I have been photographing for over 10 years now.
In 2013 I made my first timelapse:
It was a fun project. But non-moving images is only interesting for so long. (The moving sequences in the video is just cropped in post).
And to get moving images, you have to have a motorized slider. And at that time they were expensive. And I couldn’t afford one.
Nor did I knew that I could make one myself …
Since then I didn’t really think of making timelapses anymore. Until I joined the local makerspace and learned about Arduino and 3d-printing.
The makerspace got their first 3d-printer last spring. And I was all over it.
After learning about 3d-printing and printing 3d models created and shared by others on Thingiverse, I had to learn to make my own models.
Enter Autodesk Fusion 360. A powerful and simple 3d modeling CAD software free to use!
!
As with any new software, it has a learning curve. But nothing that some videos on YouTube couldn’t solve. Check out Lars Christensen’s and Fusion 360‘s own YouTube channel, where I learned the majority of what I know today.
Anyways. After many small design projects, I started on my slider sometime last fall.
I had seen the Syrp camera slider and I really liked their product and the design. So I based my slider on that design. And the one thing that is special with their slider system, is that the drive unit is under the camera.
Instead of the more traditional design where the drive unit is the end of the slider.
After a few prototypes, and redesigning it over and over again because of all the noob mistakes I did, I finally have a functional prototype:
https://www.facebook.com/tiboine/videos/vb.1189252888/10217988077912073/
I mentioned $2000 in the title, but a little googling you will find motorized camera sliders for sub $1000. But that is only for a linear motion slider. What I intend to build is a 3-axis slider. This is just the first part.
I have yet to design and test the add-on, which will consist of two stepper motors.
And how does this thing even move? And how do I move it? For that, I have used an Arduino microcontroller, and a self-made Android app using Flutter.
That I will cover in the next part. Now I’m all out of writing energy.
If you have made it this far, thank you.
If you have any suggestions for me blog-wise, I’m happy to hear it!