I will jump right in. first post. no idea of protocol. i want to build a watch winder for my brother. at the least it should rotate 360 degrees 650 times in 24 hours, and then turn off! there are many other desirable traits, turning clockwise then alternating counter clock wise, stopping at a certain position etc. i am reasonably skillied with a soldering iron. at least as intelligent as my nine year old son but am very weak in programming.
can this possibly be an Arduino project? and could i get enough programming guidance to make this work? i can build the mechanical device, i am not concerned with money or cost, but making it start and stop is a mystery. this would be an excellent diversion from Audio Amplifiers, so will some one hold my hand?
A continuous rotation "servo" and a limit switch.
Any DC motor and a limit switch.
An ordinary servo and 1:2 gearing.
All doable on an Arduino.
A stepper motor seems overkill.
Is this one of the boxes to move automatic watches to keep them running? If so, this is a fairly easy project to start with. The biggest question is how you plan to move the watches. If 180 degree movements forth and back would be sufficient, the easiest way would be to get a hobby RC servo. Then you will need no additional hardware besides the Arduino and the servo. Use the Servo library included in the Arduino package.
If you really need a 360 degree movement, you will need some kind of motor (any will do) and a circuit to drive it. Motorshields offer this ready to use, but you can do it on your own. If you use a DC motor, you can do it with a transistor because it runs in only one direction, you won't even need a full H-bridge. Look for the solenoid or motor tutorial on how to do this.
The internal clock is precise enough to be used reliably as a watch, but for not moving things for a day, it's good enough. I would use the Time library, but you can do it also with millis(). Just make sure you do your timestamp manipulations correctly to prevent problems when the timer overflows and wraps around every other month.
For the additional gimmicks, those can be added as the project progresses. For the Arduino itself, any will do. Best take the Arduino Uno, Duemilanove or any compatible you like.
Korman
thank you for your prompt reply. i shall investigate, invest and reply. Many thanks
Hey bullpeters, if you're still hanging around, any chance you can post how it went? I found Arduino while looking for info on how to do the same exact thing.
Thanks.
Hi,
am with ChappyEight on this one. How did the project go?
I too found the "Arduino world" while searching for options and guidance to build a watch winder. I simply refuse to pay that kind of money for a relatively simple tool as a watch winder. 
Therefore, could somebody offer additional info on how one gets started? I too know a thing or two about electronics, but Arduino and motors are new to me. 
A servo seems a bit odd choice, wouldn't a motor (stepper?) be a better choice for something that need to silently turn day in and day out?
EDIT: Found this old thread too:
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=24532.0
If you look at this fellow's profile, you will find that he last posted back on May 2013.
It is pretty unlikely that he is still monitoring this forum, and you do not know that he is set to receive notifications when someone replies to a post (which I presume, only happens for the original poster).
However,
If you message him personally, it will not only appear in his inbox here, which he would only notice if he was continuing to monitor the forum, but will be sent to his registered email.