Arduino Rotary Table MEW 249

Hello All,

I am starting this thread to field questions about my Arduino Rotary Table article in the above MEW.

The first thing is an error from me - the stepper driver board should be a 6560 not 6960 as mentioned. A typo carried over from my original notes. Apologies. As my wife tells me, I'm not perfect.

Carl.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 06/12/2016 14:03:44

Thanks keeping this alive Carl.

Parts are ordered (including the 6560!), let chaos commence!

I've actually used Arduino's for a number of projects over the last few years (and PIC's, but that's another story) but never used stepper motors, so I'm keen to play with this and see what it will do.

Andy

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 06/12/2016 14:04:01

Thanks Carl, I'll put a brief note in MEW 250.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 06/12/2016 14:04:24

No problem Andy. I will try to put up a video of the unit working. If anyone wants to see more pictures and a detailed description of the build, you can find it on my blog.

Google British Reaction Research and rotary table.

Carl.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 06/12/2016 14:04:32

.

Thanks Carl ... That ^^^ is a very decent thing to do [pity about the title change]:

As yet, I have no questions, but I'm posting this just to bump your thread ... noting that the spin-off has taken a life of its own.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 06/12/2016 17:16:02

Carl,

First question - before my stuff gets delivered, I had a search through the drawers and found a UNO, Mega2560 and a DFRobot LCD Keypad shield.

Next step - check out the stepper software. Everything works expect the 'Right' button. I have mapped the button values and I get Right - 0, Up - 100, Down - 257, Left - 409 and Select - 639. I have checked that all buttons read, and with different sketches the buttons work, but for some reason 'Right' does't work with the stepper sketch.

Any ideas? It's not a problm as yet as I won't be using these parts, but it just seems odd that it doesn't work as expected.

Andy

EDIT - It's amazing once you write something down how the fog clears and you solve the problem straight away! I'd messed up the keypress allocation - all working now.

Edited By Andrew Holdaway on 06/12/2016 22:17:40

I was wondering if anybody has noticed a possible error in Garry Liming's download software version, I could only locate version DM10.1 2015 / 06 as against DM 8.4 noted in MEW.

Maybe Carl Wilson could enlighten me .

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 08/01/2017 19:43:25

Garth, if you download from the DM link you will find three versions of the software in the zip file. The latest (I believe) is ver 2.3. If you open the sketch in the Arduino IDE the first line gives you the version number in confirmation.

Version 2.3 works fine for me.

Andy

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 08/01/2017 19:43:31

Garth,

It may have been better to put your query on this thread: **LINK** which Carl so thoughtfully started.

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=122870

MichaelG.

.

Edit: ... or maybe even this one: http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=122870 which was 'spun-off' from it when the thread lost direction.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 08/01/2017 15:54:27

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 08/01/2017 19:43:37

Version 2.3 is the one you want.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 08/01/2017 19:43:43

Just echoing the above, throw this info in the second post mentioned above. Who knows maybe the moderators will eventually raise it to the dizzy heights of sticky-hood. Immortality beckons.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 08/01/2017 19:43:49

Am on board now , thanks for the info.

Hi i wonder if any one can help i have tried two Arduino Uno boards and two different DF Robot keypads and get the same result that the up and down left keypads go through the menu but pressing select makes no difference they just show the menus .I have downloaded the software on two different computers and get the same result.

Hi Graham

from what I can see all manufactures of the LCD / keypad shields don't use the same values of resistors for the Keypad

look here at the post from sillyoldDuffer 9/12/2016 for alternative values for reading the key pressed : -

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=122792&p=4

John

PS

you cannot use PWM on all boards terminal  D10 to control the brightness of the LCD's backlight

some boards like the one from maplin you can use PWM as they   have a resistor between the terminal D10 and the base of the transistor that controls the back light

others don't have the resistor and the arduino will be damaged if the atmel chip is programmed to pull the D10 terminal up to +5V

PPS

in my album you will find the circuit of the linksprite / maplin board with details of the all  important resistor needed if you use PWM  backlight control

Edited By john swift 1 on 10/01/2017 18:53:25

Hi Graham,

Have a look at my post dated 09/12/2016 17:02:49 in the other thread

Sounds like you have the same problem, which is fixed by altering the key voltages as described.

EngineBuilder and I both have DFRobots that needed values like this :

• NO_KEY 1023
• RIGHT_KEY 0
• UP_KEY 98
• DOWN_KEY 253
• LEFT_KEY 408
• SELECT_KEY 639

Cheers,

Dave

hi john

if daves dont work try

50 btn right

195 up

380 down

555 left

799 select

i had the same problem but is now ok

regards

peter

Hi Peter

while I was looking for a LCD / button shield to buy I found links to modify some of the shields to use PWM backlight control, hence the circuit diagrams in my album

as it happens , the linkspright / maplin shield I bought workes with the software Carl Wilson linked to from digitalmachinist

John

PS

this is the button resistor ladder for the linksprite/maplin  board with 3 changes in red for the dr robot board

Edited By john swift 1 on 10/01/2017 19:37:47

Good evening thank you all for your help but you are talking a completely different language to one i understand on Johns diagram i can find the analog pin on the board i then i need a satnav my understanding of electronics is nil. I can follow a drawing the above means nothing at all.

Thanks Graham

Graham,

Right at the end of the StepIndex23.ino sketch you will see the following lines -

if (key_in > 850) return NO_KEY;
if (key_in < 70) return RIGHT_KEY;
if (key_in < 200) return UP_KEY;
if (key_in < 350) return DOWN_KEY;
if (key_in < 500) return LEFT_KEY;
if (key_in < 680) return SELECT_KEY;

These are the values I used to get the keypresses working in my DFRobot LCD shield. If you change the numbers after key_in to either those above, or to the values Peter, John or SoD have quoted, your buttons should work. Failing that there is a small sketch that you can run to read the actual values that your board uses and use those figures, but have a go with the above first.

Andy