Just trying to be level headed…..

A 3d printed level for the Alyn Wallace v-plate from MSM.

One of the very slightly annoying issues I have when using a v-plate on my Nomad star tracker is that I find it very hard to see and use the little bubble level built into it. Now this is not a dire problem, but especially when I am doing panoramas I do like to at least start off with the panning base reasonably level (which doesn’t last long in one direction of course because the rotor is… well rotating). So on one of those many cloudy weekends I dug into my spare parts box and jumped onto the 3d printer to see if I could come up with a functioning solution.

The plate is level, but unfortunately my phone camera isn’t….

The end result was a little plate that fits between the v-plate and panning head (my preferred setup) into which you clip two 29mm x 10mm bubble levels which you can find on amazon. Surprisingly it works pretty well. The one in the pictures above was printed using glow in the dark filament, not really worth it but a fun thing to try. I generally leave my Nomad, V-plate and small panning head all attached in my bag and this has gone into and out of the bag dozens of time without breaking so it seems to be robust enough.

And yes it works, it is much easier to get the v-plate level using this setup and I do like things to be easy. It is an incredibly quick print (15 minute and about 7g of filament from memory) and the little levels are readily available on amazon costing only ~$15 Australian dollars for a set of six so, overall, it is a nice cheap option. Something a bit rare in our hobby.

I actually ended up glueing the levels in place, but it is not really necessary, I am just pedantic like that.

You can download the printable .stl file at this link.

The usual requests apply. The download is for personal use only and it is not to be printed for on-selling (without written permission) and the files are not to be up loaded to any other distribution sites (the original version or any modified versions). I am not after any payment for this, but if you do use it I would appreciate a follow on Instagram, Facebook or a subscription on my very new YouTube channel. Also would appreciate it if you could acknowledge where it came from if you talk about it or show it to others.

Other than that, I am definitely not responsible for any damages, chaos, humilation, frustration or improvement in your photos that you may encounter printing or using this little gadget. 😎