Bob's rotational webcam device







This is a site about my webcam which can be controlled on a web site.
I built this thing a while ago, using a stepping motor and some electronics to control it from the lpt port.

So here is the schematic:




This schematic is for a unipolar motor, you can also use this schematic twice for a bipolar motor:



It doesn't really matter which diode's you use, I used 4x 1N4007 because I have a couple hundred of them laying around, 1N4148 can also be used.
The diodes are there to protect the transistors, because the stepping motor is an inductive load.
Also check here for some more information about stepping motors.

I use pins 2 to 5 on the lpt port to control the stepping motor, switching them between 0 an 5 volts to control the circuit.
So now I had a schematic I needed print layout, I designed this layout to use on some veroboard:



and built the whole thing:



And I wrote a piece of software in visual basic 6 to control it, you can download it here, I am not responsible for any damage to your computer if you run this program and stuff like that.



And here are the rest of the pics because I'm too lazy to build a proper page.
You can contact me at for more info.




Here you can see the usb port I added later, I used a LM317 regulator to create a 5 volt power supply for the usb, since there are only 8 wires in a utp cable, and 6 where already used to control the motor and for the power supply.