Shutterfingers is my simple servo controller that presses the shutter on cameras that don’t support remote control. My first attempt was in a sweet looking, but big aluminum case and incorporates a 6600 mAh battery to power the Arduino, servo, and external power for the camera.
Well, it all works, but I’m not sure why I approached it that way. Having extra power for the camera is essential for some applications, but I’m not sure why I was so anxious to marry the two projects into one.
So, yeah, if I did it over again, I’d make Shutterfingers smaller.
I think the whole thing could be made to fit in this 60mm x 35mm x 20mm project box, and mounted to the camera with a simple hot shoe to 1/4 threaded adapter, instead of the piece of aluminum I machined down.
Here’s the parts list:
- Servo
- Arduino Pro Micro
- LiPo battery, 400mAh (Cris Benton’s setup ran for 25 hours with a 370 mAh battery pack)
- LiPo charger/booster (because the servo expects about 5 volts)
- Rocker switch (to turn it on/off)
- RGB cycling LED (because it’s pretty, and we need some signal indicator)
- Hot shoe to 1/4 threaded adapter
- ABS plastic project box (also available in translucent blue!)
- 2.5mm panel mount phone jack (to plugin the shutter signal input to)
- Servo extension cables (so you don’t have to solder the servo straight to the Arduino)
The case will need to be machined with a hole to mount the servo in, a hole to charge the battery via USB, and maybe a hole to reprogram the Arduino via USB.
The parts cost for this is around $120, though, which maybe reminds me why I was looking to combine features in my first version.
Yeah, maybe if I was going to do this again I’d risk warrantee voiding adventures inside the camera to solder a cheap cable input to the camera’s shutter button.