A universal programmable panorama and timelapse controller

Here's my panorama/timelapse controller. I know, should've used a bigger board...

Great job. Time to make that into a permanent piece with a custom board design. Let me know if you'd like some help.

Yea, great project prototype. Now make it so you can actually use it in the field as KirAsh4 suggested. :wink:

Lefty

I'm working on packaging it and I have a question about power supply.

I use a 6V NiMh rechargeable battery (5x1.2V AA cells) to power everything:

  • the motors are fed directly from the battery (only one motor is in use at any one time)
  • the board is fed through VIN
  • the rest from the board's 5V (max possible draw: LED + trigger + receiver)

During testing with a charged battery everything works fine but I was wondering if I should maybe use a converter to bump up the VIN voltage to 7V or a bit more.

What makes you wonder about needing to raise the voltage? Can the motors handle higher voltages? What motors are they?

The motors are fed directly from the 6V battery and they work fine. I will not change the voltage to the motors, 6V is their max rating.

For the arduino board however, the specs say that the recommended input voltage is 7-12V and that's why I was wondering if it would be a good idea to bump up the voltage supplied to the board.

here's a short video of the controller in action:

Brav0:
The motors are fed directly from the 6V battery and they work fine. I will not change the voltage to the motors, 6V is their max rating.

For the arduino board however, the specs say that the recommended input voltage is 7-12V and that's why I was wondering if it would be a good idea to bump up the voltage supplied to the board.

No point in raising the voltage, just to drop it again for the motors. The Arduino runs fine on 6V. It's not "as efficient" in bringing that down to 5V, but you're also not doing mission critical work here. I wouldn't worry about it.

I would still suggest developing a custom board though. As opposed to either taking that spaghetti of wires and shoving it in some kind of enclosure, or covering the whole thing with some clear epoxy. It's not that hard to do. My offer still stands.

KirAsh4:
I would still suggest developing a custom board though. As opposed to either taking that spaghetti of wires and shoving it in some kind of enclosure, or covering the whole thing with some clear epoxy. It's not that hard to do. My offer still stands.

Thanks, I sent you a pm.