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Bearings for moco camera head

Hello wise board of SMA!

I am planing to make simple moco unit with Arduino system. I got great help from previous post about the subject and from Simon Tytherleighs comments.Things have developped plesant ways since last time I looked to this subject. Seems that it is possible to do system with ~400€!

One thing what puzzles me is bearings of pan and tilt head. I am planning to make U shaped one.
Have you used some axial ball bearing for Pan? Maybe something like this:
https://www.vxb.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=Kit7852

Or do you have it without any bearings, just wax or something?
How about Tilt?

Thank you,

-Tatu

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Permalink Reply by Tatu P on January 15, 2019 at 4:20am

Thank you Simon for all good info! I really appreciate it. It is long process to figure all things out from scratch. I think that I am ready to order the parts now.

I will post some results when i get so far.

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Permalink Reply by Simon Tytherleigh on January 15, 2019 at 6:07am

Glad to be of help. Good luck! It is quite a challenge, but very satisfying once you get it going. Expect to have to modify things a little to improve them as you go. I look forward to seeing your progress. Go Tatu!

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Permalink Reply by Tatu P on February 16, 2019 at 9:12am

I got my moco running!

The rail is Neewer and was supprisingly good for 60£. For board I got Mega 2560 with RAMPS 1.4 Controller with 5 A4988 Stepper Motor Drivers. I had to adjust the DFmoco code a bit to get it work with Ramps 1.4. But now it works. + I managed to add small led control to it for practical lights.

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Permalink Reply by Tatu P on February 16, 2019 at 9:13am

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Permalink Reply by Simon Tytherleigh on February 16, 2019 at 12:20pm

Looks great. You could consider using a Fotomate sliding mount for the camera. Also, my sense is that the base should be as wide as possible for stability, but I know the commercial units limit this.

Well done! Now for the tests. Try repeating a move, then putting it into something like after effects and overlaying the footage to see if it lines up. This is a test of backlash and accurate bearings.

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Permalink Reply by Simon Tytherleigh on February 16, 2019 at 12:20pm

Looks great. You could consider using a Fotomate sliding mount for the camera. Also, my sense is that the base should be as wide as possible for stability, but I know the commercial units limit this.

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Permalink Reply by Tatu P on April 10, 2019 at 1:22am

Here is small update about the project. Soon I have to start animate!
There is some shots about camera rig:
Camera rig

Main reason for making stepper motor system was lighting. 1/2 of my film is located by fire. So I wanted to make that easy as possible. For that I needed two of cell carousels. Camera rig was something extra on top of that.

Carousel test

Test Result

-Tatu
pohjavirta.art

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Permalink Reply by Simon Tytherleigh on April 10, 2019 at 12:42pm

Nice work, Tatu. It is very satisfying getting these steppers to do some hard work for you! Did you see Edu Puertas YouTube video?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tXef1zVm2Xg

Your results are looking good. Fire seems very hard to get right.

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Permalink Reply by Tatu P on April 11, 2019 at 2:11am

Yep! Edu Puertas has good easy style wit cable ties and all.

I have modified DFmoco code for RAMPS 1.4 shield. So if someone needs that code, feel free to contact me. Figuring out pins was time consuming. And I managed to burn one set of Arduino and shield, because I did not remove D1 diode from RAMPS 1.4. But now everything works - at least for now.

-Tatu
pohjavirta.art

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Permalink Reply by Simon Tytherleigh on April 12, 2019 at 1:01am

This is interesting. Why did you decide to use the RAMPS shield? I just used a Mega 2560 and connected it directly to black box drivers. I did find the jumper wires rather feeble and wobbly, but mostly they work ok. Does the shield mean you can connect more positively?

If you have a picture of your Arduino set up that would be great to see.

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Permalink Reply by Tatu P on April 12, 2019 at 2:38am

Shield seemed to be easy solution with less connections. And 40 € for Mega, Ramps + 5 drivers, seemed to be bargain. I put stuff to case of old tv-digibox. There is allso power source and small sircuit board for better stepper cable connection.

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Permalink Reply by Simon Tytherleigh on April 12, 2019 at 7:59am

Thanks. That looks good. I have used an old PC case to enclose mine. There just isn't a neat way to do the wiring!

I have used 4 pin aviation sockets and plugs for my connections to the steppers, so I can unplug the unit easily. But the costs soon grow, and you have to solder them well.

Not sure if I will go towards using a shield for my next rig, as it needs 6 axes, and I have 3 extra black box drivers already. But if you are happy to share the code, it might be worth posting here for someone to find.

My next rig will be a small jib arm one, so it can move freely in all dimensions. I think the big rig will only get used for epic landscape shots!!