Arduinos, ASCOM

Going to write out some things that I’m working on currently in trying to complete the coding requirements of my instrumentation project.

I’ve got an Arduino, a motor shield from adafruit, several limits, a linear actuator and wire to connect it all together.

I’ll post some code snippets and demos in the coming days, but the idea is this:

Arduino runs a set of code that implements a Serial interface.  The arduino has a built-in USB->Serial converter, so when you plug it into your machine via USB you’re actually going to see it listed as a Serial port (COM#) where # is some number.  What we have to do is create the software backing on that interface, such that from another program we can connect to it and have it do things based on our commands.

The motor shield allows us an easy drop-in way to interact with DC and stepper motors, as well as servos.

More on this later.