Increasing Manual Rail Precision?

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Deanimator
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Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:01 pm
Location: North Olmsted, Ohio, U.S.A.

Increasing Manual Rail Precision?

Post by Deanimator »

Lately, I've been using a reversed Minolta manual 50mm lens reversed onto manual extension tubes.

This obviously precludes the use of DSLR Controller for focus stacking, necessitating the use of my cheap Chinese manual rail.

The problem is achieving uniform movement.

While I could zero out the rail and put a mark on the knob at 12:00, I think it would be easier to use if there were some kind of simple dial face against which to reference the mark/arrow on the knob.

Does anyone have or know about a solution for this? I have Corel Draw, so I can print a circle and gradations. I was thinking I could print it on card stock and laminate it. I could possible glue that onto thin wood, plastic or metal.

Any ideas?

Beatsy
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Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:10 am
Location: Malvern, UK

Post by Beatsy »

Does your rail have a standard micrometer adjustment? If so, the bottom half of the cases that writeable DVDs come in have a perfect push-fit hole in the bottom (the inside of the post that holds the DVDs). It just pushes onto the end of the micrometer handle. Maybe you have one laying around?

You hold and spin the post for quick movement, or use a fingertip on the edge for fine adjustments. I just put evenly spaced tick marks around the edge and lined those up with something on the table to gauge evenly spaced steps by eye.

Deanimator
Posts: 870
Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:01 pm
Location: North Olmsted, Ohio, U.S.A.

Post by Deanimator »

Beatsy wrote:Does your rail have a standard micrometer adjustment? If so, the bottom half of the cases that writeable DVDs come in have a perfect push-fit hole in the bottom (the inside of the post that holds the DVDs). It just pushes onto the end of the micrometer handle. Maybe you have one laying around?

You hold and spin the post for quick movement, or use a fingertip on the edge for fine adjustments. I just put evenly spaced tick marks around the edge and lined those up with something on the table to gauge evenly spaced steps by eye.
Yes, the rail is one of the typical X-Y focus rails.

What I was thinking of was printing out a vernier scale (I found a good one) and laminating it. I'd then glue that to a disk (metal, plastic, or woord) that I would (somehow) affix to the rail, behind the knob. I could then paint/glue an indicator mark on the knob.

Deanimator
Posts: 870
Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:01 pm
Location: North Olmsted, Ohio, U.S.A.

Post by Deanimator »

Beatsy wrote:Does your rail have a standard micrometer adjustment? If so, the bottom half of the cases that writeable DVDs come in have a perfect push-fit hole in the bottom (the inside of the post that holds the DVDs). It just pushes onto the end of the micrometer handle. Maybe you have one laying around?
You don't know how the knobs on those generic rails come off, do you? Do they just pull off? I'm trying to avoid breaking anything I can't afford to replace.

Beatsy
Posts: 2105
Joined: Fri Jul 05, 2013 3:10 am
Location: Malvern, UK

Post by Beatsy »

The DVD case just slides over the standard handle without taking it off. I can't really suggest how to remove a handle without seeing it (if that's what you need to do). Sorry.

Deanimator
Posts: 870
Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:01 pm
Location: North Olmsted, Ohio, U.S.A.

Post by Deanimator »

Beatsy wrote:The DVD case just slides over the standard handle without taking it off. I can't really suggest how to remove a handle without seeing it (if that's what you need to do). Sorry.
The ones that I have don't slip over the knob.

I just did a stack of 23 trying to use the linear scale. It's still processing through CombinZP.

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