I am involved in a project where I need to build a page turning device. The design I chose involves the use of a unipolar stepper motor that is connected to a Adafruit Motor Shield which communicates with an Arduino Uno controller. I have designed the device so that the stepper motor turns a full rotation when a foot switch/pedal is depressed. I am not experiecing any difficulties in configuring the stepper motor with the motor shield/Uno combo, but I do have some questions on how to take input from the pedal.
The idea was to use this pedal (this is not exactly like my pedal, but close http://www.ionaudio.com/products/details/drum-rocker-double-kick-expansion-kit) that was included with an electronic drum kit of mine; this pedal hooks into a 3.5mm male audio cable insert (male from breakout cables>female on pedal) that is connected to a breakout cable sort of system (like this, but with 3.5mm plugs: http://www.sweetwater.com/images/items/350/ModSnakeTRSM.jpg). I do have a pretty solid understanding of electronics and circuit design, but I have no idea how this pedal sends a control signal that can be used to trigger a sound in the drum controller. I would like to configure this pedal to work with the Uno as a form of input for initiating a full revolution of the stepper motor when the pedal is pressed.
Do any of you know how I could take the analog input from this electronic drum kit pedal (whatever type of signal transmission method it happens to be), interface it with the arduino Uno, and address the input while developing the script in the Arduino IDE?
Thanks.