Yep, both were 3D printed back then. The Toronto library actually has 3D printers so I built a CAD model and had it printed there. There are also have a lot of web-based companies who will print and ship out parts.
Since then I've built my own 3D printer, it comes in handy and they're getting pretty cheap.
Try out the web-browser interface. I have a 'webapp' at a tile on iOS. Still takes some time to boot, but much faster than the vera app. Slightly laggier but you get more features as well.
I would love to see the code behind this! Very cool
@korttoma said:
Ahh, I see. Maybe it is an option for you to add another (dummy) device of some type just to get more variables.
That's actually not a bad idea. Seems like a pretty simple solution. Thanks!
Hey all,
I"ve got a question about wire wrap, I bought some from a local electronics store but it seems that there isn't traditional insulation on the wire, it seems more like a paint. Is this typical? Or did I buy the wrong thing....
It's 26AWG
@korttoma said:
@naveen said:
I'm moving on to add another stepper and I need a few more custom variables (4) - is there any way to add new variables? Or is he maximum 5?
If you add another stepper to a node you will add another window cover device in Vera right? So shouldn't there be 5 more Variables for this new device right?
I wasn't planning on adding another device. I was planning on implementing the UP/DOWN functionality to control the sliding of the vertical blinds. While the V_DIMMER slider would control the 'tilt'
@hek said:
Yes, it is possible! You have a couple of options.
##Poll configuration data from node
- Select one of V_VAR1, V_VAR2, V_VAR3, V_VAR4, V_VAR5 to use for your configuration;
choose from your root or child nodes. You can use all five parameters per each of your root and child device. It is up to you how to design this;- Program your sketch to fetch variable from vera using gw.request(). You will have to take care to get reply later by yourself using in your callback method initialized in gw.setup(). See RelayActuator sketch for an example on how to handle incoming messages.
- First run of your modified sketch to request parameters. Be prepared that you will receive an empty string because at this time we have just created empty variables at vera side;
- Refresh your vera and go to particular child into Advanced Tab. You should be able to see your new variables named Variable1...Variable5. Variable1 corresponds to V_VAR1 inside your sketch etc.;
fill free to change empty field on vera side to the value your needed, Save changes;- Check with you Arduino, it should receive correct data at this point;
- You free to use whatever design you want. You can pull/request data at each start of you node or you can pull each 30 minutes like many z-wave devices do if they operate from battery. Other example can be if you need for your to nodes to communicate to each other and you need to tell a radio ID to one/both nodes to establish their communication. But for this one you probably want to use Push...
##Push configuration data from Vera to node
Example: You need to push data from vera on event or using schedule and it should be initiated instantly by vera, not by node. For example you want your clock to show external temperature received by vera from the Weather plugin or from other sensor.
Choose from V_VAR1, V_VAR2, V_VAR3, V_VAR4, V_VAR5 to be used for data push
Design your sketch to listen for incoming messages with desired variable. See RelayActuator for an example on how to handle incoming data.
Create a new scene on vera side. The scene should be run according to your goal. For example each 10 minutes;
Use Lua tab while editing scene to provide data for the push. For example this Lua is taking current temperature from Weather (vera id = 61) plugin and pushing it to the node (vera id for root device = 372) using VAR_5:
local temp = luup.variable_get("urn:upnp-org:serviceId:TemperatureSensor1","CurrentTemperature", 61)
temp = temp*10.0
luup.call_action("urn:upnp-arduino-cc:serviceId:arduino1", "SendCommand", {radioId="4;255", variableId="VAR_5", value=temp}, 372)SendCommand will push a message to your node. You can also call it with static values (without programming) using the Advanced tab in the scene editor.
(This post was updated to 1.4 from from @axillent old tips page on micasaverde)
I'm moving on to add another stepper and I need a few more custom variables (4) - is there any way to add new variables? Or is he maximum 5?
I'm looking to get some more solid design for my blind controller, and I was looking into perfboard with wires. It seems like it will be really difficult to get all the connections I need with soldering pads together alone so wire would be needed.
