Hi from Brisbane Australia

Hi all- I'm really excited to have found your site! I've been working on a sliding motor driven dolly for a few months now and I thought I was the only one! Great to find a group of people with similar ideas to share and gain info with. I've tried a number of different control and motors with mixed results. I've used geared DC motors of varying speeds and was thinking of going to a stepper motor system. I'm trying to bring my electronics knowledge up to speed but struggling at times so stepper motor control is a bit confusing.

I started out wanting to build a dolly that could do both time-lapse and real-time footage but I've achieving both from a single rig seems harder than I imagined. I feel at this point that I may need to build 2. I was thinking that a good method to get the best of both worlds may be a continuous mode as well as a stop and start mode. Has anyone tried this method of build? Any tips (keeping in mind that i'm electronically challenged)? :)

A bit about my dolly. It's a 1800mm (6 foot) long travel slide with a small stage with a ball head that is designed to carry a DSLR camera. I'm running a t5 10mm timing belt running off 2 pulleys (1 on each end) and clamped to the underside of the stage. The motor drive is fixed at one end and drives the pully. I've been using a small geared DC motor running 12v and a PWM with potentiometer that controls both speed and direction. The motor seems underpowered and seems to be working pretty hard at times- especially on inclines. My gearing isn't allowing speeds that are usable for time-lapse at this point.

Any ideas or tips any from you much more experienced gadget builders would be very much appreciated!