I've been wanting to convert my projectors so they could do frame by frame capturing of the film onto my computer for editing. This weekend I finished up the bolt-on drive for the projector so it can be controlled by the computer to move at a certain speed and for a certain time frame. It works pretty good by there are still some issues to work out like putting in a diffuser for the light and putting a dimmer switch on the light so I can turn it down a bit and not burn up my film. I'll try and post some sample clips once I get the last few bugs worked out.


Here you can see the bolt on drive assembly. This has the stepper motor, drive shaft, cam, and switch all on the one piece, that way it can be unbolted and used as a normal projector again.


Here's a slightly closer view showing the switch. This ties into the mouse and tells the computer to capture the frame when the cam pushes the roller switch.






Here's a shot inside the projector showing how the drive shaft from the stepper motor connects to the drive shaft in the projector. The shaft in the projector has a flat area on it and there is a setscrew in the drive shaft from the stepper motor.  Test Clip  3mb

Click Here to visit Jan Demmendal's website, which inspired me to do my own experimentation.

Made another test clip tonight, Click Here to watch it. This one was shot at about 3 frames per second and what I did was taped a piece of foamboard to the wall and pointed the camera and the projector at that foamboard. I'm still waiting on the new lenses to come in so until then I won't do to much more with trying to project straight into the camera. This clip is 19mb

HOME