Hi all,
I've been having fun making and then improving my attempt at a time lapse dolly over the last few weeks, much to the ammusement of my wife
My first attempt use a geared motor from Jaycar which did 60 RPM. This turned out to be way too fast, so I found a 2 RPM motor on eBay for $12 which is much better, but still completes my current length of 3m track in about 40 minutes, a little faster than desired.
I use a 12v dew heater controller to power the motor and alter it's speed (as much as possible - not much). In reality the dew heater controller is actually one of the Jaycar motor control kits.
Also, my first attempt had a much smaller wheel base, smaller piece of pine I built it on. I quickly realised the weight of the camera needed a much wider platform to balance on.
I still need to work out a spindle for the motor. At the moment I just have a spare William Optics focus knob on it because it has the same shaft size, but I need to get a spindle made to wind the rope on to.
The two rails it runs on are extendable tent poles, this provides for some nice flexibility in travel distance, and I can easily extend them with another two I have to get about 7m travel.
When in use I set it up on two carpentry horses I have. If it works well I might buy two cheap tripods to use in the field instead.
It's been good fun building
Looking forward to testing it out in earnest
Roger.