Control Output Voltage from Computer

Hello everyone,

First off, we have absolutely no idea (yet) on how everything works in terms of electronics. We are software developers and we really need some guidance on building a hardware interface between a computer and a machine.

We need to control an output voltage from the computer varying between 0 and 10 V. We have been digging around over the past few weeks to find out what could be the best option and we have found out (and please correct us if we are mistaken) that using a digital potentiometer coupled with a microcontroller could do the trick.

The best option for us would be to control it from a PC serial port, but we obviously are open to any other advice/idea.

Are we on the right track with the digipot and the microcontroller ? If so, how can we integrate such components to make it work ? Do we really need the digipot or just the microcontroller ? We have seen that most Arduino requires a power source, the machine in question is outputting 24V, could this be sufficient ?

Thank you in advance for the help anyone could provide for this very exciting project (at least for us !),

Jerome & Benoit

A DAC (digital->analog converter) is what you need - there are a bewildering variety of them available, but clearly one that can output 0..10V

However more information is needed - how big a load does it need to drive? How quickly should the output react? What resolution is needed? How accurate? Do you have a power supply to produce at least 10V?

The potentiometer solution has the problem of not being a stiff voltage source - though this might not matter depending on the nature of the load.