3D Printed Camera Slider With Stabilizer Is Completed

I am very happy to report this morning that I put the finishing touches on my 3D printed camera slider with a new stabilizer arm. This along with a little more tweaking of the electronics finished out the project very nicely.  With the electronics I had missed putting in an on/off switch so the battery was being used even though the slider was not actually moving.  An oversite on my part.  So let me show you how it all turned out.

Here is the new setup.  With the addition of the stabilizer arm that extends from the right side of the camera slider to the tripod the slider now is no longer like a teeter-totter.  It has taken this flaw out of the slider and is now very rock solid.  This addition also was no extra cost to me other than a couple more 3D printed parts for the 3/4" x 16.5" long aluminum tubing to mount it along with a modification to the underside of the right side tripod mount for the slider. 

A key component that I luckily had in my stash of miscellaneous parts in the shop was this photography jaw clamp.  This is quickly and easily added or removed from the tripod and securely clamps to one of the legs.  Once I had discovered that I had this part it was just a simple task to work out the rest of the stabilizer in Fusion 360 and 3D print the needed parts.

Next I had to figure out where I should install the on/off switch for the electronics.  I originally wanted to mount it to the back side of the slider but this would involve possibly having to reprint the entire housing if it did not work right out of the box. If I drilled through this housing it could go all wrong and I would have had to reprint the housing which would take another 11 1/2 hours to make.  Not something I wanted to risk.  So instead I opted to putting the switch on the housing cover.

Again I already had the switch in my spare parts and it was back to Fusion 360 to make sure there were no issues inside the electronics housing.  I simply drilled out the hole for the switch, worked out a little more wiring, mounted the switch and label and called it good. With choosing the cover instead of the main housing for the switch I could risk messing it up by just drilling the hole for the switch. If it failed it would have taken a lot less time to reprint a new housing cover.  Now I know when I want to use the camera slider I will have a good battery when it is needed.

I wanted to add this image to my earlier post and forgot about it so I thought I would post it now.  This is a good image from Fusion 360 of the inside of the electronics housing.  At the very top of the housing is the geared 9V battery powered motor.  By the way works very well.  Inside the housing on the lower left you can see the 9V battery and inside the main cavity of the housing is the electronic circuit board that is the controller for the motor, motor direction and speed.

Lastly here is a good shot of the back of the electronics housing.  The large on/off/on switch  controls the movement of the camera slider for either left or right movement.  The knob just below this switch controls the speed at which the camera slider moves the camera along it's track.  

So that's about it. The plus side to the stabilizing arm for the slider is that I can adjust the camera slider up or down with the tripod center shaft. I only have to reposition the stabilizer arm on the tripod leg to make the slider rock solid once again after this movement.  All of which takes only a few seconds to accomplish.  It will be a nice piece of equipment that should help make some interesting video shots in the near future.