DuaneDegn:
You post reminded me of an earlier thread I still had open in my browser. I see you're already aware of it.
I know the other thread has links to some documentation on these sorts of protocols, but it would probably be a good idea to add links here to the devices you want to use.
I'd think you'd want to use an Arduino with multiple UARTs such as a Mega. RS485 driver ships are pretty easy to come by. Converting RS485 to/from RS232 shouldn't be hard. It's just a matter of having the right chips.
What sort of input device were you thinking of?
I recently worked on some joystick/servo code and I used this joystick to control a little pan/tilt gizmo.
The code I used (and a links to a couple videos showing the code in action) can be found here.
Other control options were discussed in this thread.
I'm not sure what sort of option you have I think it's really nice to be able to use the joystick to control either the position of the camera or the speed of the camera.
Do you have an Arduino in mind for this project? As I mentioned earlier, I think you want an Arduino with multiple serial ports.
For the input, I'm using a CCTV security DVR system which is designed to control PTZ security cameras via RS485 using the Pelco-D protocol. There is a web interface which has a menu that allows you to control the camera(s) via the computer keyboard.
I'm planning to use the Arduino Mega 2650, since it has 4 UARTs on board, which will allow me to use a MAX485 module to receive the Pelco protocol RS485 commands from the CCTV security DVR system on one UART, translate the Pelco commands to Sony's VISCA protocol and send that out a different UART via a MAX232 to control the Sony VISCA PTZ camera (EVI-D30).
Yes, I know that it would be simpler to just buy a camera that can understand Pelco over RS485, but I already own several of the Sony EVI-D30 VISCA PTZ cameras, and really want get them working. There is one user on the Blog called "Sathopper" who posted part of the code (just the part that decodes the Pelco commands), but he never got around to posting the full Arduino sketch with the code that controls the Sony VISCA cameras, and I have not been able to locate any e-mail address or other contact information for him.
Any help anyone can provide that gets me closer to the solution would be most sincerely appreciated, as I'm a hardware guy, who struggles with the programming part.
Thanks!!