Hi everyone, this is my first post on this forum.
I put a voltage regulator on a 12V/7Ah, acid-lead battery and soldered a 555 timer, 2 caps (330 uF), 4 - 5k trim pot.,4 - 1M trim pot., 9 switches, 1 temporary, 8 perm. and 6 - 1/8" mono jack/female, 1 LED.
Trimpots and the switches let me adjust/preset pulse length and time between pulses.
The 4 - 1/8" let me power DC motors to move camera 360 - clockwise/counterclockwise and pulse the camera if needed (USB) - Why 4 and 2 ? I may need to drive more than one motor or/and pulse more than 1 camera.
You all know whats the 555 timer for.
The caps (660 uF ), with the trimpots let me adjust the time/duration for pulses, I have a "minimum" of 6 pulses/s (arbitrary) and max. 11 min (between pulses)
Pulse duration can be from quarter second to 4 seconds.
Switches let me preset that, say, "first row" give me 4 sec. pulse and 30 sec. between pulses.
That`s useful when doing pano.
Depending on battery strength, DC motor gearing ratio, can make a full 360 under 3 min, HDR (With CHDK).
And I can combine those as I please, I can set it up to make a complete turn in 3 days, smallest pulse, longest duration (timelapse) - IE: TP1R1 and TP4R4/smalles gear ratio.
Temporary switch let me trigger the shutter (via USB.) and/or turn camera without waiting for the timer to kick in (that also resets the timer)
The 9th switch let me turn on/off the LED (night time photo).
Led blinks when the timer kicks in and stays on as long as power goes to USB or DC motor.
How long the battery last ? I took 15K shots in one day, LCD on, SX 30 IS, and went from 13.1v to 11.7v so, that`s pretty decent.
I have built 3 of those, one I sold for $470 on craigslist as working prototype, one I`m using right now with a Canon G9 and last one, I only have the electronics, 2 voltage regulators, different design, same functionality.
The whole thing is kind of heavy, about 8pound with the big ball head and camera attached, its good when is little windy, make the tripod more stable.
Do I provide schematics ? You can "youtube" 555 timer blinker and learn from there, it`s very easy really, cost is under $5 for "1 preset" (without voltage regulator)
What`s the cost for the voltage regulator ? For $13 and one month later you can buy it from China.
Total cost ? About $35/$40 with battery and aluminum strips to make it all nice... not counting the hours you have to put to build it (Took me about 5hr on first try, then about half that)
Where you see the aluminum frame is what I use ATM.
English is not my main language, sorry for mistakes.
