Close

MacroSlider: let's take a first look

A project log for PiXPi dslr camera controller

Modular and programmable DSLR camera trigger

krzysztof-krzeslakkrzysztof krzeslak 09/24/2019 at 20:182 Comments

Hello,

Today I want to share some work which I did in last days on motorised/macrorig module, let's take a quick look on some first effects:

                 Above image was created by stacking 40 images stacked, each taken with 0,4mm step.
                                         I found flowers to be quite  simple for testing stacking technique.
                                                                                Full resolution link


                                                              All images used for stacking of above
So let's get back to technical aspects
Last time I decided that I should go on with Mechaduino servo driver I found it a good choice, as it can provide incredible precision and it's opensource, so I could modify software to work with signal generated by PiXPI.
Unfortunately i get one issue with Mechaduino, which's is that I could't get it fast and to progress until finals ends I came up with temporary solution, which was getting some Mechaduino clone which I found in local distribution in Poland(MKS Servo 42A), so first prototypes are based on it, but in future I plan to move on with Mechaduino as I find it has better and simpler software and also MKS servo has not onboard 5v voltage supply for logic, so i needed to add external step-down converter.
Anyway MKS-servo software which I modified to be controlled with PiXPi can be find here, additionally I changed function of onboard buttons to manual control(left-move back, right- move forward, center-disable/enable motor)
                           https://github.com/krzysztofkrzeslak/pixpi-stepper-driver/tree/master/MKS-SERVO42A

Macrorig with MKS servo as control board, on cable you can see stepdown converter for supplying logic(under red isolation)
                                                                                   complete setup

Stacking software:
For stacking I used trial version of Helicon software, but after these test I can say that it's definitely worth buying full version, as  initially I was afraid that learning of stacking software will take me some significant time, but this software has really simple user interface, you basically need just to open all images for stack and click one button ,it's fast and does it's job great, additionally you can export stacking animation from it, so I found 55 dollar license(for pro version/year) quite reasonable.


                                                                                Some more example:
                                                                    50 images stacked, step 0,5mm
                                                                               Full resolution link


                                                                    50 images stack, step 0.4mm
                                                                                Full resolution link
                                                                          Images used for stacking

Discussions

Roman Danilov wrote 09/25/2019 at 07:43 point

Very interesting. I want to try to do the same on arduino.

  Are you sure? yes | no

krzysztof krzeslak wrote 09/27/2019 at 07:46 point

Hello Roman, thanks and yes if you just want to drive such slider with arduino it's should be quite easy, as it's just about precisely driving stepper motor and it's common use case for arduino.

  Are you sure? yes | no