GitHub - jbiams77/camera_slider: Camera Slider project using python to control two stepper motors with a user interface that includes a small oled screen and three buttons. Several challenges arose for this project. The primary challenge is portability. As an astrophotgrapher, I require the camera slider to be portable. The challenge with this is two stepper motors pull a lot of current. To deliver this current, I created a 3D print that would repurpose the lithium batteries used on my portable hand drill. The drill has 20V output and can deliver current on an order of 1-2A per hour. The second challenge was torque. I needed my camera, 5lbs, to be able to move in a vertical direction. Most commercial camera sliders cannot move at this steep of an angle. The second problem was the H-bridge stepper driver. I used an L293D H-bridge driver which turns out to have a low continuous current spec. As a result, the chip get's extremely hot. I designed my PCB utilizing a DIP chip in order to facilitate fast replacment. I also use a large heat sink to manage the heat. Another problem with the camera slider is the elements. My timelapses often take me to extreme altitudes and the preciptation tends to cause my camera lens to fog up. I use the heat created from the IC chip to defog the lens. I do this by moving air into the control module, over the chip, and exhaust it with a fan, through a hose, and onto the camera lens.

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Camera Slider project using python to control two stepper motors with a user interface that includes a small oled screen and three buttons. Several challenges arose for this project. The primary challenge is portability. As an astrophotgrapher, I require the camera slider to be portable. The challenge with this is two stepper motors pull a lot o…

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Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 17 Commits
.vscode		.vscode
Adafruit_Python_SSD1306		Adafruit_Python_SSD1306
Icons		Icons
old_files		old_files
oled_test		oled_test
rotary-controlled-oled-menu		rotary-controlled-oled-menu
slide		slide
slider		slider
~$h_instructions.docx		~$h_instructions.docx