The Arqball Spin is an app-slash-Kickstarter project that's simple yet brilliant in its use of looping video and HTML5 embedding. When I first saw it, my immediate thought was how it could be used for reviews, having an embedded spinning version of the product with highlights for ports and so on. It does require a base that spins at exactly 3rpm though, and that's not easy to get – which is why there's a Kickstarter project for one. The problem is that the stage hasn't been funded, probably won't get funded, and is expensive at $60. Enter DIY.
I started off ordering a battery/solar powered rotating base for $7.50 from Dealextreme. Even with battery power it fell short of the 3rpm, and the motor is also weak enough that difference in weight will affect RPM. I tore it apart to just the compartment with the actual rotating parts, then went hunting around my pile of junk for some parts. I pulled a potentiometer out of an old alarm clock, and tore down a third party Wii controller that never actually worked properly to get the battery compartment. Once upon a time I had both battery compartments and potentiometers designed for DIY for such use, but living in the city without a dedicated work shop has its drawbacks, and sometimes you just have to use what you have. I did have a proper power switch though, so a few minutes worth of soldering later I had the entire thing hooked up to twice the voltage (3V instead of 1.5V), with a power switch and potentiometer hooked up as well.
The resulting setup, while extremely ugly looking, allows me to turn on and off the rotating base as well as use the potentiometer to fine tune the RPM based on what's on the plate. The Arqball Spin app is iOS only for now, meaning the iPad 2 is the only thing I have that can do the recording. As such, image quality is absolutely horrible. If I had an iPhone, or even an iPad 3, things would have been much better, as the actual rotating base works fine. There's supposedly an Android app coming at one point, which is what I'm holding out for, as this setup isn't much use for me with only the iPad 2.
Below is my first attempt at creating a proper "spin". Image quality aside, the thing works great. Between the price and likely failure of the Kickstarter project, and the fact that the app is already available, I'm sure that there are others out there that would rather go the DIY way. If that's the case, you only need about $10 in parts.
Andreas, This is really awesome! Thrilled that you are sharing how you made your stage. One of the reasons that our stage costs so much is that (1) we are using a stepper motor, and (2) the stepper motor requires complicated driving circuitry…both of these decisions make it really easy to achieve the rpm. In our experiments, even hi-torque DC motors have some small variance in their rpm when loaded with different weight (obvious if you believe in physics!) —the potentiameter is *exactly* one thing we considered, but our UX team successfully argued that it would be “too hard for the average user” to calibrate. There are some other tricks to getting the DC motor to work out that we are investigating…
Anyways, kudos! and keep us posted on your experiments.
Lets get in touch via twitter — @abhvious
BTW, are you in Denmark? I’ll be in Copenhagen and Aarhus in early June.
Using a stepper motor makes sense, calibrating the device for each item is a bit of a pain, but at least it works. Now I just need that Android app so I can get image quality too
And no, I’m Norwegian, not Danish
Andreas– sorry about the cultural mixup
We are working on getting the android version out late summer. In fact, perhaps you can be an early tester for us?
That would be great, I would love to. I’ve added you on twitter (you originally tweeted a guy with the same name as me, I’m @cptnodegard) so you can get in contact with me there.