Arduino-based Camera Slider project using Blynk

Projects made with Blynk
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To Blynk, or not to Blynk; that is the question. There are pluses and minuses.

The camera slider App provided by many manufacturers is free, but rarely comes with source code. If you want to use Blynk instead like I did for this project, my costs here were an additional $62. What are some reasons to make you want to switch? For many users, the original cellphone App is just fine. But with Blynk, you can custom-tailor the App.

  1. The manufacturer cellphone App cannot be modified as far as layout, functionality, and usability. On the other hand, the Blynk App allows new widgets (sliders, buttons, joysticks, virtual terminals, LEDs, charts, etc.) to be added, deleted, or reconfigured.

  2. The manufacturer App allows parameters to be reconfigured (rail length, distance to object, and height to object), but must be re-entered each time you turn the power on. Blynk allows you the ability to set parameters offline in edit mode and lock them, so after reconfiguration you are ready to hit the [start] button immediately.

  3. The manufacturer App works pretty much line-of-sight using BlueTooth or Wifi. Blynk allows you to be in one location and control a slider in the next room, next city, or anywhere in the world for that matter. That’s the IOT (Internet of Things) philosophy; sensor data can be received and re-transmitted to anywhere in the world from the Blynk Cloud.

  4. One Blynk App can be used with different sliders instead of needing a different cellphone App for each one. I have two different sliders, and can control either one from the same Blynk App.

  5. Like any Internet-based server, the Blynk Cloud can get busy every once in awhile; you will see a short lag time between button presses on the Blynk App and the response from the camera slider. Press the WiFi Test blue button on the App; you should see an immediate response (blue LED flash) on the Wemos or Heltec board. If it doesn’t come along in a few seconds, then check to see if you are still online as indicated in the upper right-hand corner of the Blynk App.

This is not the end of the list of advantages that outweigh the additional cost. I’m sure there are many more. Hit me up with your reasons if you decide to switch to Blynk.

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@mstoddardthanks for the tip on those new drivers. Got mine and swapped out old ones and yes they are extremely quiet

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Are we good to go now? This was as easy as interfacing an Arduino to a crockpot …

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:joy::rofl: you win I loooooose!

Kidding aside. Good project and documentation! :+1:t3:

1 Like
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Final project video: Blynk Camera Slider 2020-0701

The Wemos D1 Mini CH340 ESP8266 Arduino-compatible board is available for $5 from China on eBay. If you have a JJRobots slider, you can add immediate Blynk connectivity with the Wemos board, a few jumpers, some hex standoffs and nuts, and still use their orange 3D-printed plastic cover. The Wemos board runs off of the same power supply as the Devia board. Just be sure your 12Volt 2Amp supply plugs into the Devia controller to power the steppers, with a 5V feed via jumpers to the Wemos board.

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Hello @mstoddard ,

I have the Devia Board have it running as the Camera Slider from JJRobotics and would like to use it with the Blynk app.

Can you provide some information or direction on how to get the Devia board connected to Blynk?

Thanks!

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Hi; this project thread pretty well enumerates all the steps I went thru to connect the JJRobotics Devia board to a message -broker shield I designed for the HelTec display. This was all of course for the old Blynk IOT service before the migration to the new 2.0 IOT service. Now that the new 2.0 Blynk code seems to have stabilized and the App is working, I am migrating the code for my original first Blynk project I did for a remote controlled digital salt lamp controller also on this board on a different thread here IR Transceiver using Blynk .

The Fritzing diagram here on " Arduino-based Camera Slider project using Blynk" at about frame 9 on this thread shows a pretty good block diagram of everything; the iPhone Blynk App, the HelTec ESP8266 OLED display running my sketch to talk to the Devia controller, and the stepper motors.