Hello,

This is not precisely a tutorial but a short presentation of making a time-lapse dolly.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/66701103[/vimeo]

My inspiration was, as you can see, the Dynamic Perception Stage Zero but the very first time I saw this I decided to position the belt in another way and of course also the motor. Another big difference is the fact that with this electronic I can command a 3 Amp motor. With the original MX2 controller from DP you can control only 1 Amp motor. In the following link there is a schematic showing the extra electronic I've made to achieve this:

In green there is an H-bridge which can drive motors of up to 10 Amps and in black is a filter. Coils used are recovered from an old PC power source but you can make your own, no problem. As you maybe already saw in the video I've had some errors showing on the LCD (the part in the video with lower quality, sorry for that, the original is lost).
I´ll not go into more details now, the only thing you have to know is that using this filter I've get rid of that errors.
At the end is a very, very short time-lapse because I didn't had time yet to go outside make another one. Anyway the main reason of this video is the time-lapse dolly not the end product...
All in all, I´m satisfied with my home-made dolly the only low point is the electronic enclosure. I've painted the plastic box and this operation didn't came up very well. Also the window is made from a CD case, actually there are 2 layers from this material glued together, the first one is only a frame and the second one is the window itself. The buttons are recovered from an old monitor. Maybe someday I´ll try something else which implies laser cuts... will see... I don't know what else to say if there is something else you want to know, drop me a line...
Thanks for watching!

OK, now I'm impressed! Very nice build. I like all the changes you've made which makes it different from the original. The 3 amp bridge is an awesome upgrade. Do you plan on selling the 3 amp circuit? I like the film can. I assume it holds the filter coil? The new position of the belt is great. Its one of the things I least like about the original. Making your own belt clips is impressive, especially the little ramps for the limit switches. Great job with what is obviously a lot of hand-fabrication of parts and a design which shows obvious improvements over the original.

Would you mind sharing a link to where you got the case which fits the MX-2 so well? Did you cut the length of the case down or does it fit that well the way it arrives? A lot of people have been looking for an affordable case for their MX-2 kits. Congrats on being the one to find it.

First of all, thank you for your kind words. I've put a lot of effort in this project and receiving such appreciation make me fell good...
Selling the 3 amp circuit? Never thought about that but if someone would be interested, sure, I can do it.
Yes, the filter is in the film can!
About the belt positioning, it was my first idea of the improvement over the original. I've had another plat to position the belt with the tooth's facing up like in this pic:



this way you don't need the rollers because the pulley(motor) is pressing down on it but unfortunately this kind of timing belt is not designed to be used like that (tooth section must be triangular not trapezoidal). And of course the belt is cheaper than the gear rack (pictured above).



The case for MX2 is from a local store that sells electronic components so....I'm sorry, they don't have an online store... but I consider that the best way to make a case for the electronics is to use one of the many online services where you can send a drawing and they will laser cut the parts for you. This way will be nice and elegant... and maybe one will not have to use a CD case to make the LCD window like I did...
Thanks again man!