“Hello and welcome back to my channel! For the past few months I have been building a motorized system to move the camera when I shoot video footage for the videos that I publish on my channel.
The idea behind this project is to shoot footage with a very smooth and stable movement easily and without having to redo it many times, like I used to do when I did camera movements by hand. I had actually already built something similar back in June, that was made of a rotating base on which to put my tripod. The idea worked but the construction had many problems, so I decided to take another approach.
Anyway, the whole project started with the idea of moving the camera placed on the tripod using a remote control with a joystick. After solving many problems in the mechanical part I was able to do exactly that. Once the mechanical part was working I worked on the electronic part and wrote the code for the Arduino. The robot has so many functions that you can use to make great footage, such as an “automatic” mode in which you can save two positions and move the camera between them by just clicking two buttons, and a mode for making timelapses, that divides a camera movements into small steps and goes to the next step after every photo of the timelapse is taken, to create an amazing effect once the photos are sped up.
The camera robot is meant to be mounted on a tripod, and it has horizontal and vertical movement. The robot has a mount on top on which to mount a camera or smartphone.
If you want to see more about this project, how I built it and some videos made with this robot, check out the video on my YouTube channel (it has English subtitles). But now, let’s get started!
This project is quite complex and a lot of components were needed to make it, including screws, motors and electronics. We will need:
- Arduino UNO or other Arduino board
- 2 NEMA17 39 mm stepper motors with their cable
- 2 TMC2208 stepper motor drivers
- 2 100uf capacitors
- 2 sets of 60 teeth pulley, 20 teeth pulley and 200 mm belt
- Ethernet cable
- 2 RJ45 ports mounted on breakout board
- LCD display with i2c interface
- 3 momentary buttons
- Analog joystick with central button
- 2 10k potentiometers with knobs
- 3 positions toggle switch (on-off-on)
- 2 positions toggle switch (on-off)
- DC connector
- Perfboard
- Wires
- 2, 3, 4, 5 pins JST connectors (optional)
- 4 ball bearings (22 mm outer diameter, 8 mm hole diameter)
- 1 M5 40 mm bolt
- 1 M5 60 mm bolt
- M5 threaded rod
- M5 nuts and washers
- M3 bolts and nuts
- Self-tapping screws
- 16 mm aluminum tube
Tools:
- 3D printer with PLA filament
- Soldering iron
- Drill
- Wood hand saw
- Sandpaper”