PhotoRobot Case 850: The Highly Portable 360 Turntable

00:04

Intro: PhotoRobot’s Case 850 Portable Workstation

00:22

PhotoRobot Case 850 - Design & Use

00:42

Shipping & Portability of the Case 850

01:01

Flight Case and Accessory Storage

01:30

Workstation Setup in 15 Minutes

02:05

Glass Turntable Plate Dimensions & Load Capacity

02:30

White Diffusion Cloth Background

02:50

Greater Stability & Dynamic Properties of Motors

03:00

Rotational Dynamics of the Turntable

03:20

Automated Photography Sequence

03:45

Machine Frame & Control Unit

04:36

Difference of Case 850 and Case 1300

04:58

Comparison of Case 850 and Centerless Table

05:24

Outro: Advantages of the Case 850

00:04 Different companies mean different things when they claim that their hardware is portable. Sometimes, it's just too small to do any meaningful work. PhotoRobot Case_850 is our idea of a portable product photography workspace. It's small enough to load into a personal car, while still large enough to photograph medium-sized objects. Let's have a look. PhotoRobot Case_850 is a foldable workstation designed from the ground up to photograph objects up to the size of a backpack. Let's see how it looks from the point you receive yours to the moment you are

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00:35 taking shadow-free 360s or still images of products such as shoes, handbags and other small to medium-sized items. When shipped to you, it comes in this cardboard box on a custom pallet. Complete with the packaging, it weighs 85 kg, while the machine itself weighs around 73 kg. So while you will be able to load it into a larger personal car, it is recommended not to do this alone, unless you are a bodybuilder. When you unbox it, you get this durable flight case which was carefully designed to hold

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01:05 all the important accessories, keeping it safe while you travel from one place to another to your own-location product photoshoots. It is equipped with these wheels, making the manipulation on flat surfaces much easier. Notice how, when stored away, several parts of the Case_850 are stored in the lid of the flight case. The glass plate, the rods that hold the background, and other small accessories. One of the key advantages of this foldable workspace is that it can be set up and ready to go in about 15 minutes.

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01:36 Let us do just that. As we are setting up the machine, you can see that it is still relatively compact. Even with a complete lighting setup and a camera tripod, a floor space of around 3×4m is enough to get you through your own-location photography. The Case_850 is now set up and ready to go. Now we can shoot stills and 360s with one or two vertical angles. If you need the 90° top view, we have different machines for that, which we will discuss in another video. One of the most important parts is this turntable made of optical glass

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02:09 with a diameter of 850 mm. This makes it possible to photograph objects weighing up to 20 kg and as wide as 50 cm, while the maximum height is around 70 cm. All of this without visible shadows. By the way, if you do want shadows in your images, it is no problem to add a second non-transparent layer on the glass plate. Another important part is this white background made of diffusion cloth, a similar material to the front part of a photographic soft box. It is held in position using these removable rods.

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02:40 So if your set-up requires more space around it, you can use the machine without it. Let's take a closer look at some important details. Despite being compact, this workspace is still powerful. The rotation of the glass plate is driven by two motors mounted opposite each other for greater stability and dynamic properties. These run at 12V and 5A. This makes it possible to complete an entire 360 turn in 2,1 seconds. Or if you need a very slow rotation, it can slow down to a crawl, completing the turn in as many as 4,5 min.

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03:12 As is standard with PhotoRobot hardware, these rubber rings on the spindles are user replaceable, and the pressure is adjustable. During the photography process, the position of the turntable is checked 1000× per second with the precision of 1 degree. This is made possible thanks to this encoder wheel, and this optical sensor with an auto-calibration function. The machine is held together by this aluminum space frame with high rigidity, which is important to minimize vibrations while photographing.

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03:41 Let us have a quick look at the bottom section, which includes all the important electronics, including the control unit, which is the heart of the whole setup. This cross laser points up at the centre of the turntable, making precise positioning of the photographed item a breeze. Although we always recommend using a LAN cable to connect to the network, the Case_850 can even generate its own Wi-Fi hotspot using an optional Wi-Fi dongle when on the go. This can be useful, for example, when photographing freshly cooked meals

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04:11 in a restaurant, where you may not have good access to a LAN network. Here, you will find the built-in support legs which increase the stability of the machine. You can adjust these using the allen key conveniently stored here in this magnetic compartment. You can mount sockets to these points if you need to add accessories such as reflection boards, or you can even add a custom portal above the machine from which you can suspend accessories such as a photographic tent. Some of you may ask, what is the difference between the Case_850

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04:40 and its bigger brother, the Case_1300? Obviously, it's mainly the size. Plus, this one can be expanded with our Robotic_Arm. It was designed for the photography of even larger products, while it can still be transported from one place to another. However, for this one, you are going to need a van. Finally, let us compare the Case_850 with our industrial grade Centerless_Table 850. No, we would not call this one portable. It is designed for fixed installations and maximum productivity. Not only does it include a top structure

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05:13 that holds lights as well as other accessories, but it also runs at 48 volts and 10 amps, which translates into an 8× greater power and a load capacity of up to 40 kg. However, if you plan to travel for your product photography, or you are looking for a budget-friendly entry into the PhotoRobot world, the Case_850 is the obvious choice. Get in touch with us, and soon a box like this one can appear at your doorstep. Thanks for watching.