360° pan 180° tilt head for webcam and small DSLR

thingiverse

In my Bachelor's thesis for Media Informatics at Vienna University of Technology, I designed a pan tilt head to achieve high angular precision for long-term timelapse photography. It has an accuracy of 0.092° for tilt and 0.101° for the pan axis, and is IP44 designed to resist harsh weather conditions if sealed properly. Driven by 5V stepper motors and controlled with a Python program on a Raspberry Pi, the device's payload capacity for 5V stepper motors is max 330g. For more details or the full thesis, contact me at benjaminhoeller@gmx.at. The prototypes were printed using a Portabee Classic and a uPrint SE from Stratasys, with crucial parts including a 30x17 axial bearing and a Marquardt microswitch. Normal radial bearings (8x12x3.5) can be sourced from RC car bearings. The small axial bearing's dimensions can vary, while the SMD Taster requires cutting two pins, soldering a cable to the others, and gluing it in place with a long, thin cable to prevent touching gears. The Marquardt switch snaps into place. A video demonstrating the development process is available at https://vimeo.com/93193071. Web software used in the video was created by David Lung and can be found on Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/lung/imscam.