Alright, finally the moment of truth. Time to make this into a real prototype on a protoboard. I've been dreading this, as the device has become so essential to shooting micro photography for me, but it's so delicate on a breadboard that it's kinda been hell babying it through all of these photos. 

Protoboarding went pretty smooth, although the rotary encoder I ended up soldering down had a different pinout then the prototype version, so that forced me to think on my feet a bit. I also accidentally tried pulling the motor / stage light power through the pro mini voltage regulator which resulted in a classic display of smoke and cussing. Amazingly it didn't kill the pro mini (as far as I can tell), so after some last minute reworking, everything seems fine.

This time around I extended the IR remote cable, and added a rubber band to it for easier mounting. I added a servo motor so I have 2 axis' of adjustment without having to reach into the stage. 

After hours of testing, everything works great! With the amount of power the motors and LEDs draw, I really need to add some decoupling caps and I'm probably missing some other obvious safety measures to keep everything happy, so version 3 will need to be rethought a little for better build quality. 

Some thoughts on feature enhancements: A second servo for 3 axis adjustment would be really nice. Also a smaller form factor for everything and attaching to the tripod directly would be amazing. Finally, being able to include adjustable, super bright LEDs for a flash replacement would also be really nice. Well see, maybe I can cook up some solutions for all that before I call it feature complete!