Both the Easydriver and Pololu boards are tiny, my Easydriver measures 20mm x 50 mm. A Nema 17 size stepper is only 42mm wide. Little Bird Electronics is an Australian source for everything you would need. http://www.littlebirdelectronics.com/

I would suggest  the easiest and fastest route to your goal would be an Easydriver board board available from Sparkfun. It is for small motors (.75A per coil) but it is well documented on various sites. Sparkfun also sells a small motor that works well with it. A larger motor would require a driver with more capacity like some inexpensive ones by Pololu. The Playground section of this site has plenty of info to get you started.

There's a good tutorial with code examples for the shift register here:http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ShiftOut

Welcome to the forum Pman! Yes, it can be a great hobby. I've had my Arduino for just a few months and came to it with practically no programming experience (just a little Basic back in the Commodore64 days). Just start with the easy blinking led stuff and work your way up. It can be a bit frustrating at first but once you're over the initial "hump" it starts making more sense and the learning comes more quickly. I got a lot from LadyAda's tutorials. To start I just got a breadboard some resistors and led's as well as a cheap multimeter and that kept me going for quite a while until I learned what else I needed. Good luck!

What exactly is a "personal jet device"?????

Welcome Darrion! To get started you will need an Arduino board, a computer and lots of time and patience unless you already have a strong programming background. You will also need a prototyping board, a few electronic components such as resistors and LED's. Once you feel comfortable with the basics of flashing LED's etc. you will want to obtain a motor control board and motors if you want to control cars. I would reccomend Adafruit Industries http://www.adafruit.com/ or Sparkfun http://www.sparkfun.comas a good source both for hardware and tutorials. Read all you can and ask questions on the forums. Just be aware that all this takes time and effort and your goal of using a Wiimote to control a car will be some ways in the future. I got into using the Arduino about 3 months ago with the goal of creating a simple linear positioning system and I'm now only about halfway there but I've learned a great deal in the process. The learning curve can be frustrating at times but when you get something working it feels really great! Good luck to you.

You should look at RS-485 for that distance. Here's one thread on the topic: http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1270227591

Actually, for safety's sake I would go with a 24 volt system. Relays and transformers for 24 V are readily available and not terribly expensive. 24 V systems are widely used in industry for control systems (motor contactors etc.).

Something like this should work fine:
http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=18194+RL

Well, I worked hard all week and finally got my sketch to do what I want.
Many thanks to Korman. I'm sure it could be done in a more elegant manner and would appreciate if any of you could take the time to look at it and critique it for me.

Code:

/*This sketch reads a numbers from a 4x4 matrix keypad using either decimal
or fractional entry and returns a value in thousandths of an inch. */

#include <Keypad.h>

const byte ROWS = 4; //four rows
const byte COLS = 4; //four columns
char keys[ROWS][COLS] = {
  {'7','8','9','A'},
  {'4','5','6','B'},
  {'1','2','3','C'},
  {'0','.','e','/'},
};
byte rowPins[ROWS] = {5, 4, 3, 2}; //connect to the row pinouts of the keypad
byte colPins[COLS] = {9, 8, 7, 6,}; //connect to the column pinouts of the keypad

Keypad keypad = Keypad( makeKeymap(keys), rowPins, colPins, ROWS, COLS );
long value = 0;                    //value in thousandths of an inch
int dec_switch = 0;                //0=integer entry, 1=decimal entry, 2=fractional entry
int dec_place = 0;                 //tracks decimal place
int frac_switch = 0;               //switches to fraction mode
int numerator;                     //numerator value
int denominator;                   //denominator value
float frac_value;                  //calculated decimal value of fraction

void setup(){
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop(){
  char key = keypad.getKey();      //read keypad
  
  
  switch (key){
        case NO_KEY:
      // No key read. Do nothing
      break;

        case '0': case '1': case '2': case '3': case '4':
        case '5': case '6': case '7': case '8': case '9':
      
        //Serial.print (key);
        
        if (frac_switch  == 1){                        //prints and evaluates numerator
          numerator = numerator * 10 + key - '0';      //prints and evaluates denominator
          Serial.print (key);
          }
        if (frac_switch  == 2){                        //prints and evaluates denominator
          denominator = denominator * 10 + key - '0';
          Serial.print (key);
          }  
                      
        if ( dec_switch == 0 ){                        //prints and evaluates integer
        value = value * 10 + key - '0';
          Serial.print (key);
        }        
        else if ( dec_switch == 1 && dec_place < 3){    //prints and evaluates decimal
        value = value * 10 + key - '0';
          dec_place = dec_place + 1;
          Serial.print (key);
        
        }
        else if (dec_switch == 1 && dec_place == 3) {  //prevents entering extra decimal places
          Serial.println ();
          Serial.print ("Entry complete. Press Enter");
        }
                        
        break;

        case 'e':
      // Enter key
        if (frac_switch == 1){                          //multiplier for fractional value
          value = value * 1000;
                  
