Weather Balloon Disposable Camera Trigger

Ok, i need a lot of help on this one. See my other post for details,
So what i wanted to do was put a disposable camera on a teathered weather balloon, to take pictures in the air. So i need to know how to Triger a dispoable camera every few seconds. If there is a way to not use my 30$ arduino to trigger a camera evry 3 seconds. You know so i dont loose it into the sky…Please respond i need some help…

If by "disposable" you mean some cheap electronic camera, then a 555 timer circuit, possibly with a transistor, will probably do the trick.

When I think disposable camera I think of the single-use film cameras that require pushing a stiff button and manual winding.


There are some examples on this link of firing the shutter of low cost cameras for Aerial photography:

The code uses a different processor than the Arduino but the ideas on driving an electronic shutter may help. I second kg4wsv's advice about using a 555 for timing.

A search on google should turn up a number of examples of people modifying disposable cameras for applications like yours.

If you did want to remotely control the camera using the arduino, there is was some code posted in the forums for decoding the signals from model radio control receivers that could be adapted to do that.

if you open up a quartz clock, theres a little circuit that sends a 1hz pulse to a coil of wire. you might be able to use that pulse to trigger the camera switch. its not 1/3hz, but its easy to do with minimal work.

Look at the amateur rocket hobbyist web sites, it's the sort of thing they do.


Can you dirct me to a skematic for a 555 timer circut to trigger a camera..



A google search for 555 timer yields lots of resources, such as this one:

See the section on monostable circuits, it shows how to build the circuit and select the components.