I was wondering what is the best strategy to connect the arduino to other components? Should I first solder the pins onto the arduino, place the arduino in the perfboard and then wrap the wire around the pin at the bottom of the board and solder (with all wires running on the bottom of the perfboard)? Or should I solder the pins to the board itself, connect two pads together, and then run a wire from the connected pad on top of the board to another pad?
Or is there an entirely better way to do this?
Thanks!
Hmm, yeah that would work. It just seems like overkill for a few extra pins (price and size wise). I didn't realize there were 8 analog pins on the APM, those should actually be enough to drive all the things as long as they work OK as digital outputs.
I figure the shift register will cause problems because I won't be able to build an 'AccelStepper' object since the input for the constructor is a pin number. I assume I'd have to modify the code if I want to put it through the shift register.
Do you have any recommendation for this? I don't think the digital+analog inputs will be enough to connect two steppers and a luminosity sensor.
Do you foresee any issues using the shift register I linked previously?
@hek said:
Here comes a little preview of the upcoming touch display scene controller example.
Hope to finalize a little youtube clip before the release.
Wow, was this started only when I mentioned it? Because if so, kudos on the quick turn around! Looks great! You as well, @korttoma , what's yours like??
Do you need a pen to touch the buttons or are your fingers okay?
Does it seem pretty accurate (how many buttons could you cram on that screen)?
I'm wondering if its worth putting some serious time in to print a nice body and get a rechargeable LiIon and a charging dock, or if its just simpler to get a cheap android tablet or something.
That's a good tip, thanks!
I guess something like this could also work: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ShiftOut
I'm looking to connect two stepper drivers to the Arduino, each one needs 2 digital pins for step/dir and 3 pins to control microstepping. I'd also like another pin to connect a light sensor to it. Is there a board that can support all these pins (~12) and the radio? Or would it be best to just get two Arduino pro minis and split it up?
I don't know what I was doing wrong before, but I got the non-block run feature working with your code. I have my blinds controlled by XBMC as well, so if I start and stop a movie in quick succession, I want to make sure the blinds end up in the right spot. I've attached the relevant snippets of code below
void loop(){
if (gw.messageAvailable()) {
//Serial.print("New message from GW");
// ot new messsage from gw
message_s message = gw.getMessage();
setRelayStatus(message);
}
stepper1.run();
}
and then when you get the message:
if (message.header.type==V_DIMMER) { //
float IncomingControl = atoi(message.data);
//Serial.print("Message: ");
//Serial.println(IncomingControl);
//Serial.println((100-IncomingControl)/100*-1*fullOpenSteps);
delay(5);
float incomingNewPosition = (100-IncomingControl)/100*-1*fullOpenSteps;
stepper1.stop();
stepper1.runToPosition();
stepper1.moveTo(incomingNewPosition);
int IncomingControlSend = IncomingControl;
gw.sendVariable(CHILD_ID, V_DIMMER, IncomingControlSend);
}@korttoma , did you ever try using the accelstepper run() command instead of runToPosition(). From my understanding the run() command is non-blocking and you put it in your main-loop. That way, if Vera sends a new commands you can set it to stop immediately using:
stop();
runToPosition();
I gave it a shot and the motor didn't seem to move at all - I'm not sure if you ever experimented with it, thought I'd ask.
I would imagine it won't use so much power considering it is moving for such a short time. Keep in mind that sensors and actuators are very different in terms of when they can sleep.
Most of the sensor sketches wake the arduino up only when there is a trigger on the sleep pin, and then sleep after sending the command to vera. With an actuator, there is nothing to wake the Arduino up so you need to keep it listening all the time, or have some intelligent sync system that turns it on at a specific interval and Vera will only try to communicate in this interval.
To get an idea if its feasible try to figure out the power consumption of the Arduino, and see if the sunlight throughout the day is enough to at least power that.
