I have been plugging away at a project off and on since the beginning of the year. I started with zero knowledge of coding and have accomplished some of what I need, or precursors to what I need but am ready to look at paying someone to get me where I need to go.
I would like rf style transmission (needs to go throughout a house and can't be direct line of sight) from a transmitter to a receiver. The transmitter will have a 360 degree potentiometer with a push switch that will move a stepper motor on the receiver clockwise or counterclockwise, the switch will turn a light on the receiver that will stay on for a minute or two then turn off. The receiver end will send a camera feed(esp32cam is what I have now) back to a small display on the transmitter.
Hopefully that makes sense. I have been able to turn the light on and off with button pushes, send the esp32cam feed to a web location that can be viewed from a browser, I can move the stepper motor each direction based on button pushes. I can send simple small commands via nrf24 (I think thats the one) transceivers. I can't get stepper movement via the transceiver. I am hoping to use boards smaller than unoR3 and have a variety of them I have been tinkering with. I can get into more specifics if this seems up your alley. Feel free to ask questions and/or let me know your rate. Not sure what is fair as I am not in the field.
If you have WiFi going from the transmitter to the receiver, why do you also need nrf24?
The transmitter will need to be pretty advanced to handle the video stream - an RPi or miniPC would probably be more suited. You could have a touch screen with a virtual interface for your "360 degree potentiometer" and switch.
I would go for a Python app on the transmitter on a computer of some sort (RPi probably would work) and would also consider to separate the receivers - a dedicated ESP32CAM for the video feed and another ESP32 for driving the motor and light.
It would be nice and simple if this solution would work, but the camera will be fixed on the receiving end and the motor will rotate a separate piece. I need to be able to see what the motor has rotated in order to know when to stop it or to fine tune/adjust it. Thank you though.
Do you want to do that through programming (ie analyse the video stream to know when you've reached a given position) or it's just a visual feedback to let you move the potentiometer around?
The reason I have it currently configured the way I do now is because that is what seemed like the way I could do it through self education, googling, and forum searching. I am not necessarily committed to this setup. I started attempts with pi pico w and pi zero w boards but found the micropython difficult to understand and produce any results and so I switched to the arduino platform. My latest attempt has one board in the remote controller/video screen end and esp32cam and a microcenter nano knockoff board.
If the communication between transmitting and receiving end could go over wifi directly between boards (without needing to use/know existing home wifi/router) that would be fine. I want it to be completely independent and not need home based internet/wifi in order to function.
A small touch screen and virtual interface would be acceptable. I looked at my part and it is a rotary encoder, not a 360 potentiometer.
OK.
Then open up the enclosure and separate the motor pan/tilt assembly and the camera.
Put the camera in a fixed location and put whatever it is you want to rotate on the motor assembly. You will still have control over the motor if the camera isn't physically mounted on it.