The question in the subject has a strong "deja vu" feeling ... oh yes, here it is. http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,164024.msg1224850.html#msg1224850
Same discussion about not using delay(), and applogies for being "new" ....

No one gets treated "like an idiot" here (OK, some peoples sense of funny/sarcasm can be inappropiate). There is a distinction between being a "newbie" (new, eager to learn, improve, explores on his/her own) and "noob" (new, remains new, learns nothing, expects the full solution to all problems in full and immediatly). To encourage the learning the answer is like "this line is wrong", because it is missing or has a missplaced, a syntactic necessary ";".

If the program "uploads and runs correctly", why is there a need to continue asking ?  (note the smiley)

Du er svært hvis ikke umuligt at vælge en motor med "noget af et tryk" som mål på hvor stærk den skal være. Hvis du ikek kan måle så vælg en (billig) motor og hvis den ikke er stærk nok så ved du hvor meget stærkere den næste skal være.

Hvis du har besluttet dig for en stepper, så er det nemmest med en motor shield. Jeg har brugt både den her http://store.arduino.cc/eu/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11&products_id=124 (samme fås her http://www.adafruit.com/products/81) og/eller den her http://reprap.me/Pololu/Stepstick/en (som enda er et lille dansk firma, priser/bestilling i DKK tilgængligt)

Adjust the delay value and the Setps2Take until it moves the way you want to.

I have no idea what LED is blinking. It is not in this sketch's control.

Good! What problems are left?

Både Servo og Stepper kunne gøre det, men en Servo er normalt ikke så stærk, men muligvis stærk nok til bare at dreje en lås ... det afhænger jo af låsen. Og du kan med Arduinoen styre hastighed og position nøjagtigt nok med enten Stepper eller Servo.

Kan du på nogen måde måle hvor stor drejning du skal have? (F.eks. monter en vandret pin på låsen, og put lidt vægt på enden, indtil den kan dreje låsen. Vej "vægten" du lagde på (kan jo være hvadsomhelst) og divder det med længden så kan du se hvad Kg/cm drejningsmoment du behover.)

Hvis du mener en Servo motor (3 ledninger) så behøver du ikke noget ekstra. Signal ledningen tager ingen strøm, så den kan du sætte direkte i Arduinoen. Så skal du far en ekstern forsyning kobble 6V (det er den typiske spændning for servo motorer) på Plus og Minus ledningen. Sidst men ikke mindst, skal du forbinde minus/Ground ledningen til en af Arduinoens GND pin (der er 3 af dem på en almindelig UNO). Så kan du skrive en sketch med #include <Servo.h> (der er enda et grydeklart eksempel i File, Examples)

Men hvis du mener en Stepper (kommer med 4,5,6 eller sommetider 8 ledninger) skal der noget ekstra til. 5 eller 6 lednings versionerne som er Unipolar, kan du klare dig med 4 transistorer eller Logiske-MOSFETer. Ellers med Bipolar steppere skal der faktisk 2 H-bridges. En MotorShield  indeholder typisk en fin chip skræddersyet til at køre Steppere, det gør Sketchen nemmere og giver mulighed for fin microstepping.

Og jo jeg har prøvet alle kombinationer.

The diagram of the shield shows it uses pins 2 thru 10; meaning 11, 12, 13 and all the A0 to A5 are free for your sensors. (A0 and A5 can be analog or digital).

I do not understand what you are asking with "goal is to have all of the EL panels/lights to turn on simultaneously due motion" or if that is a question.

this is not working like I had hoped.

I do not know what you had hoped for. I do not know what actually happened. Perhaps you can provide a little more description....

Now I can GUESS that the pin 13 you toggle up/down is the "step" pin to the controller. And another pin (12?) sets the direction. Your comment on the pause is partially correct - there is a maximum speed of the stepper, and the pause sends them slow enough.

Your 2nd program code does first a number of steps to one motor. Then another large number of steps to the other. Could you send a step pulse to both motors in the same loop, perhaps? (Well yes I know the answer, but you try it ) And I presume (I still have to GUESS as you haven't described anything) that the first motor just keeps turning. When or where does "toc" change, which is what controls the duration of the first loop?

Just looking at the words in the subject heading - NO. A servo needs pulses, too fast for a relay.

Good luck withthe project as described in your post. Just getting the thing watertight and have neutral boyancy so a elevator/rudder will work is going to be fun.

I have not (yet) experimented with the "absolute" positioning accuracy of servos. Consider that they really were meant as part of a system where a human operator constantly adjusts it - not beause of the position the servo has taken, but the effect it has (eg on the model airplane). Absolute or linear accuracy is therefore not needed.

I have had a similar problem driving a big analog meter with PWM. It did not respond linearily (presumably some resonace effect between the coil, the mechancs and the 400Hz PWM). I therefore manualy noted the PWM value that would place it at some points, and when driving it used the values as lookups with a linear interpolation between. Worked for me. You could try the same approach.

Without some more description on what the tensile test instrument does, hard to suggest.

Could be a simple optical fork / optical gate that monitors where the test element disappears. Could be a ultrasonic range sensor that notices the test element has moved. Could be a optical reflecting sensor that does (almost) the same. Could be some wire connections (via small spring loaded contacts) that then detectet where the circuit has broken (if the test material is conductive)

[attach]

rest of code to follow

Instead of doing several posts with a fraction of the program in each, attach the whole file. At the bottom when you write your post, "Additional options" ...

Without bruit force comparing each individual element in an array

That is the ONLY way of doing it. You may in some other languages have a constrct like if ( Array1 == Array2) or such like, but that is just a language feature, to save on typing. Behind the scenes the processor can only compare two numbers at one time. In other words, you have to do something like

Code:

// (untested code)
for ( n=1; n<ARRAYLENGTH; n++)
  if ( array1[n] != array1[0] ) break ;
// if ( n> ARRAYLENGTH ) all elements where the same.

You will probably never get all elements the same as the ADC has a +/- 1bit "noise/random" error, so if they are +/- 2 of the same value, it is steady state. Maybe even +/- 10 or 25 to account for noise variations in your sensor. I usually average a few measuring points.

unzuza: just in case you do not understand - "CrossPosting" is the bad practice of posting the same question in more than one forum.

It is bad, because different people answer in each thread, and noone gets the benefit of seeing each others answers. Often one persons answers can inspire another to a better answer. It is also bad because it gets confusing if a person answers in one thread, and then an hour/day later ses the same question again, causing them to wonder if they are having a dejavu, lost their marbles, or the forum has lost the thread and wasting their time findingwhat  they have answered before. Time they could spend answering a question.

If you are worried about being in the wrong forum (is this a programming or motor-driver problem, f.ex) just pick one of them. If you guessed completly wrong a moderator may move it. Most people get it right most of the time, if they just spend a moment thinking what question it is they are asking.

Do not crosspost (asking the same question more than once). You'll only irritate more than than speeding up getting an answer, and getting yourself ignored in the future. http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,148850.0.html - point 13.

I am unable to read the attached PDFs - Says they are corrupted.

What are the digits displaying? Like What do you expect "1234" what do you get f.ex "2222"