GoPro swivel mount

Dropbox:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/m7kiq8n1j4a93o1/GOPR1401.mp4

youtube: http://youtu.be/3kZ-kx1SKD0

**note that it is at about 2x 

I hit a small snag when mounting it up for the first time... the glass of the sunroof is slightly curved which meant the mount could not have both suction cups attached at once.  I had tested the mount with only one before however, so decided to go ahead with the test.  

With the obvious safety precautions of course.  I will always use the leash tho, I doubt that will stop the cop who pulls me over from making me take it down.  

***footage coming soon!!***

This is a Radio Shack (I hate radio shack. just sayin') electrical enclosure with holes opened for the momentary switch, power switch, power cable and Ethernet cable (out to motor).  I used a dremmel and a mini mill to cut the holes.  

Electronics board soldered up and wired in.

Close up the box...

...and good to Go!

At first I used an arduino to feed a pwm signal to a stepper motor controller and to take the input from the control box, but that seemed like a huge waste (overkill I mean). So I looked into other ways of generating a pwm signal and found 555 timers could do it. I had been meaning to learn about 555s and this was the perfect opportunity. Thanks to [amandaghassaei] via instructables, I set up this simple circuit:

which is a LM555 setup in astable mode.  With C=0.1uF, R1=3.3KOhm, and R2 = 68kOhm, it will produce a 50%(ish) duty cycle at 100(ish) Hz (which I found to give a good speed).

Here it is integrated into the rest of the circuit

I setup up a DPDT momentary rocker switch to power the LM555 thus initiating the PWM signal to the stepper controller, but also to pull the DIR pin low when toggled to one side only. The DIR pin then got a pullup resistor to 5v. This enabled the switch to control the direction of turn without the micro-controller. 

The first piece and main body

Machining the metal (6061 Al)

Finished part with Nema 11 stepper installed.  I added the cable strain relief as an afterthought.