What happens when you take a remote controlled tarantula, an automatic air freshener, some PVC tube and a mechanical trigger release for a camera? Well, it’s definitely a hack, that’s for sure — you get a remote camera shutter release!
[Michael] loves his Panasonic LX7, but unfortunately, it doesn’t have a trigger release! It does however except a hot shoe adapter to use with a manual release. All [Michael] had to do now was make it remote controlled.
If you’ve ever taken apart an automatic air freshener you know that they are a treasure trove of parts, ripe for the hacking. Specifically, they have a very nice linear actuator which can be used for all kinds of fun things. In this case, it works great for pressing the manual shutter release cable. The next step is controlling it. To do this, [Michael] found a cheap RC toy, a $10 stuffed tarantula oddly enough — By taking it apart he was able to make use of its controller to turn on the air freshener, effectively turning his contraption into a remote controlled shutter release.
This has been done before using a different style of air freshener — who knew they were so useful!
[Thanks Jeremy!]
Thanks for writing this up James! I’m definitely a big fan of alternate air freshener uses!
*accept
“It does however except a hot shoe adapter”
except –> accept
Why are hackaday writers so bad at language ?
If you don’t know the pinout of a chip check the datasheet.
If you’re not 110% sure about the spelling/usage of a word, FGS look it up in a dictionary !
At least have an editor with proper language skills check the posts.
It’s really annoying to keep on seeing “it’s” in cases where the correct spelling is “its”.
Another idea for a quick fix is to turn off “auto off” on a digital camera, keep the original electronics in the air freshener (automatic model) and make a dead simple time lapse rig.