Motorized Camera Slider Controled by Android Phone

This instructable shows how to make a motorized camera slider. Actually we attach some additional parts to a manual slider to make it motorized and controlable by an Android phone. The idea behind camera sliders is to give you the ability to video "tracking shots" and time lapse videos that you can set up and execute in seconds. Tracking shots create a sense of movement, as if the camera was a passerby briefly filming the subjects on screen. They add professionalism to your work, give three dimensional sense of the scene and also a cinematic feel to any kind of scene you're filming. There are many cheap manual camera sliders in the market but the problem is that if you move the camera by hand the motion is not uniform and smooth, so making it motorized gives much better feeling.

Bill of material

1000 mm Manual camera slider (varavon slidecam series are good choices)

one stepper motor

one arduino uno

hc05 bluetooth

DRV8825 stepper motor driver board

12v power supply

timing belt and pulley

ball bearing

1.5 mm steel sheet

Bluetooth Terminal Android App from NEXT PROTOTYPES

We used "Bluetooth Terminal" Android App from NEXT PROTOTYPES. Commands were sent to the Arduino using a Bluetooth connection. For making it easy to control the slider we defined four buttons "Forward", "Backward", "Speed" and "Distance". Functions of these buttons are as following:

1. "Forward" move slider forward

2. "Backward" move slider backward

3. "Speed" adjusting slider motion speed (between 0.3 mm/s up to 37 mm/s)

4. "Distance" adjusting slider motion distance (9 to 81 cm)

Buttons "Forward", "Backward", "Speed" and "Distance" are defined in 'Button Preferences' section in setting of the app, they will send 'F', 'B', 'S' and 'D' to the Arduino respectively. For adjusting speed and distance you should just send a number between 1 to 9 from app.

It is consists of these items:

one arduino uno
HC05 Serial Bluetooth board

DRV8825 stepper motor driver board

12v power supply

Connections between parts are shown in above picture. HC05 should be connected to pin number 10 and 11 that are configured as software serial. Also there is no connection to the reset and sleep , just jumper them and connect enable bar pin to ground of arduino. There should be a capacitor 100 uf on VMOT and GND of DRV8825. It is better to use a Arduino Uno ProtoShield and solder bluetooth and drv8825 on it. You can also plug the power directly to Arduino and from VIN connector to the DRV8825 board. Electronics can be more compact using smaller Arduino boards like mini or nano.

Mechanical parts consist of the followings:

1. two plate for idler pulley bearing support

2. two plates for stepper motor support

3. saddle plate on top of slider block

4. timing belt with pulley

5. idler pulley bearing supported with 8mm bolt and nut

You can see parts drawing in SVG file that can be cut by a laser cutter. Instalation of idler pulley and stepper motor were shown in above pictures. We used two 1.5 mm steel plates that has hard paintings for both ends of slider, but you can use one piece of 4 or 5 mm steal plate as well.

It is also possible to use a handle to operate the slider manually. This handle can be attached to the bolt head on top of stepper motor pulley.

This program recieves and executes the commands from bluetooth terminal. Commands are for motion and also adjustment of speed and motion distance. There are comments on the Arduino program that explain everything.