Engineering

Mechanical design, CNC machining, electronics and automation from one workshop in Berlin.

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Schwebewerk Engineering takes a motion problem from the first sketch to a working unit: the mechanical design, the machined parts, the electronics inside them and the control software. Everything is designed for the machines, tooling and CAM that are in the workshop, so a part is usually right the first time it comes off the mill and iterations stay rare. Clients are film equipment makers, VFX and media-technology companies and anyone who needs a small series of precise, actuator-driven parts with the electronics already built in.

What the workshop does

Mechanical design for motion

Parts that move: around motors, gears, bearings and the loads they carry. Designs are made for machining from the start, with the cutters, fixtures and CAM strategies of the workshop in mind, which keeps tolerances realistic and prototypes fast.

CNC machining

Aluminium is the core material, steel for smaller parts. Five-sided machining in a single setup for parts up to Ø 200 mm × 40 mm; flat parts up to 300 × 400 mm held on the vacuum table; backside operations with Renishaw probing cycles and coordinate-system rotation, so second-side features line up with the first. Gears, including fine-pitch film gears, are cut on the rotary axis.

Electronics inside the mechanics

PCB layouts are drawn around the housing, not the other way round: connectors, mounting and cooling are part of the mechanical design. Firmware for STM32-class microcontrollers, wireless links where cables cannot go, and reverse engineering of existing freeform parts when a controller has to fit into them.

Automation

Machine control on Beckhoff TwinCAT, including Linux-based TwinCAT targets, with the PLC project under git version control like any other software project.

About

Schwebewerk Engineering is Stefan Müller. He has built camera drones for film since 2010, under the OMcopter name until 2014: in 2011 the first drone to fly a RED Epic on a production, the stunt unit of Fast & Furious 6 in 2012, the BBC’s Supersized Earth. Schwebewerk is the name since 2015; the aerial work continued (Dark, The Girl in the Spider’s Web) while the business grew from aircraft to gimbals, camera accessories, machining and automation.

Press: Dean Semler, ACS postcard (2012) · RED (2011) · Engadget (2011)