Mostly Printed CamSlider

Hey, Jeff!

If you’re talking about my still WIP CamSlider (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1984162)… I’m sure you can do better. I just reused a couple of early XYZ parts IIRC. The slider top plate eventually incorporated the lower section of that little turntable and the large gear the upper portion IIRC… though there seems to be a “disconnect” somewhere in the following photos

[attachment file=117109]

[attachment file=117110]

I just cobbled together enough stuff to give a rotational axis sitting on the linear axis… and I thought the herringbone gears looked cool IMO (though a belt driven setup would probably be smoother).

I had most fun with the Arduino code. It’d been a few years since I’d last done any programming, so it’s pretty crude. Just trap the key codes from a IR remote (there are cute little Arduino sketches to do that) and then set up start and end points, with a fast preview run to insure it does what it’s supposed to.

Sitting at daughter’s table, using their internet right now… mine won’t be set up until tomorrow afternoon. Should be quite the upgrade… going from 10Mbps (fastest I could get at my old place) to 250Mbps (fiber).

I’ll look forward to see what you (a real “pro”) come up with… please keep us up to speed with your progress.

– David

 

b826340f2d1e1538ff06958550005907_preview_featured.jpg

e2845828036e4dda7c385dfa47cc6768_preview_featured.jpg

I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff you’re doing that I don’t see anyone else doing. The IR remote is great. The rotational axis is great. The using a bunch of parts I already have is great.

When you say “cobbled” are talking about in CAD or with glue and screws? The part I’m trying to get looks like it’s your camera_slider-platformm.stl with the bottom of the turn table attached. The camera_slider-platform.stl doesn’t have that base on the top:

I’m starting at the camera and working my way down to the base. I’m perfectly willing to drill a hole and glue on the bottom part of the turn table.

Cobbled together in CAD. I don’t think I incorporated the actual turntable… but the bearing IIRC was housed in the large gear and the bolt runs through the part you show (shown bottom side up)… so yeah, there’s a hole and small boss (or separate bearing washer) added (I did it in CAD?) to the part you show to provide clearance so the bearing can freely rotate.

Gonna be out of pocket the rest of the day probably… will check back when I can.

I carved out some time to look at the software. It’s only 400 lines!? What? Nice work!

This is elegant and robust. I will do my best to break it. :slight_smile:

1 Like

I have been poking at the software some. I think I have all the CAD parts made, but I had to consume my ZXY for parts, so I’m waiting until I get the right ones to do the “first draft” assembly.

I decided to use an ESP32 and a web browser. It’s currently connecting to my home network, but I imagine it doing the aphost thing later, when I take it somewhere for some video.

I found this library, which seems like a much more robust method than I’ve used on other ESP projects, and although it’s not very flexible, it builds a web page really quickly from just a couple of lines of code:

Here is the result (from my computer):

[attachment file=120501]

The mobile looks similar, but it adjusts things to there’s basically one button wide and they are all in series.

The use is similar to the remote. You can jog the length and angle adjustments, save a start location and and end location. Input the amount of time you want the track to take, and then hit play.

I am using the same AccelStepper library you did.

I’ll post the .ino file to github or TV. But it’s really very simple.

2 Likes

on Github. Only tested with steppers in a ZXY table.

1 Like

Wow, that sort of thing is easily possible? Dang, I need more time in the day to mess around!

Fantastic! I really didn’t think anyone would be interested in what I thought was just a fun Arduino project for my own edification and re-familiarization… I like it! But, of course, I’ll need to see some hardware and movement before I can fully believe you’ve actually spent time improving this rather over-blown/engineered, camera-mover, thingee :wink:

Names are hard.

[attachment file=120653]

It’s very janky ATM. The angle per mm is wrong, and the manual feedrate is too high so it continues after I let go for a couple seconds.

I am printing something that will hopefully let me attach it to a tripod and I bought some smaller motors. Then I need to somehow attach a battery and the electronics.

But it’s getting close.

1 Like

Excellent. Thanks for the photo… anxious to see it in action! :slight_smile:

 

The link is a link to the video.

1 Like

I have started researching different camera sliders after looking at this thread. Have you seen this one that also does Pan/Tilt? He has a lot of wood in his project which looks like could be made from plastic or metal.

That looks pretty awesome. It seems like it’s one axis (tilt) away from being what I’ve got. I have the tripod mount finished. It is very heavy and overpowers on acis of my tripod, so I might steal his idea of the leg support. Adding another axis wouldn’t be too hard. It thought pan was probably overkill though.

I will have to look at your design a little closer. Think I would like to use V-Slot instead to hold up better under outdoor conditions, plus I have some extra around. Have you seen the types like this one with a dual rail design that extend about twice as far as the length of pipe used? https://www.instructables.com/id/Arduslide-Arduino-Camera-Slider/ I have seen a commercial one using this dual rail design also. Guess it is not patended.

Huh. That’s clever. I don’t know how I would do that with the bearings and EMT, but it does really compress the size.

I just found a double slider that using the V-slot C-beam & I happen to have an extra 500mm C-beam. I will have to look at this design a little closer. This might also help you to see how you could use the double slider with EMT.
https://openbuilds.com/builds/openbuilds-c-beam-double-slider.3462/

It just occured to me that the ESP32 software could be used to control the toy 3D printer that I have (at least the X, Y parts). I guess I’ll have to get that working too. I’m tempted to even go so far as to set up the TMC interface on a TMC supported board…

OK. It’s working!

Just had time for a quick set up before dark. I have much to learn about photography.

It’s working…

It’s a little wobbly. I actually tried printing bearings, and they aren’t super tight on the tubes, so something is off there. I doubt they wore down enough to be too small.

But generally, it’s working pretty well. Now I have to learn how to take photographs. It’s much harder to do, since I need some consistency between photos, but also, the light and motion settings of the first image probably won’t be right for the final photograph. So I have to relearn all that stuff.

I haven’t made a battery connector, and the IR logic is pausing the motion code momentarily, so I will probably move that to a thread (ESP has two cores, awesome).

Grrr. Forums are eating my post.

It’s working…

It’s a little wobbly. I actually tried printing bearings, and they aren’t super tight on the tubes, so something is off there. I doubt they wore down enough to be too small.

But generally, it’s working pretty well. Now I have to learn how to take photographs. It’s much harder to do, since I need some consistency between photos, but also, the light and motion settings of the first image probably won’t be right for the final photograph. So I have to relearn all that stuff.

I haven’t made a battery connector, and the IR logic is pausing the motion code momentarily, so I will probably move that to a thread (ESP has two cores, awesome).

1 Like