thanks lowbudge!
Yes I have to admit reading through your post and admiring the workmanship and thinking god this man is like me. a mcgyver type with a garage full of stuff and a bunch of MDF to get busy with. I used to work for the german engineering company (the big S) , came quite few times to berlin, and have a sound appreciation for german engineering. So I smiled when I read a420er's comment.
Im always tinkering with something or another, so many crazy projects. Done everything from making my own cnc machine in the garage to writing code that creates airfoil contours.... Its kinda fun cos I can do the electronics plus the SW and then there is the mechanical stuff too.
Really I been having so much fun putting my stuff together on this project. Its quite basic really for now, but it had to be as I slapped it together within days to get into the comp. But good solutions are not necc. complicated ones right? so seems to be doing OK
..then it gives me some time to learn some things, go round the cycle once and think about the "v2"
About the turntables I used what I could find and the choice was not so good. if you search for motorised or rotating display table so can find some options. Few are made for jewellery or watches etc, others for slightly larger items, like mines. Each tables takes up to 2KG. larger ones are available but the prices start getting prohibitive. For now its Ok thes ones but I would had preferred something with bit more weight capacity. Also I will have to see how long the battery lasts, it could be months but lets see (it uses 2 C cells). Otherwise I can mod them for mains.
But next time I think I will just build them from scratch, much cheaper and then you can get what you want. My plan is to have multiple tables side by side mounted on a base. They will spin on shafts with bearings and have a gear or pulley on the other side. All the tables can then be driven together from a stepper motor, which we can put together a simple ckt to control a very slow and steady rotation. In my case I was hooked on the small timelapse video I posted earlier, so I would like to "v2" that also and capture more of the action, all if I can
If its rotating this time, you wont see the detail of each leaf growing, but something else maybe looks good to grow as it rotates. With a stepper motor in there, and something to sync rotational position, change to white light and snap the camera, then I think it will be quite interesting. It means I can return to home and build the static images, but also snap another sequence with the plant rota-growing... hmm!
you could make something custom also if you wanted. just need to decide your turntables sizes, position and weight capacity, then the drive mechanism and figure a motor. stepper is easy to control sloooow.
grow your own
has hit your face 
