I'm working on some animatronics for an art installation which will use several stepper motors and some high-power LEDs. In the past when I have done this sort of thing I have used a tethered computer to handle the logic and timing. For this project I would like to try making it self-contained (e.g. just the Arduino board). For Arduino hardware, I have an Arduino Mega and could expand it with an SD card shield for more storage, if need be.
I'd really welcome any ideas or suggestions on how to approach this (and am not asking for code).
For the data, essentially I would be storing cues for each stepper and each LED. And of course I would need some kind of clock or timestamp to keep track of things.
A stepper cue would be something like:
- cue start time
- stepper ID
- stepper direction
- stepper speed
- number of steps
An LED cue would be something like:
- cue start time
- LED ID
- Start brightness
- End brightness
- duration
So what I am wondering about:
- ideas about a data format compact enough to store lots of cues
- any suggestions for a clock or timestamp. (A simple counter is the obvious choice)
As for just how many cues/how much data, since I am just beginning this, I will work within whatever limits I bump up against.