I don't see why not, as long as you get a servo that doesn't require insane voltages (<8V). You can power the Arduino using a step-up converter (like in the store) to maintain a constant 3.3 or 5V.
I'm curious what kind of z-axis coupler that is? I had a hard time finding them for servos
For vera-specific questions you should considering checking out the micasaverde forum first, you may find your answer there!
Also, I would recommend PLEG plugin if you have any advanced logic you'd like to program (PLEG is better than the default Vera interface IMO, but I still wish there was a more intuitive interface that would allow you to program your vera like you do the arduino)
For the next part of my project I'm looking to have two interlocking gears which grab and pull the string in order to slide the vines of the blinds to one side.
I can attach one gear to the servo, but the other gear would require some sort of bearing? Does anyone have any idea what type of bearing I can use? If there's a name I can search for them on eBay (I assume they are available there).
@ServiceXp
Note: I tried the 16Mhz Arduino Nano and I seem to be able to get much higher speeds with high microstepping. I have almost silent operation with 8 microsteps and the blinds open in about 10 seconds. I assume if you get an even faster processor you can step it even more quickly.
@ServiceXp
A few things I should mention for anyone trying to undertake this project:
-I'm assuming that the choice of stepper motor is important to control noise. It is possible that a different stepper would give an improved speed/noise ratio.
-One of the most important factor in reducing noise is ensuring there is no hard surface for the motor to 'rumble' on. This is especially bad when using full stepping - the motor rumbles like crazy. The more microsteps, the less rumble and the less noise.
-I coated the sprocket and bracket in silicon caulking to reduce noise, it seemed to help a little, but was nothing compared to reducing the microsteps
-If you are looking to have the best of both worlds, you can add some code as follows in order to choose the microsteps based on the desired RPM. This way you can control the speed via vera and the arduino will actively choose the best microstepping mode. The regular EasyDriver has similar pins, but I believe the most microsteps is 8 and there are only two pins to control
-I am using a 8Mhz 3.3V APM and it may be possible to increase the steps/second if you use a more powerful processor (for example, 16Mhz APM) - I will test it with a nano when I get a chance. @hek, the nano used for the gateway is 16Mhz, correct? It says 16M on the eBay page but I just wanted to confirm.
void newnMicroSteps(){
if(nMicroSteps==1){
digitalWrite(MS1pin,LOW);
digitalWrite(MS2pin,LOW);
digitalWrite(MS3pin,LOW);
}
if(nMicroSteps==2){
digitalWrite(MS1pin,HIGH);
digitalWrite(MS2pin,LOW);
digitalWrite(MS3pin,LOW);
}
if(nMicroSteps==4){
digitalWrite(MS1pin,LOW);
digitalWrite(MS2pin,HIGH);
digitalWrite(MS3pin,LOW);
}
if(nMicroSteps==8){
digitalWrite(MS1pin,HIGH);
digitalWrite(MS2pin,HIGH);
digitalWrite(MS3pin,LOW);
}
if(nMicroSteps==16){
digitalWrite(MS1pin,HIGH);
digitalWrite(MS2pin,HIGH);
digitalWrite(MS3pin,HIGH);
}
maxStepperSpeed = maxRPM/60*stepsPerRev*nMicroSteps;
fullOpenSteps = fullOpenRevs*stepsPerRev*nMicroSteps;
maxStepperAccel = maxAccelRPMPM/60*stepsPerRev*nMicroSteps;
stepper1.setMaxSpeed(maxStepperSpeed);
stepper1.setAcceleration(maxStepperAccel);
}
Edit: I just noticed that I calculated acceleration wrong. Here is the correct equation:
maxStepperAccel = maxAccelRPMPM/60/60*stepsPerRev*nMicroSteps;@ServiceXp said:
Pretty cool, would it be possible to get a video with audio of the final 'product'?
Sure! This is with eighth steps - and it seems to be as fast as the motor will go without reducing the microsteps.
