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Monday, September 16, 2013
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Lesson learned
Well, despite the fact that my slider dolly is effectively complete (still need to permanently attach the follow focus servo), I still feel the need to improve upon various parts. Such as the home built 5v regulator circuit. I know that the 7805 chip is only meant to only handle a max of 1A, and that many times you are best attaching a heat sink. Ok, I attached a heat sink, but i may have been pulling more than a single amp into my servos. I realized that the heat sink got hot weeks ago. I only realized just how hot today. While feeding wires through right after playing with the slider dolly, my right ring finger barely touched the heat sink. And I now have a second degree burn on said finger. I added a second heat sink to the first, and measured the temperature with a small kitchen temperature probe: well I stopped measuring after it passed 250 degrees. Keep in mind I burnt myself when there was less heat dissipation. So I took off both heat sinks, and bolted the chip directly to the frame with the original heat sink on the other side of the frame. So now heat is moving through the aluminum frame in addition to the heat sink. I didn't bother testing that, instead I added a powered 12v heat sink/fan combo (40mm) onto he frame above where the regulator is mounted. While it's not directly on top of the chip like the frame/heat sink combo is, i figured this would help deal with the heat dissipated into the frame itself. I measured the temperature again, moving every servo as much as I could, and barely made it to 102 degrees. As soon as I stopped, it began dropping back to about 97 or so (ambient temp is about 85 right now in the house). I even touched the chip when it was at its new warmest temp, and barely noticed it. Lesson learned :D
Sean Watkins
Apokalypsis: (Greek) to unveil, to make known.
Sean Watkins
Apokalypsis: (Greek) to unveil, to make known.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Yay progress!
Huzzah! I swear, after figuring out the snafu with the arduino loaders (hint: use 1.0.4 if you can for now), everything seems to be running smoothly and quickly. It's 3:37am EST by my phone's clock, and despite my other job looming right around the corner, I managed to get the software issue fully resolved. Yes, the code is completely finished as far as I am concerned. I do however need some extra hardware as the tilt servos have taken a bit of a beating since I started this project. Back to ServoCity to get two more servo-blocks. If they can't take the downward strain off the tilt servos... Not sure what could. In any case, each servo is rated to carry the full weight of the camera on its own, so having two just eases the load. Hopefully the servo blocks will help that much more. After that, I'm pretty much can say 1.0 is fully born.
I do have a debate broiling in my head though, and it's whether or not to mount the arduino on the slider dolly itself, or to run Ethernet between the arduino/control box and the dolly. Basically works like this: eight wires in a cat5/5e cable. As such, I divide up the wires to certain outputs. Signal line for each of four servos, motor positive, motor negative, and the 12v positive and negative. The reason for 12v is for two reasons: one is that higher voltage can push farther down a wire easier than lower voltage. The second it that the 5v regulator I built is currently mounted on the dolly with no issue, and I don't want to have to move it. That regulator powers the four servos. So yeah, basically I'm too lazy to move it. Besides, the heat sink on it will get more cooling airflow this way (and it needs it, I nearly burnt my finger touching it once!). So yeah, I'll keep you all updated in my overly verbose blog on how this is going. Have fun, and see you next time!
Sean Watkins
Apokalypsis: (Greek) to unveil, to make known.
I do have a debate broiling in my head though, and it's whether or not to mount the arduino on the slider dolly itself, or to run Ethernet between the arduino/control box and the dolly. Basically works like this: eight wires in a cat5/5e cable. As such, I divide up the wires to certain outputs. Signal line for each of four servos, motor positive, motor negative, and the 12v positive and negative. The reason for 12v is for two reasons: one is that higher voltage can push farther down a wire easier than lower voltage. The second it that the 5v regulator I built is currently mounted on the dolly with no issue, and I don't want to have to move it. That regulator powers the four servos. So yeah, basically I'm too lazy to move it. Besides, the heat sink on it will get more cooling airflow this way (and it needs it, I nearly burnt my finger touching it once!). So yeah, I'll keep you all updated in my overly verbose blog on how this is going. Have fun, and see you next time!