        }

      
        if (frac_switch == 0 && dec_place == 0){      
          Serial.print (".000");                         //prints decimal placeholder
          value = value * 1000;                          //multiplier for integer only decimal value
        }
        else if (frac_switch == 0 && dec_place == 1){  
            Serial.print ("00");                        //prints decimal placeholder  
            value = value * 100;                        //multiplier for decimal place
            
        }
        else if (frac_switch == 0 && dec_place == 2){
            Serial.print ("0");                          //prints decimal placeholder
            value = value * 10;                          //multiplier for decimal place    
        }
        if (frac_switch == 2) {
          frac_value = (float)numerator/denominator;     //calculates value of fraction
          value = (value + frac_value) * 1000;           //multiplier for decimal place  
        }
        
        
        
          
        
              Serial.println ();
              Serial.print ("The current value is: ");
              Serial.print (value);
              Serial.print (" thousandths.");
              Serial.println ();
              //Serial.println (numerator);
              //Serial.println (denominator);
              //Serial.print  (frac_value);
              //Serial.println ();
      

      // Reset values. The last number is done
      value = 0;      
        dec_switch = 0;
        dec_place = 0;
        frac_switch = 0;
        numerator = 0;
        denominator = 0;
        frac_value = 0;
        
        break;
        
        case '.':                          
        dec_switch = 1;                  //switches to decimal mode
        Serial.print (".");              //prints decimal point
        break;
        
        case '/':
          if (frac_switch == 0){
          Serial.print ("-");            
          frac_switch = 1;
          dec_switch = 2;
          }
          else if (frac_switch == 1){
            Serial.print ("/");          
            frac_switch = 2;
          }
      
           break;

          
        
        
      
        
        
        
    default:
      // All other keys
      Serial.println ();
      Serial.print ("Criminy! Don't press key '");
      Serial.print (key);
      Serial.println ("'! Another ");
      Serial.print (value);
      Serial.println (" puppies died in China.");

      // Reset value. The last number is done
      value = 0;
  }
}
 

While I'm waiting for my LCD display to arrive I will work on some routines to prevent entry of invalid data but I would like to make sure I've got the basic sketch in its best form first.
Thanks again.

Greg

Thank you Korman. I'm not sure that completely answers my question but it gives me a new approach to the problem (I've never used the "case/break" function before). Now I will have to ponder this and move on to the next step which will be to add the decimal portion of the value.

Best regards,
Greg

I'm totally confounded! I keep looking at it but can't understand why "key" would not be a different value each time through the loop.
If I describe how I see the logic perhaps someone could point out my erroneous thinking. Bear with me.
When a key is hit the variable "key" is set to that key.
The "if" statement tests to see that "key" is not an unpressed key nor an "e"
We then serial.print "key" (up to this point everything works fine)
let's say the first key entered is 2
1st loop:  i=0, key=2 so value=value*2+key=0+2
2nd loop: i=1, key=3, so value=value*10+key=20+3=23
3rd loop:  i=2, key=4, so value=value*10 +key=23+4=234
I hit "e" and and expect to print 234 but instead I print 11211.

Obviously I don't understand the logic.  :-X

Yes, I need to learn better form. I'll work on that  .
The bit with the powers of ten is an attempt to implement Korman's code (post #5 above). Obviously I don't understand it fully.

OK. I've finally found some time to play with this and here is what I have so far (using Korman's code snippet):

Code:

#include <Keypad.h>

const byte ROWS = 4; //four rows
const byte COLS = 4; //four columns
char keys[ROWS][COLS] = {
  {'7','8','9','A'},
  {'4','5','6','B'},
  {'1','2','3','C'},
  {'0','.','e','D'},
};
byte rowPins[ROWS] = {5, 4, 3, 2}; //connect to the row pinouts of the keypad
byte colPins[COLS] = {9, 8, 7, 6,}; //connect to the column pinouts of the keypad

Keypad keypad = Keypad( makeKeymap(keys), rowPins, colPins, ROWS, COLS );
int value = 0;

void setup(){
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop(){
  char key = keypad.getKey();              
  if (key != NO_KEY && key != 'e')        
  Serial.print (key);                            //prints input digit
  {
    
     for (int i = 3; i != 0; i--) {              //shifts digits to left
     value = value * 10 + key;
  
} if (key == 'e'){                               //prints value
      Serial.println ();
      Serial.print (value);
      Serial.println ();}
   }
}

It displays the digits as I type them but when I hit "e" I get a result of '11211' no matter what was entered previously.  

Ok. That makes sense. I will play with this and see what I come up with. I noticed you declared the variable as an integer but I'm thinking I need to use a long to get the resolution I need. Does that change anything? (the values I will be inputting will be between 0.000 and 199.999)