Monday, November 8, 2010

Getting started

Nov 09 2010.

About 12 months ago I found some info on High Speed Photography, and decided that I would like to get into this.
I tried some electronic circuits, which worked quite well, but each module was a seperate item, and I found setting delays was quite a pain.
So I made a search , and found DreamingRobots.com where the owner Maurice Ribble had done a lot of work with the Arduino Microcontroller board, there were a lot of different projects to wet ones appetite.
Having played around with the Arduino, I decided this was what I was looking for.
With a lot of breadboarding I finally came up with three sensors, Sound, Lightning, and photogate, all working as one unit with the Arduino. I designed and made a circuit board to handle all three sensors each with there own input, and outputs for three Flash units or camera. The threshholds and delays were set by potentiometers.
My biggest problem was the programing side of the project, but with examples on Maurice Ribbles site, and, much trial and error I got it all working, be it some what touchy.
In the meantime Maurice developed a unit ( The Camera AXE ) which left mine for dead, I could never dream of adding the sophistication of his software, so I purchased one along with some of his sensors. Now I have developed some sensors of my own, which I will be writting up here, very soon, along with pictures, I hope you find them of use.