Finally finished my setup, here is a picture. Works pretty well, it is slightly louder than I would have hoped but if you run it at 1/16th microsteps its almost silent. The only issue is that it won't run very fast at 1/16 microsteps.
So it seems paypal also has a 45 day policy to open disputes. I'm pretty sure the seller was just trying to delay until this time.
It'll be a bit hard to explain in words, but I'll do my best! My condo has a metal frame around the window (which contains vertical blinds). The right side of the bracket will mount onto this frame while the left side will hold the stepper motor. I have a gear for the stepper to connect it to the ball-chain of my vertical blinds. The little inlays that are on each surface are going to hold some sort of rubber material (for now, I think I'm going to use silicon caulking). I'm going to fill them in and then smooth them out with a putty knife. This has two purposes: provide traction so it doesn't slip off the window frame, and also try to minimize vibrations to keep the noise down.
I'll post a picture when its all done (in the other blinds thread), assuming that it works.
@hek said:
Not sure SketchUp is the best tool for modelling.
Have you tried Blender?
I think you're right. I just happened to start using sketchup (without knowing much about it) and didn't feel like going to a new tool. That being said, I figured out what the issue is. Since sketchup is a surface modelling software, it can really confuse some of the plugins which export STL files. That being said, you need to be extremely particular about making sure there are no inverted faces (outside is actually outside) and things are grouped appropriately. I went through and 'cleaned up' my model file and it turned out much better now.
I'm having some troubles with a 3D model that I'm going to print and I'm wondering if anyone has any expertise on the matter (or knows of a forum where someone might be able to help).
For some reason when the printer path file is generated, random areas seem to get filled (I don't have any supports enabled). I'm using MakerBot software and I've attached some pictures to explain what I'm talking about:
Any help would be appreciated!
Edit: I'm using SketchUp and after some further reading I realized it may be causing some issues since it models surfaces and not solids.
So I finally got the blinds set-up and working. A few tweaks to be made but overall it is working OK. One thing that would be really handy is if I could alter the speed variable through Vera, is there any way to create a custom variable in vera and send it to the Arduino?
@korttoma said:
@naveen said:
I pulled some of the pins to ground on the Big EasyDriver and it changed the number of microsteps and I was able to drive it faster, now I've got to find a decent gear to connect it to the blinds!
Ahh, that explains it I checked the Big Easy Driver user guide and it seems that it is set to "Sixteenth Step" Microstep Resolution by default compared to the EasyDriver that is set to "Eight step". So what did you set it to? I did not try anything else than the default, guess I could sett it to "Full Step" just to see if it would run more quiet.
I've got it running on full steps right now and it seems to run pretty good. I might end up running it on half steps in the end.
@rafael.brasilia said:
I've mounted a little Fubata servo motor to my blinds and it works just fine. I drive it directly from my Arduino so no need to an external power supply. I have a button that opens and closes it. Now Im looking forward to connecting a RF Receiver on my Arduino so I can control it from my Veralite.
I like the servo motor better because it's smaller, cheaper and you can tell it exactly how many degrees it should turn (0 - 180).
Servo would be great if you're able to do only 180 degrees to open/close your blinds - like venetian blinds or something
@korttoma said:
@naveen could be that you are right and the 700mA current is just not enough for your motor. Sorry I can't be of more help with your problems.
btw, I have updated my sketch to 1.4b1 and at the same time changed it so that I can basically send the blinds to any position between fully open and closed using the dimmer slider in Vera. And my setup has now performed flawlessly for over 1 month opening/closing twice every day.
I will share the sketch file when I get home if I remember.
I pulled some of the pins to ground on the Big EasyDriver and it changed the number of microsteps and I was able to drive it faster, now I've got to find a decent gear to connect it to the blinds!
@hek said:
Great idea! That would certainly make a nice addition!
Here is another (smaller) with touchscreen with AtMega and required shield included.
Gahh... New things to crave for...
EDIT: Ebay checkout complete...
