[Bassnut (Fred)]

Hi Guys
Here is my home made dual axis time-lapse trolley.
All parts were from the local hardware store apart from:
Stepper motors from Bintel
Freds Time machine (exposure/stepper controller), a previous project.
Manfrodo camera gimbal mount.
Gears and battery from Jaycar.
The aim was to make a trolley that was totally self-contained, so that it could be used on the purpose made track, or any smooth surface without any external pulleys, wiring, batteries etc.
Just plonk it down and push go.
The track shown is fully collapsible and quickly put together with wing nuts. It has adjustable height adjustments on each leg to make it level on any terrain. Luckily, the track square section comes with a raised trim, which keeps the trolley on track. It can’t fall off.
The Horizontal axis is just a geared stepper motor driving the wheels, and the vertical axis is a sprung gate opener hinge used as a bearing loaded so that a stepper motor winds up a wire against the gate opener spring to adjust motion. It’s very smooth, despite the varying camera balance.
It’s not all that stable when it starts or stops (slight wobble), but it doesn’t matter, because a 1 second delay after a move before the next exposure gives it enough time to settle (the time machine operates in a move-stop-delay-expose-move sequence).
Ive taken some time lapses with it, and it works a treat. The photos don’t show wiring as that was untidy (long wires used on the EQ mount version) I will rewire to suit.
Your not allowed to laugh, cause it actually works .
Skill in producing awesome timelapses with it is another world of pain of course, thats proving to be the hard part .