Iconasys Jewelry Turntable

In an earlier article I discussed the features that make a photography turntable a world class turntable and I have described how our engineering teams at Iconasys have approached these design features to build the Iconasys Platinum series turntables. The Iconasys Platinum series turntables are meant for larger products ranging in weight from several pounds, all the way to over 500 pounds. For the diamond, jewelry, watch, coins and small items industries our Platinum tables may be an overkill and a bit bulky. Thus, our engineering teams at Iconasys have developed the Iconasys Jewelry Turntable. In this article, I will discuss the unique features that make the Iconasys Jewelry Turntable the ideal choice for anyone shooting 360 views of small items. I will also describe some of the engineering challenges we faced and how our teams overcame them.

1.    Motor selection. 

One of the first requirements was to select a small motor, to fit the miniature size of the table. Further, we wanted to precisely control the motor’s speed, direction and position, to do both start-stop photography and video. 

The motor that best fit our needs is a small 35mm diameter, 400 steps stepper motor. The motor has a height of 13mm, a holding torque of 0.7 Kg.cm, 0.5A per phase and weighs only 80 grams. The motor has no additional gears, which means that all rotational and side-to-side play is eliminated. (Minimizing play is extremely critical for micro-photography.) With the selection of our motor, the table is bi-directional and has a maximum speed of 4 rotations per minute (RPM), which we’ve determined to be good enough for most product photography. The table can be configured with higher speeds, but experimentally, we’ve determined that anything higher than 3-4 RPMs creates problems with the objects on the platform moving, due to higher momentums at higher speeds.

Unfortunately, a huge challenge with the selected motor is heat. The motor can get as hot as 80 degrees Celsius above ambient temperature. For long shooting sessions, motor heat becomes a real challenge. To resolve the heat issue, our team mounted the motor through a 2mm, highly purified copper top and added heat sinks and thermal paste to maximize the heat transfer away from the motor, as shown in Figure 1. This has reduced the overall temperature by more than 70%, making the platform warm to touch, without the need for additional fans.

An additional advantage of the copper top is the additional weight that the copper provides to the table, further increasing its static momentum and minimizing platform vibrations.

1.    Motor driver. 

A stepper motor is controlled by a digital stepping drive that controls the actual motor rotation, speed and position. In turn, the digital stepping drive is controlled by our Shutter Stream software via our software development kit (SDK).

The quality of the digital stepping drive is paramount to being able to properly tune and create as much of a vibration free stepper motor rotation, as possible. We have formed a partnership with a leading manufacturer of stepping drivers and through this partnership we have customized a stepping driver that provides as close as possible a vibration free rotation for our stepper motor. As a result, the Iconasys Jewelry Turntable provides a virtually vibration free continuous rotation and a stepping resolution of 6400 steps per revolution.

2.    Shutter release.

Our Iconasys Jewelry Turntable now has the ability to trigger any camera that supports the shutter release hardware protocol. For cameras that support shutter release (which are virtually all digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras) the process mimics pressing the snap button on the camera. This is done via two digital trigger mechanisms. First, the focus is set and within half a second or so, the camera is triggered. The turntable uses optical sensors to control the shutter release cable that is connected to it.

3.    Turntable software development kit (SDK).

When developing our turntable, we maintained a common software interface for all of our Iconasys turntables, including this Iconasys Jewelry Turntable. This interface is freely available as a C++ SDK. Users can develop their own applications for this turntable and the SDK provides access to the following features: direction, speed, position and shutter release. This makes the table ideal for research applications too, where users can integrate their own imaging or testing software with our table.

4.    Flexibility in mounting objects and accessories. 

In designing the table, we wanted to keep the design simple, yet flexible. We realized that users may want to hang the table upside down or attach different mounting props. Thus, we added a simple hubcap, as shown in Figure 2. This provides four threaded holes to allow for a wide range of platform customization.

The most basic customization is the rotating platform as shown at the left of Figure 3. The table top from Figure 3 has four diametrically opposite holes, which allow the table to be hung upside down, as suggested on the right side of Figure 3.

In conclusion, this article discussed different features that make Iconasys Jewelry Turntable the ideal choice for shooting 360 views of small items, such as: diamonds, jewelry, coins and watches.

Keywords: #ProductPhotography, #3DPhotography, #3DImaging, #eCommerceImaging, #360Imaging, #360ProductPhotography, #ProductPhotographyTurntable, #3DScanning, #Turntable