Knex Time-lapse intervalometer

Updated, 21 July

Ive uploaded a much better video of a finished timelapse. It shows the full moon rising through clouds. Captured using the 10 second interval. Ive had to resize the video to make the filesize manageable.

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Have you ever seen those time lapse panoramas on TV/Film and wished you could make your own?

Do you have a cheap digital camera, and some motorised Knex lying around?

Do you want to see a Knex instructable which isnt for a gun?

If youre answering "yes" to the above questions, then read on. This will show you how to build a structure from knex which will hold your camera, and press the shutter button every 2, 5 or 10 seconds. Then I will show you how to take all the individual frames and merge them into a smooth timelapse, which you can then convert into video to share.

Im going to post the instructions for my camera (Samsung S860) and the knex rig (using a Cyber Knex motor). You will probably have to make a few small modifications to fit your camera and motors into the frame.

Step 1: Camera Holder and Rocker Arm

This part holds the camera and also has the rocker arm which presses the shutter button to take a shot. The success of the entire rig depends on what you do here, so dont try and cut corners.


Your camera is probably going to be different from mine so you might need to modifiy this piece so that your camera fits in. It should be a tight, rather than just snug fit, so the camera doesnt wobble. But it shoudnt be so tight that it damages the camera.


1: The base plate. This is where the camera goes.

2,3,4: The rocker arm

5: Rocker arm and baseplate attached together.

6: Camera fitted in and ready for testing


Assuming you have the camera fitted in, adjust the rocker plate/camera position so the purple connector is just hovering over the shutter button. Now, turn on the camera, and lift the rocker plate gently with your finger. Hopefully, without too much effort the camera will auto focus and then take a shot. If it does, move onto the next step.

If it doesnt take the shot, all Im going to say is keep adjusting it until it does. Change the spacers around of the rocker axle, shift the camera, redesign the rocker arm. Anything which makes it work.

Comments

[Lance Mt.]

Total annihilation? You sir, are Awesome. I'm 14, when i was 4 i was playing this hours at a time before preschool... PEE WEE RUSH!

[Lance Mt.]

lol sorry i forgot, i also use to dream about it.. AS sad as that is, it suuuuch a good game

[Miles Tails Prower]

That's cool! But I think my camera is a little too fat to fit in there... Anyways great! 5 stars.

[PikminRed]

AWESOME 5.0!

[TigerNod]

Hehe, this could be quite useful! If I only had a camera... 5 stars anyway!

[pls]

awesome!, i love the video:)

[vernors]

this works great. great instructable to.

[X3R0X77]

cool 4.0 but what if someone has a big camera???

[robocrazy155]

something of knex that actually serves a practical purpose... IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!!! Interesting and cool idea though, bravo

[s0lekill3r]

Awesome, although good k'nex guns are great, it's good to see something new!

[s0lekill3r]

This is an awesome idea as I said before. I just made it. I'm going to make a recreation of some of the battle on Hoth from Star Wars made out of k'nex with it.

[MePerson]

Use the resize filter to make the video smaller. and adjust the framerate. Use XviD, Microsoft Video 1 is THE WORST CODEC EVER!!!

[xACIDITYx]

Nice!

[SNIPERDUDE]

good use of gears. nice job! : )

[I_am_Canadian]

Interesting. Just so you know though, Very few people have those motors. If possible, You might want to modify the instructions to make them for that standard ren motors, most people have those. Interesting Idea!

[bedbugg2]

i dont think the green cyber knex motors are very rare, you can get them off ebay quite easily and cheaply, on the other hand if you have only a basic knex set then you might want a modification so your motor would work on this model, another good motor that would work would be the gray plug-in motor that would never run low on battery.

[I_am_Canadian]

I don think they are all that common though. The set they came in sort of fell through so its not being made any more. I looked on ebay, and I could only get them for 60 of more dollars without shipping.

[bedbugg2]

really?, i found some on there for £20 and they include all the other cyber knex stuffs with them, but i can see where you are coming from, the set was made quite a long time ago and you cant get them in the shops anymore, and somone who hasnt been building knex for as long as some of us when the sets were in shops would say they were rare because they didnt buy the sets at the time. so i guess you could call them rare, was that the american or uk ebay?

[I_am_Canadian]

And 20 pounds is like $50 my currency, so its a bit of a difference.

[bedbugg2]

yes.

[I_am_Canadian]

Canadian.

[ProjectIsle]

Yeah I know the Cyber motors are rare. Its the only ones I have. Really, I cant imagine it being that hard to modify the rig to take a different motor.

[I_am_Canadian]

Alright. Thanks.

[I_am_Canadian]

Why wheeles?

[darkmuskrat]

Because they are rubber and don't move easily; so its more stable? Don't know. But that looks like the reason. And I am Canadian too Go British Columbia! Eh

[I_am_Canadian]

Im in manitoba :-( I like BC though...

[ProjectIsle]

Yeah its for stability. I tried loads of different things on the bottom, but locked wheels are the best.

[Da_Fudge]

maybe a video of one of your end products???

[rerat]

A....USEFUL K'nex device? wtf? That's unheard of.

[Da_Fudge]

haha lol

[Jahoovi]

hey i got the same camera lol

[geowulf]

Now that's very clever! Run it on steampower and you will have the steampunks raving!

[knexguy]

Lol, I have got to try this! Great idea!

[ojochris]

not bad.... Not bad at all... Could post a vid of the end work?

[bannana inventor]

This thing is very original. Awesome work.

[TeacherOfTheWays]

awesome!

[n8man]

How long ago did you publish this. I am seeing if there as a large delay between publishing and posting

[Kiteman]

The "published on" date is the date he clicked the button to publish it. That doesn't change, even if there's a delay between posting and it appearing on the lists.

[n8man]

OK

[Kiteman]

If you're having problems with delays publishing, you'd best PM one of the people on the About page, probably Fungus.