Archive for the ‘projects’ Category.
23rd May 2005, 12:01 pm
bbftx commented today:
Steve,
I really like your time lapse videos. Someone posted a link to them on the Home Shop Machinist metalworking site. Could you post a brief description of how you set up your camera to do the time lapse recording and perhaps a quick note on how the editing was done? I assume you’re using some of that good Mac software. (Apple rocks!).
Thanks for sharing your videos.
A quick check of the timelapse movie of the lathe work I’d just posted shows that yes, wow, 450 people have checked that movie out so far. 
I’m glad I posted the URL back to my main site.
Timelapse on the mac is pretty easy. There’s two programs that I know of that will do this with relative ease. One is iStopMotion and the other is BTV Pro.
Boinx iStopMotion certainly has an enormous list of features, one of which is timelapse. I like this program a lot for different reasons, timelapse is not one of them. It does work, so if your interest is primarily in stop motion image capture for animation, this is the king.
Bensoftware’s BTV Pro is what I use. It’s very good at timelapse, and motion sensing video capture, amongst other things. I’d highly recommend it for timelapse like the videos I’ve shot. For some reason, I’ve had to end up capturing the movie as a series of images into a folder, then use the built-in “create movie from folder of images” function. whatever, it works quite well.
more posts on timelapse video are here.
7th February 2005, 12:52 pm
Well, I’ve been real busy on the projector project. jono and I did one for him… learned a lot about 0.5mm pitch flat flex cable that time. I bought a couple of monitors. One didn’t work for this project, one did. Here’s the design I came up with for the CMV CT-529a 15″ LCD, stripped out for use over an overhead projector:
more angles here … This monitor was so great to work with, I’d recommend it if you’re going to do something similar. I got mine from Memory Labs in San Jose, and was able to pick it right up instead of waiting for shipment. Tell them Steve sent you if you buy one from them.
I was able to bandsaw out the on screen display (OSD) controls and slap them on the corner of the unit. I think the design is working pretty good. I may need to counterbalance the “glass end” as the “electronics end” is heavier and on certain projectors, I may not be able to orient the glass this way for the image to appear correctly. Also, heat doesn’t appear to be a problem on the projectors I’ve tested on, but I may need to figure out forced air ventilation… many things to think about.
Also, I’ve been prepping the extra 17 projectors I have for resale. They were filthy when i got them, so they require a good scrubbing to get the tape, stick on labels, packing slip pouches, saw dust, dirt, and general funk off of them. Some have damage from shipping, so, I’m trying to franken-fix the best ones from the parts I have. I’m learning a lot about front surface mirrors, balasts, optics, heat dissipation, lens throws, and doing a lot of fun problem-solving-fabriation.
