also the ring is inexpensive to create.
Thank you again.
thanks!
Hi Darmell, thanks for your feedback!
I was wondering, what gear are you using to have that kind of measures? Especially, how can you have a R2 that large compared to R1? Is your flash unit very small?
However, the PDF being generated with your values seems good to me, though maybe strange because of the small R1 value.
You get two strips, one shorter with cut lines on both sides, and one longer with cut lines on a single edge.
In your case, the longer one should be glued on the center hole of the ring back.
The shorter one is indeed made to connect with the "wings" of the flash deflector. This is what looks "strange" compared to our instructions page: in most cases, R1 is much larger than R2, making the ring's perimeter quite large and thus this strip much longer than the other one.
In your case, most of the strip is covered by the wings, leaving only a small gap to fill with the separated strip...
I hope I'm clear in my explanation ^^
The thing is, you should be able to assemble everything as it is, and it'll give you a tiny, cute ring flash :)
Sorry though, the 2D barcodes aren't fitting the ring's back...
About your improvements you're totally right: our generator is sometimes a bit greedy...
As for the non-printable margin, that could be a parameter so the PDF conforms to everyone's situation :)
I'll try to work on those to improve the thing!
Thanks again for your feedback!
Olivier
My setup is a Canon Rebel XS
My setup is a Canon Rebel XS with an old Olympus T32 flash.
My original thought was to use a junk CD (120mm diameter) as the reflector for the back ring (until I realized I had no easy way to cut out for the lens). But I kept that dimension anyway.
The actual lens diameter for the filter is 58mm. When I tried these parameters (6.0/3.0) originally, the layout was all wrong as I pointed out in my first post.
I increased the lens diameter along the way because of the print problem and because the diameter of the lens increases at the rubber grip ring. I knowingly over compensated for that increase.
To keep things progressing smoothly, I changed one dimension per print and may not have changed it back since these were all experimental. That ability to change and reprint rapidly is one reason I mentioned why this project is excellent.
So that is the reason for the Frankenstein-like configuration.
Where I am now is not going to be the final build dimensions anyway. Having tested the prototype rings without diffusion, the T32 is very powerful and I will probably redimension again to the smaller less powerful T20.
Thanks for the details, I had
Thanks for the details, I had the idea it was that kind of flash you were using ^^
So as of now, is the printout working for you?
OK, I'm trying one for my
OK, I'm trying one for my Pentax K-X, just for the pop-up flash. I wasn't quite sure how to measure everything so it works with such a "short" flash, but I'll figure it out. In that light, I would suggest having it print out the parameters you entered, so if you come back later to tweak part of it, you'll be able to re-do your inputs without re-measuring everything.
Also, I'm having difficulty because my printer can't print to the very edge of the page. I can just look at the PDF while I cut and wing it on a couple of the parts.
Thanks SO much for putting this together! I can't wait to try it out. My mother-in-law has a couple of things she wants to put on Ebay, and this will be perfect for lighting them.
Hi James, thanks for your
Hi James, thanks for your feedback :)
Printing out the parameters that have been used is a good idea, we'll consider that.
We still have to update the algorithm for this print margin, as you mentioned it some printers have a no-printing area... if your printer is recent though, double check for a "borderless" option in the printer's settings!
I'm interested in seeing what you can achieve for a pop-up flash, don't forget to show us the result :)
Olivier
Argh! After trying a couple
Argh! After trying a couple of times with the PDF generator, I gave that up to try to mock something up.
The issue with using the pop-up flash is the short height of the flash, so the ring can't be very large. And the size of the "tunnel" is pretty small, too, which leaves little margin of error (IMO) for getting the bend in the tube right. I'll keep trying in my spare time, but I think I may go the fiber-optic route, depending on whether I turn up any cheesy fiber-optic home decorations at the dollar stores near my home.
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