Hi all !

I'm not a machinist or electronic technician, I have some foundations on electronics but I'm a bit lost regarding stepper motors, etc

I'm an amateur photographer and I have a couple of projects in mind that deal with CNC.

1- There is a photographic technique called "timelapse", where you take an image every given amount of time and then when viewed as a video at 24/25 frames per second you accelerate motion.

Probably you have seen thousands of those videos already, this is a sample:



My project involves a rail system for timelapse where you mount the camera and move it from side to side, at discrete steps or really slowly (about 1 or 2 hours per meter). (1-axis)

At a later date maybe I'll add aditional movements for tilt and pan the camera (2-axis)

I need the system to be lightweight and battery operated, as this kind of images are of course taken in the field, far from any electrical outlet.

2- In macrophotography, when you are really close to the subject and working at great magnification rates (5:1 or greater), you obtain a very swallow depth of field (the area of the image that is focused), so there is a technique called "focus stacking". You take several images (tens or hundreds) of the same subject, but moving the camera from back to front on each image (fractions of tenths of milimeter each time). Then with software you can combine those images into a neatly focused one.

For this macrophotography precision slider project what I need is a 1-axis linear movement in really small increments, 0,01 to 0,001 mms

In this case the weight isn't important, as those photographs are allways made in a closed environment, but I need extreme precision on the movements, as I will make a step, wait (to stabilize the camera), take a photo, move, wait, and so on. I will always have an electrical outlet at hand :tup:

Surely I'll start asking questions, as I have many and varied, specially with the selection of stepper motors and controller, bat also about the precision moving mechanism (I don't think usual ballscrews will have enough resolution)

I'll start a new threat (as soon as I find the appropiate place :heehee:), thanks in advance