Wireless Remote for Digital Dividing Head

[cfellows]

I just bought this little device for about $13 including shipping.  It's a handheld infrared remote, a couple of IR sensors, a battery and 2 infrared LED's.  With this and a couple of programming changes I'll be able to add remote control to my Arduino powered digital dividing head.



I actually plan to imlement this in my remake of the electronic dividing head which will use a smaller Arduino Nono, and a standalone display unit instead of the Sainsmart combined keypad and display unit.  The wireless remote will be very handy.

It's pretty amazing how much the cost of these kinds of things have come down.

Chuck

[swilliams]

Sounds pretty cool Chuck

Steve

[cfellows]

I finally finished the rebuild of my Arduino stepper driver controller.  As you can see from the pictures, building electronic equipment is not my strong suit, but, hey, it's compact and it works!


Here is a picture of the controller box with the hand-held remote...



As you can see, the box is about 4.25" long...



This end has the USB connector for programming.  The battery also plugs into this end...



On the front panel, beside the 2 line x 16 character LCD is the Infra Red Receiver module...



Here's a shot of the electonics inside the box.  The longer IC is the Nano and the smaller one is the A4988 Stepper Controller
.


I'll be uploading a video later.

Chuck

[cfellows]

Here's the promised video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwX0YjClgQE

Chuck

[Mayhem]

Very nice Chuck.  Can you still manually control it for when you lose the remote?

[black85vette]

Chuck;

I have not done much circuit building in some time, but I used to do my initial build on the proto board like you used and then transfer it over to a solderable board with a one-for-one match so I just had to move the components.  Eventually the non-soldered contacts on the proto board may become intermittent.  I built several projects this way and they are still working.   My setup was two full sized proto boards and a built in +5, +12, and -12 volt supply that was home made.

I did a search and found this;  http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/11/18/adafruit-perma-proto-half-sized-breadboard-pcb-3-pack/   There are others out there also.

Looks like a really cool setup.  Nice use of a wireless module.   Now how about bluetooth and iPhone??   

[Bezalel]

That's neat Chuck


Would love to know more about it,


i.e. did you design the software and electronics your self or is there another reference document one could follow? 

Bez

[cfellows]

Very nice Chuck.  Can you still manually control it for when you lose the remote?

No... but so far I haven't decommissioned the older version with the push buttons.

That's neat Chuck


Would love to know more about it,


i.e. did you design the software and electronics your self or is there another reference document one could follow? 

Bez

Thx, Bez.  I found the code specific to the IR remote on the web and lifted blocks of it for my own use.  I also scavenged the code for the LCD.  The code for calculating steps and running the stepper motor is pretty much all mine.  The amazing thing about the Arduino is the number and quality of resources on the internet.  It's a very, very popular microcontroller and there is a huge number of libraries and sample code for it.

Chuck