I'm not looking for something electronically controllable, or able to repeat movements, or able to stop between shots. I'm just wondering about something that turns really slowly and is light weight. Some kind of lazy-suzan rigged with a small DC motor? Anybody cobble something together like this at some point or have any suggestions for me?

Thanks

If you want super cheap, try a barbecue rotisserie motor. I think those run about 4 rpm which is pretty fast for timelapse, but maybe you could gear it down or something.

Thanks Andrew. Great idea!

consider electronics surplus. On occasion I've seen gearhead motors that were less than 1rpm. electronics goldmine, allelectronic...

http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G15492

My rotating head uses a lazy-susan bearing - I've seen them sold separately at hardware stores for 3 dollars.

Funny enough, when I saw the picture and read the title, I was about to say "those are actually faster than 3rpm!" (I purchased a couple at a local surplus shop a while back) and then read the full description... =)

You can also, if you're wanting high-torque, slow speeds, and an easy-to-assemble setup, buy that motor, or one of the dayton gearmotors from servocity, and a matching hub - then you can clamp the hub onto the motor's shaft, drill a couple of holes in your table, and then screw the table directly to the hub. (Their hubs are pre-drilled and tapped, but are otherwise just like the shaft collars you can buy elsewhere.)

!c

I think even 1rpm is way too fast - some serious extra gearing is needed. 1rpm is 6 degrees per second. 3 second intervals means you move 18degrees per shot. Hopeless.

I assume you want something off-the-shelf, however I'm going to mention this, just to get it off my chest. If you have an electronic metronome you can (God willing and a little care) feed the wire from the speaker to a cheap stepper motor driver. This will single-step a suitable stepper motor at whatever beat rate you set your metronome. The metronome I've used has 42 beats per minute as its slowest setting. A 200 steps/rev stepper motor will yield 0.21rpm, I believe. The metronome becomes your speed control. If you use a microstepper driver then 0.01rpm or less could well be possible.

The minute hand on a clock probably moves around at about the right speed. Maybe you could find a giant clock and put your camera on it.