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[on:]

I'm trying to get a single aircore gauge to sweep to a single point and back.
I bought my first arduino and adafruit stepper motor shield expecting thier to be a stepper motor in my car instrument cluster but soon lernt i was wrong.
I'm new to this and would appreciate any information.
Can the motor shield be used to drive the aircore?  Either as an aircore or using something like a stepper code?
I know the L293d IC can be used to power the gauge and the motorshield has 2, should I just pull the chip and do it on breadbord?

http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/2531/l293d.png

Any sketches etc would be great.

andrew

[Reply #1 on:]

I've never used an air core, but here is a video of someone's air core and Arduino project that might be helpful. .
According to Wikipedia, there are four kinds of air core gauges. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_core_gauge.

There are four common types of rotary actuators [2]:

    Physical gauges, in which the needle is attached directly to the value being measured; for example, a mechanical pressure gauge
    Analog volt meters or d'Arsonval movements, which consist of a coil and a permanent magnet
    Stepper motors, which move in one-notch increments or steps
    Air-core motors, as described below

Do you know which one you have?  Also, do you have a datasheet or any specs on the gauge? 

[Reply #2 on:]

My project is only to do a single sweep on one needle on a car cluster like

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/utS6capLI3c" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I've measured the sine and cosine coils at 140ohms each I just need to know how to drive them with the arduino and motorshield I bought.
The other option to me is to power the cluster just like the ecu and speedo would but this is all sent via k-line and CAN, even more difficult for me.

Cheers so far