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).
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I really don’t remember where I first saw camera slider software I thought I might model mine after… but IIRC at least one of them used interrupts and an ISR to handle the IR inputs. I could never get that part to work properly so I just coded it inline in the loop… and it was good enough for what I was doing at the time. I’m sure you would be far more successful getting interrupts going (since you actually know what you are doing 
)… and it might/should take care of the momentary pauses you’re seeing?
I can see why that’s confusing. I am not using the IR as input to control the slider, I have the web page for that. The IR is to send a message to the camera to take the next snapshot. When it does, the motion pauses for about 1/2 second, and then the motion tries to catch up. With the really slow timelapse above, it isn’t noticeable, but I still know it’s there.
Since my camera doesn’t have a timelapse, what I’ve been doing is sending the IR signal to take a photo every 6 seconds (configurable through the web page) and then I use ffmpeg to stitch them back together into a movie.
I’m hoping I wake up early enough tomorrow to capture the sunrise… Maybe I shouldn’t promise that. 
“Violins on TV”… never mind 
I made one finally with the sun out.
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Beautiful! And, snow already! Fat chance it’ll ever snow down here in San Antonio, Texas…
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It’s the third snow we’ve had. We even had a school closure, which we don’t normally get even in deep winter. It’s going to be 55F today though,
We’ve gotten into the high 20’s a couple of nights… which is cold for us. A number of fronts to cool us for a couple of days… and then it’s back up into the 70’s. We’ve really got it rough…
Love the new look of the forum… it’s gonna take me a while to get the hang of it though. Thanks for all your help/contributions to the efforts to get it switched over. I’m sure Ryan appreciates it most of all!
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