Sean Watkins
Apokalypsis: (Greek) to unveil, to make known.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
The Slider Dolly
Progress has been much slower that I would have liked on this Arduino monstrosity. Since last time I posted (yes, that long ago!) I have tried several controller ideas, including a homemade box with several potentiometers and rocker switches (anyone have 4 hands?), a Wii classic controller, a knock off PS3 controller, a Wii nunchuck, and I even tried an Arduino Esplora. None of them would work, and for no discernible reason. That last one would have been amazing had I been able to get the Esplora talking to the Uno, since is has every input one could ever want in a robot controller. I even fried a nunchuck trying to get things to work!
Alas, I had figured it out, and it wasn't TOTALLY user error... A large part of it was updating to Arduino 1.0.5. As soon as I tried 1.0.4, everything works gloriously and perfectly. At least with the nunchuck. By simply tilting the nunchuck up and down and rolling it right and left, I could easily control the pan and tilt functions. After applying a mathematical filter to the servos, 95% of the jitter from the nunchuck disappeared. It was amazing and glorious, and all one night's progress!
But I noticed a couple other issues, and I'm not fully convinced it's the coding that is the issue: I can only get the motor to move one direction. Pushing left or right, the motor only spins right, but it ramps the speed correctly. Did I get a(nother) faulty motor shield? This one I'm using is the Arduino brand one, due to the fact it can reassign the pins for one motor driver (there are two built in) to allow a forth pwm open for servo use. I would seriously like to keep that last pwm slot, as that would be my follow focus control on the camera while it's moving on the rig.
One last thing: since I'm typing this all on my phone I can't really check to see if I mentioned this before, but I have the rail system done. And it is amazing in and of itself. Thanks to the huge array of parts at ServoCity.com (no, not getting paid by them, though I certainly would mind!) I was able to make a simple rail system that the two main rails fold together when the locking screw is not in place. By pure happenstance I realized that if I turned it on it's side, this rail works EXACTLY like a camera jib. Two awesome tools in one! Well, that's all for me, I'll see if if I can get some video posted for you guys soon!
Alas, I had figured it out, and it wasn't TOTALLY user error... A large part of it was updating to Arduino 1.0.5. As soon as I tried 1.0.4, everything works gloriously and perfectly. At least with the nunchuck. By simply tilting the nunchuck up and down and rolling it right and left, I could easily control the pan and tilt functions. After applying a mathematical filter to the servos, 95% of the jitter from the nunchuck disappeared. It was amazing and glorious, and all one night's progress!
But I noticed a couple other issues, and I'm not fully convinced it's the coding that is the issue: I can only get the motor to move one direction. Pushing left or right, the motor only spins right, but it ramps the speed correctly. Did I get a(nother) faulty motor shield? This one I'm using is the Arduino brand one, due to the fact it can reassign the pins for one motor driver (there are two built in) to allow a forth pwm open for servo use. I would seriously like to keep that last pwm slot, as that would be my follow focus control on the camera while it's moving on the rig.
One last thing: since I'm typing this all on my phone I can't really check to see if I mentioned this before, but I have the rail system done. And it is amazing in and of itself. Thanks to the huge array of parts at ServoCity.com (no, not getting paid by them, though I certainly would mind!) I was able to make a simple rail system that the two main rails fold together when the locking screw is not in place. By pure happenstance I realized that if I turned it on it's side, this rail works EXACTLY like a camera jib. Two awesome tools in one! Well, that's all for me, I'll see if if I can get some video posted for you guys soon!
Monday, June 10, 2013
As I promised... Sort of.
I promised you an update on things, and I have one. Just not as progressed as i had hoped. I had a working prototype of the slider-dolly, and text footage from it. Unfortunately the rail didn't quite hold up as i had hoped. So note to self, epoxy is no match for accidents or stupidity. Too bad I've always sucked at TIG welding aluminum.
Sean Watkins
Apokalypsis: (Greek) to unveil, to make known.
Camera, editing, compositing
Sean Watkins
Apokalypsis: (Greek) to unveil, to make known.
Camera, editing, compositing
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Damn it's been a while!
I know I haven't posted in far, far too long, but at least I have something to (almost) show for it. I've spent the last couple months building a fully motorized pan/tilt/dolly rig for DSLR cameras. I'll explain more in another few days, but for now here is a picture of it thus far.
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