DSLR Camera Slider

[bdring]

This represents about only 15 minutes of CAD and rendering time. I can sketch in CAD faster than I can on paper. I just wanted to show it for more discussion.

I played with the motor inverted. This was just a simpler design and I liked the fact that the track could be set on table without any support if desired. The same design and parts will work either way. I need to find a tripod head somewhere to see about the clearance issue.

The noise needs to be tested. Some motors are quite quiet when run at 16th step and lower currents.

I was thinking it would be cool to battery power the whole carriage and control it via a bluetooth smartphone phone. An on board Arduino could control everything and hopefully manage the stepper motor current so the motor didn't chow down the battery.

[r691175002]

I'd say that at this point its easier to spend a few bucks and give it a go. Most of the stuff will be needed anyways so the cost of experimenting will be a few dollars at most.

There is no point in trying to judge how much vibration a design will have based on where the belts/motors are located since we are all just guessing and I suspect the difference will be immaterial in practice.

If by motor noise you mean vibration, I highly doubt it will be an issue regardless of where the motor is located. If you are using a stepper any vibration will be from the controller. Kelings digitals are extremely smooth (I'd call them flawless even at low speeds) but even cheaper drivers should do fine.

Actual noise will likely be a problem since most motors have a whine or hum. I assume that isn't an issue though since people dont use mics built into the camera?


Just to get an idea of performance, anyone with a laser can tape a camera to the carriage and jog the axes. I am 100% certain that the movement will be more than smooth enough at any speed and mechanically the setup is near identical to the ideas being proposed.

[macona]

Put the motor on the carriage. Use a rubber wheel to make contact with the rail.

For the controller use this guy, open source camera dolly controller:

http://dynamicperception.com/index.php? ... &cPath=3_9

That is a nice looking setup but the cost is crazy, especially considering what a complete solution costs or the one I already linked to costs.

I believe a rubber wheel, while a simple solution, would not provide the smooth and consistant sliding motion I am looking for.

Trust me, it will work just fine. We use similar methods to move some things at work. I am currently doing motion control for a movie (ParaNorman, In theaters next August 17th, woo!).

A nice pittman gear motor will be virtually silent. And who uses on board mics...

The guy that is doing the "Making of" for ParaNorman has one of the dollies I linked to earlier and has used it often in his work at the studio.

-Jerry

[dmccloud]

Unless UPS is lying to me I've got my 12ft of makerslide showing up today, so I'll hopefully be able to give this design a go and let everyone know how it goes. I've already got a homemade arduino controller from an old igus timelapse slider I built, and I think I've got enough belting and pulleys around. My last design was a circular pulley setup with the motor on one end, but I've been aiming to try the on carriage motor setup.

If Bart wants to post an eps of that motor plate I might be able to call in a favor and get it lasered this weekend.

[pcmofo]

I unfortunately have none of these parts currently. I do have a few arduinos lying around however. I was hoping to order a small 3ft piece of MakerSlide as soon as it is available. Also, I was hoping someone here would point me towards the exact other parts I needed such as belts, pulleys, motors, and motor controllers that would work.

Their will of course be some experimentation after all the necessary parts are in hand, even with a complete plan. My goal was to have a good idea of what parts I needed and roughly the design of the system so I could experiment with the brackets, tension, controllers etc until everything worked.

I think their are some good ideas out there, if someone would like to recommend a motor controller, motor, pulleys etc that would be great, I will order them and get going.

[bdring]

Here is a STEP and DXF. The part has a counterbore for clearance of a socket screw head, so laser cutting is not ideal, but a lower profile or flat head screw might work just as well.

The other parts are...
NEMA17 Motor
20 Tooth MXL pulley. (other tooth counts will work)
Buildlog.net Smooth Idlers
1/4" MXL Belt

[macona]

I unfortunately have none of these parts currently. I do have a few arduinos lying around however. I was hoping to order a small 3ft piece of MakerSlide as soon as it is available. Also, I was hoping someone here would point me towards the exact other parts I needed such as belts, pulleys, motors, and motor controllers that would work.

Their will of course be some experimentation after all the necessary parts are in hand, even with a complete plan. My goal was to have a good idea of what parts I needed and roughly the design of the system so I could experiment with the brackets, tension, controllers etc until everything worked.

I think their are some good ideas out there, if someone would like to recommend a motor controller, motor, pulleys etc that would be great, I will order them and get going.

Pololu has a nice little motor driver. You can control it though one of the arduinos using one output for CW, one for CCW, and PWM for speed control. I just ordered one myself.

http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/713

[bdring]

Pololus are great because they are cheap and portable between projects. They do make a little audible motor whine sound sometimes.

I have two carrier boards that use them.

http://www.buildlog.net/blog/2011/08/st ... no-shield/
http://www.buildlog.net/blog/2011/08/op ... er-driver/

[bdring]

I made quick protoytype of the design. It took less than an hour to cut and assemble the parts. The only non standard MakerSlide part is the motor adapter, the tripod mounts and the belt clamps.

I used Mach3 to run a little handmade GCode. It used various speeds, directions and some short dwells. I think an Arduino could do better because you could add custom acceleration to each move.

I used two tripods to support the rail. The lower tripod was a piece of junk I got at Fry's for $35 and had a ton of flex in the head. I tried to preload it a little but there was a little movement whenever the carriage got near it. The YouTube version stutters a bit too. It is just a simple point and shoot digital camera, not a video camera. The stepper was pretty quiet because I only ran it at about 12V and 0.5amps, but it did transmit the sound into the camera because they are mounted on the same plate. Mach3 would let me run as slow as I wanted. It could take many days at the slowest speed.

[Enraged]

that is very cool.