Hah, nice! Let me know how it goes - I'm assuming that thing will drain batteries like crazy, are you thinking a permanently mounted solution? It'd be cool for an in-wall panel or something if you can find a nice faceplate. Let me know how thick it is when you receive it - maybe a 3D printed wall mount case would be nice.
Has anyone tried to build a scene controller? I assume it would be fairly simple to code, but I'm not sure how to lay it out ... there would need to be some way to have buttons which you can then label, maybe an LCD screen or something?
I guess something like this would be cool..http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-3-TFT-LCD-Module-Display-PCB-adapter-Touch-Panel-for-Arduino-/390874159093?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5b01ea57f5
I wonder how hard it is to set that up.
For these you would feed AC right? I was thinking it would be easier to have one transformer and feed DC to the bulbs...but I guess this works too.
Please share the dimmer node info when finished! That sounds great.
I was looking at the strips, I think they will look kind of funky - does anyone have any first hand experience using them indoors? I figured the bulbs would be easier to position and maybe look a bit nicer since they are directly, as opposed to what I understand of the strips
I'm looking to build a set of 3 spot light to put behind my TV for 'mood lighting' - it would be pretty easy to do with a relay and commercial LED bulbs/fixtures - but I'm wondering if there's an easier way to do it with a single transformer and a dimmer controlled through the arduino. Anyone know where I can start finding bulbs? Is it possible to dim bulbs if there is an external power supply?
I don't usually have issues receiving stuff from China, all my other components arrived no problem (~20) - I'm in Canada (Toronto). I'll probably open up a case at the end of the week if nothing else works out.
Is there another recommend jumper cable supplier? I can't do much without the female-female dupont jumpers
Its been 21 business days since resend, they told me that the resend should be 10-25 days so I guess there's still time. The original order was 08/06/2014 so that one has been...55 days since it was sent. Too late to take @hek 's advice - I didn't open an official dispute though, just asked him about it. I'll look into getting a refund in a few days if it still hasn't come.
Do you think they didn't resend it?
Does anyone else have any experience with the 200pcs female-female jumpers from the store? It seems mine never arrived, and I asked the seller to resend and they still haven't arrived again (almost 3 weeks so far).
The speed is also really slow, I can't get past about 400microsteps/second (which is 50 steps * 1.8deg/step = 90deg/sec) - that doesn't seem normal...right? I set the max speed and speed to 8000 and it doesn't seem to help.
Would low current cause low speeds? It does turn the correct amount, though.
Do you have any recommended suppliers for the resistors required to measure battery capacity? Or should I just buy them from my local electronics store? I assume they are relatively cheap
I would need to drill at the 90degree angle so that the bit spins about its center...maybe I'm missing something.
I'm thinking of 3D printing some piece that will attach to the servo gear and will hold a bit.
Nice! Please do post videos of its operation when you get a chance!
How does that mount to the servo?
Not exactly sure what L-profile is, if you could send a link that would be great! If it mounted to the servo it may work
Hey! Cool to see you translated your project over to integrate with Vera - you were using a self contained sensor/actuator before right?
So I'm looking to design a simple controller for my vents. I have these vent covers in my condo that have vents which can be opened and closed by turning a flat head screw - about 90 degrees from open to closed.
It seemed pretty straight forward to build, use a mysensors controlled servo with a screw driver head to turn the screw. But a few problems came up:
Is there any reason I should avoid 1.4? I wouldn't mind upgrading if it'll make my sensors a bit more robust. I'm waiting for 5V power supplies in case the 12V power supply I have is what is causing my issues
I'm wondering if there is some way to do this:
-send tripped command to gw/vera
-poll gw/vera for the state of the tripped command (this is the step I have no idea how to do)
-if value of tripped which was sent does not match the value in vera, resend command
-repeat
That way you ensure the message is continually sent until it is received (up to some finite number of times to prevent infinite loops)
and the motor is turning extremely slow using the EasyDriver V4.4 . It says the motor is rated at 12V 1.3A but the EasyDriver is only up to 700mA. The EasyDriver gets very hot as well, could this be the reason? I'm thinking of switching to the Big Easy Driver but I'm not sure if it'll help
One follow-up question, how do I know what commands vera will send to the sensor or what commands the sensor will send back for a given SENSOR_TYPE. e.g. will it send V_DIMMER or V_DOWN etc. It seems the S_COVER SENSOR_TYPE uses V_DIMMER but I'm not sure how that was figured out.
