Help please I am so lost just need pointing in the right direction

[Rover999]

Hi every one is helpful I will answer Berts question first as to what it is used for it is for macro photography so when you get very close to an object only a tiny area is in focus this device takes a picture then moves a very small distance then repeats it up to a hundred times after this you use soft wear to put all the images together to get one that has lots of detail. Yes a camera with bellows and lens will be around 10 pounds.
Tools wise I have a hand drill and some hand tools.
If some one could make one fast for me I would be so great full just looked at my effot and it looks so poor but things are so hard at the moment for me and I do not want to disappoint him.
I can raise around £100 just is that enough you think just time is running out and if I get taken back in hospital.
Al

[HankMcSpank]

If I was really strapped for cash, I'd approach it like this...

Use Mach3 - their free demo will be sufficient & it already has a nice interface (saves having to write the code from scratch in picbasic)....it also has options to 'trigger' stuff (cooling fluid etc) which could be brought into play to trigger your camera/flash etc)

GCode is easy enough to program yourself (which is what MAch3 requires)

For the slide itself....well bearing in mind cost is significant factor, I'd be inclined to build it with bog standard M10 threaded rod - since you're only going in one direction, then backlash shouldn't be an issue.

If you can lay your hands on some old dot matrix printers (boot fairs, s/h shops etc), they'll likely have some 13mm hardened rod & some basic method of running stuff along these rods (ie the carriage assembly), not to mention stepper motor and switches. In fact you could probably use the whole carriage assembly itself...which in one master stroke saves a massive amount of work as to how to get the carriage running smoothly & square.

You only need a one axis driver ...perhaps use something like a dedicated stepper driver chip (eg an allegro) or there's a few basic one axis driver schematic/layouts on the net.

I reckon this could be done for about £50....but a lot of your own time!

[boroko]

If your hacking an old printer you will likely find the driver already on the build in electronics. I have used parts of existing PCB and installed electronics by cutting the needed traces to the driver ( usually a multi-pin IC mounted to a heatsink) and feeding them with my added circuit. Find the largest ones on the heatsinks and look up the data sheets, and you might just get lucky. should find a 5v source there too.

As for weight, consider some strong line attached to your carriage over a pulley with a counter weight to balance your load. If the movement isn't too fast, a pretty small stepper will move it when balanced.

Bo

[Rover999]

Sorry I have not answered before but been not to good. Thank you for all your help but the unit has to be able to be used in the studio and in the field. So must be self contained and portable like the link I posted above any other ideas time is running out and I am not well enough to do it myself now