DIY Motorized Slider

So I got tired of endless paperwork at work this week and started to design a slider, don't really need one but have wanted to try designing one for a while now. I had two concepts I wanted to design and this is the first.

The tubes are Carbon Fiber and can be made to any length, this design is using 4' lengths. The ends would stay the same no matter the length of the tubes. You would just have to change the length of the drive belt along with the tubes. The drive belt is not shown in these images, neither is a good amount of the nuts and bolts. The motor will have a controller (faster/slower forward/backwards) and built in battery that can be hand held or set down off to the side as to not disturber the slider.

The one downside to this design is I can not mount it on my tripod, so I would always have to find a place to set it.

Upside, should be very light, can run up inclines (not down) and could have a second plate put on the bottom and run it upside down.

If you see any improvements please do let me know. The ends and plate will be made out of black delrin (or something close to it), its easy to machine on the CNC.

All told this design would run about $400 At that price it might be better to get one that has a built in start stop timer for doing low light time lapse, as this will be a continuous, a very slow continuous but non the less could result is images that are not tack sharp as light gets lower.

Looks slick. You could set up an Arduino-based stepper motor controller on the cheap with all the functionality you could imagine. Or ditch the Arduino and go even cheaper with an ATMEGA328 microcontroller.

Question: What are you trying to accomplish that cannot be done with an off the shelf slider?

Both of those options I assume require some programming skills and I have next to zero of that.

I work in the design field so if I can build something myself I will generally do it over an off the shelf unit if I can come in close to the same price. I just like designing and building.

I'm not even sure I have a use for one honestly.

If someone has the programming background and would like to take on that part of the project I would be thrilled to team up. I have another design I am working on that should be even more portable and cheaper to build.

I totally understand the DIY mentality. People always ask why don't I just buy something instead of building. Spent hours in the shop just to save a dollar, make something better, or just waste my time for the love of it.

Your current design looks great, but doesn't appear to diverge from available models, with the exception of no tripod mount. That should be addressed. Interested in seeing your other design.

Just a hobbyist programmer here. I've done a few things with stepper motors, most recent project is a motor-driven star tracker. If you get serious with this and want to make a motor controller, let me know.

Tyguy wrote in post #17867476
I totally understand the DIY mentality. People always ask why don't I just buy something instead of building. Spent hours in the shop just to save a dollar, make something better, or just waste my time for the love of it.

Your current design looks great, but doesn't appear to diverge from available models, with the exception of no tripod mount. That should be addressed. Interested in seeing your other design.

Just a hobbyist programmer here. I've done a few things with stepper motors, most recent project is a motor-driven star tracker. If you get serious with this and want to make a motor controller, let me know.

I am working on the next design already, it will be early next week before I have it all modeled up. It will address several of the issues I have with this one. I just found those CF tubes and really wanted to try and use them.

I found a few how to's to program a start stop slider with camera control. Will see what I can understand as I start reading through them.

So I have done some more design / redesign to the system. The ends now have a threaded hole for a tripod. There is also a tripod mount at the center of the slider. The legs on the end can be extended and rotated or removed all together very easily.

The biggest change is I have moved the motor to the carriage in an attempt to make this easier to bread down. My goal is to make this as light as possible and easy to break down and set up for hiking. Again not sure how much I will actually use it if any but figured why not. I have some 80/20 track on its way to try a different design as well. The carriage is still a work in progress as I do not have clear dimensions of the camera or ball head yet.

This design is for continuous movement, in order to do a shoot move shoot design the motor will be swapped out to a stepper motor which would be easy to do with the modular design here. I will be designing a plate that goes over the belt on the carriage to mount other electronics as needed. Some items are still missing from the design but figured I would share where I was.

Well I have started collecting material for two different designs to see which I like best. The problem with that is I will now end up with 3 different sliders. 1 will be built for a small video camera, more along the lines of a GoPro or similar and will be powered by a continuous servo. The 2nd will be built using 80/20 track and will be set up for shoot/move/shoot along with continuous shooting. The 3rd will be an ultralight setup using aluminum rails, this one will break down rather small for hiking or traveling. It will also be set up for shoot/move/shoot. I will be getting the designs in Solidworks wrapped up next week and start machining the needed parts soon after. I will post the designs for all 3 as I get them completed here.

I still dont really have a use for any of them, I am excited to try them out but have a feeling some may end up on the local CL after a few test runs, since this all started as a "I wonder if I could build one of those"

Well here is the slider for the GoPro I will be doing a parts list and pricing on Monday. It has a continuous rotating servo, with control box to adjust speed and direction. Mounts on both ends and adjustable slider on the bottom for tripod mounts, or it can rest on the rubber balls on both ends. The controller has the ability to run a second servo at its own speed so there is expandability to add a panning servo as well.

Littlejon Dsgn wrote in post #17867387
If someone has the programming background and would like to take on that part of the project I would be thrilled to team up. I have another design I am working on that should be even more portable and cheaper to build.

I'm a hobbyist programmer and have worked with Arduino and other projects of such nature. (Latest project being an RC car dolly). If you do end up doing this, I would be happy to provide some assistance.

The programming for basic tasks with Arduino (And somewhat related, the Raspberry Pi series of systems) are fairly user friendly with lots of great guides that will walk you through things. They are very much geared towards community support and learning, and I would highly encourage people to read up on them and consider learning basic programming themselves.

It is not a hard or highly complex task really, you're mostly just telling a VERY stupid thing how to do something in extremely exact detail.


That said, I'm also happy to lend a hand with programming stuff and aid in troubleshooting code for projects like these.

Good luck with the projects.

Thank you everyone for the kind words. I just finished up the go pro version last night and am very happy with how it works, I will be doing some sample video of it tomorrow. I learned a good deal from the smaller design and am hitting the drawing board again for the bigger version.

What type of motor is on the GoPro version? What's the ideal max speed you would set it at?

The go pro version is using a continuous servo, I have not timed the movement yet from end to end. It does have a speed control to adjust the speed.