I know I'm asking for the holy grail of timelapse motion control systems, but, nonetheless, weary of limited search results and no knowledge of motors, I thought this would be the best place to ask for ideas on creating an affordable, uncomplicated and functional motorized slider. I'm looking to concoct a motorized slider design using igus drylin (affordable) with shoot move shoot capabilities. I'm a student and to my great misfortune, have limited budget and time for building. I'm simply looking for inexpensive and low labor ideas, any suggestions anyone may have are greatly appreciated! DIY recipes, guidance, comments anything is welcome!
Thank for your time

Have you read the articles on here: http://openmoco.org ?

It's a good starting point.

!c

im builting one right now.

I'm using an igus w16 drylin slider, a 125 oz in 12v stepper from Robot Store, a leadscrew and antibacklash nut from roton. It will be contolled via Arduino microcontroller and an easydriver stepper motor driver.

I have most of the pieces, almost about time to start building.

i just got back from my machinists place, the bracket to mount the stepper and lead screw to the slider are almost done. probably in the next couple days.

the rest of the parts should arrive soon,. and ill start the assembly process. i have a couple neat tricks up my sleeve im going to add to this, here in a few months ill be releasing the schematics, planss and code for this system. i am going to make this as open source as possible.

Maybe this will help you:

Very nice. You can do a lot with that short bit of track. This has to be the most portable dolly solution yet. Glad I didn't know about this when I was dragging my big dolly way out in the forest. How did you do the focus shift at about 4:47 ?

If you're asking me, I have no idea since that's not my dolly (I wish it was!). I just posted the video, you should ask the creator on Vimeo.