Hi,

Would, say, a touch-activated switch at each end of the full travel to act as a stop signal work? This might give control at 0 and 30cm.

In addition, what if the toy wheel without the motor have pegs or paddles on them that can flick a rod which acts as a switch from 0 to 5v. There are two of them so you might be able to get the Arduino to count "clicks" forward and backwards, that way it could know approx where it is, with the end stops to reset the counting of clicks to 30 or 0. See attachment - it's a bad drawing. The pegs should be equally spaced and the spring looks like a bit of string, but it gives an idea of what I mean.

Hi,

I'm a newbie too and I've been thinking about your project. It sounds like one of those Mythbuster-type problems you see on the discovery channel, where they test McGyver episodes for realism etc...

If I wanted to build a cheap thing that moves a lightweight rod I would use a setup like in this attachment, I've seen the Mythbuster guys do this. You would need to play with the spacing of the free rolling wheels and maybe support the rod more. You might need thin tyres on the wheels to provide friction. I used some simple code from this site to play around with a toy motor:
http://ardx.org/CODE03. I'm not an expert but I think you can modify the code to have it gradually start up and gradually slow down. As someone said a stepper motor might be good but I don't know what to do with that.

 I also thought you could gear the motor so you can control things more easily or make the so called free-rolling wheels less free-rolling so they are semi-braked (technical term )  a bit like driving with the parking brake half on, when you take your foot of the accelerator and put the clutch in,  you don't free-roll.

Anyway that's all I can think of right now. Hope it helps.



Good luck

Sorry I botched that URL

here it is again:

http://www.oomlout.co.uk/starter-kit-for-arduino-ardx-p-183.html

I just started out with Arduino too (about 4 weeks ago) I got a bread board kit from Oomlout [url][http://www.oomlout.co.uk/starter-kit-for-arduino-ardx-p-183.html]. I found it useful because I don't know much electronics and have a bit of Java under my belt, which helps with the Arduino IDE side of things. It comes with lots of experiments and all the bits. There is a version without and Arduino too I believe - if you've already got one.

Cheers

Many Thanks madworm that's really helpful.

I can move forward again now.

Hi,

I made a circuit board and populated it with a minimal Arduino design from Oomlout (schematic attached). I am programming it using the Arduino environment (022 Alpha) and a FTDI TTL-232R-3V3 usb to TTL serial cable 3.3/5v . It works fine with the Duemilanove chip, although I have to press reset again after clicking upload to board - a workaround I found on the Arduino troubleshooting guide. I switched chips to one with an Uno bootloader (328-pu)  chnged boards in Arduino environment but did not work, even pressing reset after upload did not work. I couldn't find anything else on the troubleshooting page . LED blinking on board ok, error message in Aduino IDE is stk_500getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00 and stk500_disable: protocol error, expect=0x14, resp 0x51

can anyone please help?
Below is my system spec also - Thanks....

OS Name   Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Version   6.0.6002 Service Pack 2 Build 6002
System Manufacturer   Dell Inc.
System Model   Studio 540
System Type   X86-based PC
Processor   Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad  CPU   Q8200  @ 2.33GHz, 2336 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date   Dell Inc. 1.0.6, 03/11/2008
SMBIOS Version   2.5
Hardware Abstraction Layer   Version = "6.0.6002.18005"
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)   4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory   3.00 GB
Available Physical Memory   1.55 GB
Total Virtual Memory   6.21 GB
Available Virtual Memory   4.30 GB
Page File Space   3.29 GB

Hi,

I have been playing around with conductive fabric and smart materials from this Educational website:


http://www.mindsetsonline.co.uk/index.php?cPath=16_574

They have a conductive lycra which I havn't tried but looks interesting. Maybe it could be incoporated into a matrix of natural latex rubber solution, the type you get from arts and craft suppliers

Many thanks for the link

that website is brilliant for all sorts of stuff

Hi All,


I have an old Nokia 6210 (not the Navigator type).  I would like to use it with an Arduino. Do I have to buy a cable or can I just hack the pins on the outside of the phone. This thing is ancient and free so I don't mind breaking it apart and soldering it etc.. Which pins do what I guess the main question is?

I would love to turn this dinosaur into a usable gsm modem   

Cheers

Thanks,

I understand better now.

I'll use 4.7 or 10k resistors on my buttons unless directed otherwise by designs or datasheets.

Thanks that's really helpful!

Just out of curiosity, why don't we use diodes instead?

I tried these pull-up / pull-down cicuits on a simulator with 10Meg resistors and they still work. So then I thought a diode could replace the large resistor and
it still worked.

mmm....?

Hi from Uk,

I'm new to Arduino, but had a similar idea to yours. I want to use gsm system to monitor conditions and alarms in my remote vegetable garden (allotment) and storehouse (shed).

I found this tutorial on an Arduino shield. It looks useful, but I am not sure. Worth a look though.

http://tronixstuff.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/tutorial-arduino-and-gsm-cellular-part-one/

Cheers

No need,

I found one here when looking at a previous reply on a different subject:



http://www.thebox.myzen.co.uk/Tutorial/Inputs.html

Hi,

can anyone direct me to a user friendly tutorial / help on these? How do I choose between the two types and what sizes of ohms etc..

Thanks for the tip.

Would it be better to use 2x 3.7v mobile phone batteries I have (1400 mAh each) to give 7.4v?

I think I should mean current as opposed to power so I can do: mAh / Uno_board_ current_consumption (including regulator)

Would the regulator use a lot at 7.4v?