What about a servo. (continuous rotation)  It probably can't tell me if it's quit rotating, either.  I'm thinking of going the servo route.  If I give the command for my servo to make 2 revolutions and then detach the servo after a delay, and it only goes 1 1/2 revolutions, will this be a problem?  ...I mean, it won't hurt the servo

The LCD displays using the original Hitachi HD44780 controller and all of its derivatives use the same 14-pin interface.  I can't think of any reason why this, or any other hardware/software combination written for this Hitachi interface will not work with your display.  You will have to deal with the backlight separately, and it may require more wires, but unless you want it to be under software control you won't need to use any additional Arduino pins.

Don

Thanks!

Can I replace the SN74LS164N in this project
http://code.google.com/p/arduinoshiftreglcd/
 with this one from SparkFun:  74HC595
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/733

 The pins on the datasheets make it look like the same thing, just different pinouts.

This looks great!  Seems that with 1 chip I can use 2 pins instead of 6. 

http://code.google.com/p/arduinoshiftreglcd/


Does it work with this LCD?  Will the backlight be turned on?  I don't need control to turn it on/off, just so it'll be on if I use the shiftreg.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150559228086#ht_2942wt_759

Is it possible to tell if a stepper motor has 'reached the end of the track' and is no longer turning whatever it was turning, thus giving you the ability to turn off power to it?

How?  Do I change the value for total number of steps my motor has, tricking it into thinging it takes more or is there a better way?

Would it be easy/possible to modify this great example on a stepper motor, so that the motor would make 3 complete revolutions with the full range of a 10K POT instead of one?

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/MotorKnob

Ah yes, seems like that's a fly by or flyback diode...
something like a 1N4448, or does it need to handle more power like a 1n4006?
thanks

This relay is rated at 5v, 30 mA on the coil, so can it be connected directly to an i/o  pin on my board?
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/524

...Ok, I reread - you want the connectors to be accessible so you plug in direcytly.
I would go with soldering to the bottom of the board at the jack itself then, the metal the jack pin will keep all that current from having to go thru the board traces as well.

Good idea, I think I'll do the careful soldering.  ...about the anodized aluminum box-enclosure- it doesn't matter that it will touch the USB casing.  ...and the DC jack is plastic, so it won't be touching...

Sure enough, here it is:

VIN. The input voltage to the Arduino board when it's using an external power source (as opposed to 5 volts from the USB connection or other regulated power source). You can supply voltage through this pin, or, if supplying voltage via the power jack, access it through this pin.

I want to mount my Uno in a nice Aluminum enclosure, with the DC jack and USB port sticking through the rear panel.  I will power it with a 12VDC wall wart.
My question is, I'm needing 12VDC on some other circuitry inside my enclosure (to run a sollenoid), so is there any reason why I can't carefully solder a wire to to back of the DC Jack on the Uno, to tap off the 12V coming in?  (There's no real place on the board to get this power, is there?)thanks

Yes there is a place. When the board is being powered by the external power connector, that voltage is then available on the Vin pin of the arduino power shield connector to be used for external components rated to use that voltage, +12vdc in your case.

However the first thing you have to determine is what the current demand for your solenoid is? There is a series polarity protection diode between the external power connectors positive terminal and the Vin pin and it probably has a 1 amp maximum current rating. Your external power module also has to have a maximum current rating sufficient to power the arduino board and all other external components being powered.

Lefty

GREAT!  I was wondering about that Vin Pin...  My solenoid is 575 mA. So I'll be fine up to 1 AMP, then...  I want to see if I can find something on this Vin Pin in the datasheet.

I want to mount my Uno in a nice Aluminum enclosure, with the DC jack and USB port sticking through the rear panel.  I will power it with a 12VDC wall wart.
My question is, I'm needing 12VDC on some other circuitry inside my enclosure (to run a sollenoid), so is there any reason why I can't carefully solder a wire to to back of the DC Jack on the Uno, to tap off the 12V coming in?  (There's no real place on the board to get this power, is there?)
thanks

Thanks. 
This cleared it up, after you used the word dereference.  Never heard of any of this, but I kinda understand, now.
http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/pointers/

Trying to understand how to store 5 long numbers in the EEPROM, I'm looking at this page:

Code:

http://arduino.cc/playground/Code/EEPROMLoadAndSaveSettings

I think I follow it all until I get to this line in Void LoadConfig()

Code:

*((char*)&storage + t) = EEPROM.read(CONFIG_START + t);

Is storage an array?  What's with the beginning *  --can't find anything on it in the code reference.