Pictures and Videos

 First Autoflat design(didn't work):

Prototype iPhone control:

Video of prototype Arduino version with rotary encoder and iPhone control.  

The video shows :

    -Use of course/fine focus button on rotary encoder box --> 10 x speed

    -Basic iPhone control with standard focus motor interface ('Rev/Fwd' with 'High Speed' toggle)

    -16 button keypad interface allows focus position entry by pressing 'Goto', a position number, then 'Enter'

    -Save a focus position by pressing a letter key (ABCD), confirm by pressing again (any other key to abort)

    -Goto previous preset position A by pressing 'Goto' followed by 'A'

iPhone control is accomplished by using TouchOSC (http://hexler.net/software/touchosc)and Processing (http://processing.org/) with a WiFi connection.  The iPhone layout is easily customized using the TouchOSC editor.    There are a few bugs to sort out and I'll post the code and details when finalized.  

There is a great tutorial here (http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/152 ) that explains the basics and provides samples that can be modified.  

For now this is NOT compatible with the Autofocus software(and probably will not be due to need serial port conflict...I was just fun to try).   

Prototype Keypad Control:

Manual Mode

This video shows operation in stand alone/manual mode.  Here a rotary encoder is attached to the control circuit via 4 conducter phone cord(as long as you want).  Movement of the encoder turns the focus knob.  The rotation (gear) ratio is high to allow for fine focus.  About 20:1 (encoder:focus)

Autofocus with Nebulosity

This video shows Autofocus capability.  Here the control circuit is connected to a computer vis USB.  The software now controls the device.  Manual movement can be done via software bottons with adjustable step size.  This only works with Nebulosity at this time.  It monitors for each fine focus frame, and gets HFR info from the file name(Thank you Craig Stark!).  Pushing the "v-curve" button moves the focus out a distance (N * step size) monitoring HFR with each step.  It then moves to the focus point where minimum HFR was measured.  Next "fine-V" moves the focus 20 steps in from the rough focus point, uses smaller steps and averages 4 exposures per step to determine a more accurate focus point.  At the end, a Bahtinov mask is place to confirm accurate focus.