Hey Guys,
My apologies if there's a better sub-forum for this kind of question, but I figured Interfacing would be a good start.
I was over at my mom's b/f's house last night helping him get this wire-grid hung from the ceiling. His thought was to have said wire grid (roughly 6'x 10') hang from the ceiling (tall/vaulted) about 2-4 feet and individually hang items to the grid itself. I couldn't help but thinking that it would still require a tall ladder each time you needed to hang or adjust something and it would be a lot easier to be able to somehow lower the wire frame to a reachable height and then raise it once you've attached an item.
Thinking a little further, I figured I could have some sort of pully system (to reduce weight strain) hooked up to some sort of stepper motor or possibly even a group of servos, which in turn would be controlled by an Arduino. Not being super savvy with electronics, I'm not even sure if this is the type of setup I should be looking at!
Ideally I would like to lift up to 75lbs and have it both lower and lift. I would assume this would take servos out of the game almost immediately due to the torque involved, so my next guess would be a stepper motor, or more likely two. I know I could probably buy some giant motors for lots of $$$ and have it work excellently, but budget isn't exactly huge (hopefully around $100 or less). Any ideas? Possible?
Also, I came up with the great idea of adding an Infrared sensor to the uC and set it up to lift/lower with some unutilized buttons on his TV remote for ease of use. I'm sure there are IR Remote classes somewhere on the site, but let me know if there's an easier way to add this feature.
As always, thanks to all who reply!
Edit: Corrected spelling in Subject.