Chronos Time Lapse Rail

This page is under construction

Concept

Construction of an open source rail for motion-controlled time lapse photography

Members Interested

David Fell

Ingredients and Suppliers

• Arduino Uno
• Arduino Proto Shield (Use Arduino's own brand if following the developer's instructions, but this can be adapted to any prototyping shield.)
• 28 Header Pins
• DB-9 Female Connector
• DB-9 Male Connector
• Wire, various colors
• Heat shrink tubing
• 4 momentary pushbuttons, suitable for rugged case use. I used item 69755K31 from McMaster-Carr.
• DryLin W16-A Linear Motion System (Amazon.com)
• 1 Bracket Set. I had these made by the developer's machinist, who cuts them from Lexan. This is the one step that's not really open source, as the machinist won't release his drawings. You can contact the developer through his Sourceforge project, listed below. Cost was about $230 including shipping. PS:One Members, I made my own drawings from the machinists parts, and I think these could be made on one of our 3D printers or CNC machines. Contact me if you want them.
• 1/4 - 20 Right Hand Acme Screw (Roton) You need about one meter. Order 40 inches and cut to fit. I ended up ordering two to make Roton's minimum order, and was glad when I screwed up cutting my first one.
• 1/4 - 20 Right Hand Acme Flange Nut (Roton)
• 1/4 to 1/4 inch coupling That's the developers ebay link, which leads to a variety of couplers. On the videos, he talks about a 3-piece version. I hadn't watched that yet and got a one-piece, and it seems to be doing the job.
• 5/16 Bearing (BuildYourCNC)
• Shaft Collar (The Robot MarketPlace)
• Stepper Motor (Phidgets) This is the one I'm using. The developer has since updated to recommend this one as the new standard.
• Stepper Motor Driver Carrier (Pololu) This is the one the developer recommends. I went with a drop-in replacement that has better heat tolerating characteristics.
• Small Heat Sink (Sparkfun) Optional, depending on which motor you choose. See the developer's notes.
• 7-Segment Serial Display (Sparkfun) I linked to the yellow version, but choose any color.
• Optoisolator with Darlington Driver (Sparkfun)
• 2 1kΩ Potentiometers (Parts Express)
• 2 3.5mm Stereo Panel Mount Jacks (Parts Express) Developer recommended these; but I went with beefier Switchcraft jacks.
• 2 Miniature Snap-Action Micro Switches with Lever (Parts Express)
• Resistors:
  • 4 @ 100Ω
  • 4 @ 10kΩ
  • 1 @ 390Ω
  • 1 @ 220Ω
  • 1 @ 2.2kΩ
• Screws:
• 2 knobs (Parts Express) Developer specified these from Sparkfun, but I prefer these chickenheads.

Directions and Plans

Developer Chris Field hosts his instructions on Sourceforge. Some of the written documentation is there.

Some of the documentation is only available in video form, at Vimeo.