Hmm, that's good to know. Apparently my lab has a multimeter lying around so I'll measure the outputs tonight. @hek do you think you could add a reliable power supply vendor to the MySensors store? It is the one thing that I've had trouble choosing - they all look pretty similar its hard to tell the good from the bad.
I gave it a go and it doesn't seem to help much. I'm powering the APM with the power supply included in http://www.ebay.ca/itm/131143728672?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649. I have a 12V 2A wall adapter plugged into the power supply that came with the breadboard and I'm using the 5V output into the RAW Arduino pin
TL;DR:
Tried using a 12V 2A power supply, caused issues with the EasyDriver (flashing LED). I found an old 12V 1.5A power supply from a WD External HDD and it works fine (the unedited EasyStepper.ino from @korttoma).
Now I'm looking for a good power supply supplier to avoid this issue in the future...or can I buy some sort of regulator to regulate 12-20V 2A to 12V 2A?
@korttoma said:
Just thought I would mention that there is a Ping sensor plugin available for Vera incase you did not know. It should have all needed features for occupancy sensing.
Awesome, thanks! I will try it out.
Quickly realized that the iPhone won't connect when in sleep mode, so its not really a good home/away detector.
Ah good point!
Any idea how to implement (or begin to implement) pinging the phone IP and recognizing that on vera? Can you ping in lua code?
Actually, I may have answered my own question with this:
commandArray = {}
ping_success=os.execute('ping -c1 192.168.1.156')
if ping_success then
print("ping success")
commandArray['Ping']='On'
else
print("ping fail")
commandArray['Ping']='Off'
end
return commandArray
And then just set the output of the code to change the state of a home/away switch
@BulldogLowell said:
Awesome! Thanks
You may want to checkout resources your city may have...the Toronto public library offers really cheap 3D printing services
I've always thought the easiest way to do this would be to detect people's smartphones on the WiFi network...almost everyone already has one and already connects to the WiFi network.
I've seen it discussed before but no one has really proposed any implementations from what I've seen - any ideas? Wouldn't this be easier?
This may be a silly question...but I'm wondering where in the Arduino code you specify whether you want Vera to show the device as blinds, motions sensor, light sensor etc...
Is it just this line "gw.sendSketchInfo("Blinds", "2.0");"
If so, what other things can be used? Is there a way to figure out what commands can be sent with different sensors in Vera?
Thanks!
@BulldogLowell said:
From my experience, the motion sensor sketch works.
Are you sure you have good radio connectivity?
That was the first thing I suspected, They are pretty close to each other and have almost direct line of sight...Maybe 7m (21ft) between the gateway and the node. Maybe I need to add a cap to the radio for the gateway?
I recently build a motion sensor and it doesn't have robust behavior. It seems to work most of the time but not all of the time. Does the motion sensor only send a command once when its state change? e.g. once when it detects motion and then once when the motion stops? If so, I think if the first motion command is not sent, it will not detect motion again until the motion sensor turns off and then back on again. Does this make sense?
How reliable should the sent commands be? I wired the capacitor across the motion sensor ground/3.3V but I didn't do it for my hub - should I put a cap there too??
What is APM? Isn't the maximum one thing connected to either power or ground since there is only one pin for each?
I was thinking about doing something like you do, but was hoping there would be something more elegant. Are you not worried that the bare wires will touch other pins, etc.?
Can you explain this in a bit more detail (both methods), I'm not sure I understand
I'm essentially trying to connect a sensor (motion) and radio to the same VCC or GND pins on the pro mini.
