I have a photobooth that I have a mannequin on a turn table. I push a button and it rotates 1/8 of a turn and I take a picture. Repeat and so on until the 360 degrees is done.
What my goal is, is to have a continuous bar code scanner hooked up to the Arduino, it read bar codes along the turn table each 1/8 turn and each scan makes the camera take a picture. I will have a large push button to start the process. guessing that will be a latching relay inline with the AC power going into the turn table. And I would like one last barcode scan to have a different value to somehow interrupt the power to the latching relay. Not sure how that circuit is best done. I'm new to Arduinos and coding, electronics in general but not afraid to dig into it. I just bought a super starter kit off Amazon to try and get immersed into it and will continue down the road to get what I need done with this project. Just figured someone out there with circuit knowledge help point me in the right direct. Think the hardest part will be figuring out the barcode portion with the coding. Thanks for any help.
Reading barcodes sounds like something that would be far easier with a raspberry pi, but that aside, this isn't a difficult project, although using a webcam with a pi, this would be a one-afternoon project.
What mechanism uses a barcode to trigger taking a photograph?
On the periphery of the table mount a series of targets. These could be magnets to trigger hall sensors or reflectors for light activated sensing, or even cams which actuate microswitches. In any case, for the home position mount only one target. Mount targets for the seven remaining positions but place them lower than the home target.
Mount two sensors such that they'll detect the targets as the table turns, one higher than the other. Let's say the upper sensor detects home and the lower sensor detects the seven other positions.
Under program control a pushbutton could -
a: start the motor and run it until home is sensed if the table is not already at home.
b: start the motor and trigger a photo at each lower sensor position, trigger a photo at the home position, stop the motor.
You could easily do this with a rotary encoder and a switch (possibly reed) as an indicator of the home position. The reason for the switch is if you lose power you can easily recalabrate home position. With the encoder you can change the amount turned at will and you have feedback that it is actually moving. Some turn tables have a timing strip you could also use that.
Thanks guys for the good info/ideas. I think I'm looking at scrapping the barcode idea and either going with just a hall effect sensor as the switch to trigger the camera shutter switch and may another sensor at a lower or higher position to trigger the stoppage of the turn table. I have to look at the rotary encoders more to make sure I don't want to go that route.