Replacing a NEMA17 Stepper Motor for Camera Slider

Support Product Questions
1

Hope this is the right place to post this,

I have a motorised camera slider I purchased a while ago off eBay, its worked great but I recently did a slower speed shoot with it and the footage has a very strange issue happening where the background has a wobble. I investigated to try and figure out where/why exactly this happened (since its a pain to fix in post production). I tried a bunch of difference camera settings that didn’t fix it, (think internal stabilisers and optical stabilisers), then moved onto the slider itself, which is supported by 2 rods and the stepper motors pulling itself along a fixed rubber track.

Anyway I pulled it all apart to try and identify the cause of the issue I had and I think its to do with the stepper motor. At such a slow speed (~30-40 seconds to travel 80cm) the steps are causing some camera wobble, enough for a long focal length to cause a wobble in the background.

Soooo, now I’m thinking to replace the stepper motor with another that has say 400 steps instead of the 100 steps this one has. It’s powered from a Sony NPF battery plate and the battery is 7.4V 5200mAh li-ion which then goes into this handheld controller which has a 12VDC input option and a USB output plug that goes to the stepper motor.

I have a multimeter but not great at electronics so not sure what I’m looking for. When I measured the voltage output with no load from the controller it was peaking at 4.5V, the coils from the stepper motor were giving me 3.6 ohms, so I assume the max current is 1.2A. Not sure if this is the correct way to test though.


This stepper motor seems to do what I need it to do in the correct size, but unsure if I can use this controller I’ve got (since it has speed adjustments and looping and plugs already.

Will it work? If not, what controller gear etc. do I need to repeat these functions?

This is roughly what I have https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ASHANKS-Stepper-Motor-Motorized-Timelapse-Video-Slider-Follow-Focus-Rail-Carbon/143098475928?hash=item2151557598:m:mqV5vUbRwuuqO_ppC1-1yuA:rk:2:pf:0

2

Hi James,

If the stepper motor in your setup has 200 steps like most common stepper motors, then this will make it run half the speed which would smooth everything out for you. My only other suggestion would be to make some sort of gearing to make the output slower with the same stepper. I don’t have much helpful advice on that front though. You may be able to 3D print something that would work!