Project Chronos

Nice work ! Great project.

Chris is a true open-source guy. He's very passionate about the project and was excited to talk to me directly and help me get started with the project. I am making my own rig with Chris mentoring me so that I can help him build out the documentation. He's done a great job of getting me as excited as he is.

I received Chris's serial number 0001 Chronos system about three months ago and can I just say, that this is the most user friendly motion time lapse rig you could ever own. The controlling interface that is supplied is very straight forward. You simply ask it what to do and "Set and forget"! The rig is durable, light and easy to transport. I asked for a longer version slider than advised at 1.4 meters and get fantastic shots. It talks seamlessly to third party devices like 'little bramper' and allows you to concentrate on the more important parts of time lapse like bramping and not have to worry about motion. The shutter closes post exposure, it sends a signal to Chronos and then Chronos moves according to the distant parameters that you have set prior to starting. It is such an easy device to use and I couldn't recommend it more highly. For those worried about freight, I bought the slider and carriage locally in Australia and Chris sent the rest pre fabricated. All I did was follow his instructions and twenty minutes later was in action. This is a very exciting system and after researching many other similar rigs, Chronos is by far the most affordable and easy to use system on the market. Do your self a favour and stop searching anymore, for you have now found what you are looking for. 10 out of 10. Time lapsing enthusiast. CK

I'm still under construction with this project but its all hopefully coming to a close soon! I started this off with a basic understanding of arduino, little to no knowledge on electronics – especially the hardware side and a tight budget to get this constructed with. I started off on a bad start – availability of parts here in the UK is a lot different to what’s available in the US and shipping charges cost the same as a new car for certain parts but I decided I was going to dive in and find alternatives and give it a go. Ordering cheap Chinese parts is a very bad idea. A very bad idea indeed. Some of the parts don’t even work and some are very different to things you have seen before. They don’t send you what you ordered and when you send it back they’ll just post the same thing back with your stickers still on it to track what they are doing. Enough of the waffling. I came into building this with not a lot of idea about how I was going to build it. I gathered parts and started working on it. Chris’s help and support has been the best I have ever received and he has taught me a lot whilst building this rail. Ordering part to save money and because of availability was a battle – but Chris helped modify the schematics and even sent photos to help dummy’s like me get things done and I now have all the electronics working with a cheap Chinese stepper motor, a big easy driver and other strange parts – I wouldn’t have been able to do this without his support and would have given up weeks ago! Not only does this do what it says – but it does a lot more. If I had only knew about this before diving in and backing the timelapse+ this would have done everything anyway! But that doesn’t matter because it has a slave mode to deal with things like bulb rampers and other intervalometers that you might be using. I have discussed many different variations of this with Chris – like the argument of DC vs stepper and belt vs lead screw and he has thought about this design very hard. This is one rail I am looking forward to completing as it has not only been a learning curve for me, but I’m sure Chris will know how to deal with difficult people like me better. His dedication to this project is amazing and his girlfriend must love him a lot! When I have finished my version of this rail I will post pictures and videos and let you all know how it went, if it was worth it and total costs of the build. If it keeps going like it is doing it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than anything out there on the market and has far more features packed into the small box! Overall so far – to sum this up – Chris’s support with anyone who is looking at building this is better than support for anything. And his willing to help is a reason to give this a go and get building a project chronos rail.