This seems like a silly question...but is there an easy way to connect two or more things to a single pin on the Arduino??
@gregl said:
Cool project!
Just to chuck in some other ideas...
Replace existing pot ( is it stereo? ) with http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/SPIDigitalPot
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10613Replace existing pot with a motorised one..http://www.ebay.com/itm/ALPS-Remote-Motor-Volume-Potentiometer-Control-Adjustment-4CH-50KA/321428122915 ( or similar)
you could probably salvage one of these from an old stereo system...many in the late 80's /90''s had these....
Good thread here:
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=143271.0Keep us posted!
Thanks for the ideas! Replacing the existing pot is probably the simplest thing and what my original plan was...until I realized that the knob and board don't come apart.
WAF-wise I don't want this thing to be unusable for the foreseeable future.
I think I'm still leaning towards the pot in parallel (for its simplicity) or the servo....but the servo will be quite bulky to the little switch!
I'll post some pictures when I get a chance to clear up what exactly I'm trying to do
In the servo example sketch on the site there's no driver board - I guess the Arduino can support certain motors but not others?
Hmm, that's not a bad idea actually. A bit bulkier of a solution but may be easier that dealing with the pots. Thanks for the suggestion!
I wouldn't be opposed to disconnecting the volume knob entirely, but I can't get the PCB off of the knob to remove it. But I can access the bottom of the PCB so I was thinking of just soldering the new pot in parallel (for ease). Ideally I'd be able to remove the original pot.
Thanks for the response. What you're saying definitely makes sense, but I'm hoping to rarely have to touch the analog/physical pot and do most of the controlling digitally (and leave the analog pot on max resistance). Ideally I could disconnect the analog pot entirely, but that may be more difficult to do without breaking the current volume meter.
I think what I'm trying to do is fairly straight forward, but I just wanted to confirm everything makes sense.
Briefly, I'm trying to digitally control the volume of my zone 2 speakers (which is a cheap Creative 5200 speaker system from many many years ago). I want to be able to control it from a remote/vera without having to physically change the volume. Currently, the volume knob is connected by a cable that also control the front/rear balance, and the volume knob also click 'on' when you start turning it.
I can't really get the pot off the board without breaking it (I think), it all seems pretty well jammed together and I don't want to destroy the speakers. I'm thinking of wiring up the pots in parallel, and based on my high school electronics I think this makes sense:
R1 = volume knob (assume 5k)
R2 = digital pot (assume 25k)
If I get a digital pot which is much higher resistance than the volume knob, I think the following will work:
Rt = (1/R1 + 1/R2)^-1
If R1 is max (5000) and R2 is max (25000) the overall resistance is: 4200k which is almost the max volume?
And then if I lower either potentiometer I should lower the volume, so I maintain both analog and digital control.
This will all be wired through an arduino/vera to get the automated control I'm looking for .
Please let me know if this makes sense or if there is another way I should probably go about doing this. Thanks!
I'm not clear on why you need the EasyDriver V44 red board, can't the arduino board control the stepper motor directly?
PS. Setup looks great! Looking forward to seeing the pictures of it all installed and functional!
@korttoma
Sounds cool! Do you have a picture of the physical setup?
This would be really cool and a great alternative to the 200$ SQBlaster, good luck!
Thanks! I've also got a bit of a space constraint so I can't put the stepper motor directly in front of the gear which needs to be driven. Currently, a metal chain causes a wheel to turn which closes/opens the blinds. I was hoping to attach a gear to this wheel and then attach the servo underneath to that gear (if that makes sense).
Is there a good resource to find motors which can be used with gears? Or a place you can recommend to buy the gears themselves?
I'm looking to control my vertical blinds using a stepper motor, an arduino, and the mysensors system. Essentially, all I want the system to do is to run the stepper motor in FWD or REV direction for X amount of time (X amount of revolutions is preferred but I don't know if steppers can do this) and control it using Vera.
Is this doable? It seems pretty simple but I hope I'm not overlooking anything