Hi,
As a newbie i have a simple question :
Is it possible to make a project where 1 AT Mega 2560 would act as master to control 2 UNO's
The project is a timekeeping & and error handling setup for a dogsport competition.
The dogs run in two different lanes against each other, each team has 4 dogs that need to get a ball from a flyball box in the correct way.
The start is given by a referee triggering a light tree (Formula 1 like) first red, yellow, yellow, green.
Once the green light is on, the dogs may pass a double sensorbeam of photoswitches.
The second dog may only enter the lane - sensorbeam "IN" from the moment the first dog crosses the sensorbeam "OUT"
And so on for the remaining two dogs. Those sensorbeams are approx. 4 inch seperated from eachother
|°| |°|
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<<to the box |°| |°| >> waiting dogs
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"OUT" "IN"
If a dog drops a ball or comes back besides the hurdles, a linereferee must be able to switch on a error lamp (RGB LEDstrip),
If a dog enters to soon (thus before the previous dog crossed the "OUT" beam, a white lamp has to go on automaticly AND a specific lamp on the light tree has to go on automaticly as well (1° dog -1° lamp "red", 2° dog - 2° lamp "blue", 3° dog - 3° lamp "yellow", 4° dog - 4° lamp "green"
The goal is that four dogs of one team come in correctly in the fastest possible time (timekeeping) and be faster than the opponent team
Each linereferee has to be able to trigger 5 switches (stop - reset - error dog1 - error dog2 - error dog3 & error dog4)
The general referee has to be able to start a run by RF transmitter
Each line referee table has to be able to see :
The time each dog ran, and the time of the crossings of two dogs
That I would like to do with a 7" TFT screen on each table (2X)
It looks like this
dog1 - 4,013 sec - 0,011 sec
dog2 - 4,136sec - 0,120sec (or "OK" if within 0,12sec)
dog3 - 4,023sec - 0,150sec
dog4 - 4,234sec - 0,230sec
total time 16,917sec of witch 0,511 is crossing time
below is a clip from the dogsport :
For this moment the timekeeping & errorhandling is done mostly by PLC handling and normal E27 bulbs
due to this the installatons are heavy and very power consumming.
The goal for me is to prototype a similar installation that is flexible, light, cheaper and that can opperate "Stand alone" by batterie packs if needed
I'm aware this is fairly complex project for a newbie, but the complexity is also the drive for me to go along with it.
Is it nessecary to work with more than one Arduino on this project, can I connect two UNO's to one AT 2560 mega, or is that not needed (2 TFT screens, 2x 5 switches, 2 8x7segments, 2 light tree's with 5 RGB lamps, 2x 10 photocell sensors, 1x RF receiver)
any good advice would be highly appriciated
Kind regards,
YVes