FIRST off, I am not a programmer, I am a older electrician.
Secondly, I am very cheap, like to save my money to repair the harley and streetrods. DiD I mention I am really stubborn.
(repeat that I am not a real machinist either, or a professional (insert_craft_here))
YOUR advice, comments are welcome. THIS is the test bed I set up, see photo..
Projects, Arduino based. tools I Found the Uno for less than $20 delivered.
I bought a mega-2560-ADK from digikey, paid 4 times that for it. It has more IO than I will ever use I think. OLD PB4 opto22 style ttl-modules, use any signal that can turn on a LED can turn on ac, dc, or input ac, dc according to modules type. (+30 year old technology, cheap off ebay) THE smarts is in the arduino, the opto isolation keeps it from burning out with a field-failure of a home made device. Mega has main USB, usb for android, 3 sets of configurable com ports on the pins. THE base com port copies the first pins port.
Proposed uses so far.. Mike in Ontario needs a replacement indexer-advancer, a stepper motor, lcd readout, cnc'ed.. cheaply.. He's more into the drag-jap bikes and less into the Harleys. He is not a electrician, nor a cnc expert.
So,
(1) CnC indexer, LCD, keypad, position feedback.
(2) timer-sequencer for the spot welder, logic, on foot pedal, clamp solenoid, time for clamp, TURN ON SSR, time for weld, off weld, off clamp, repeat. POSSIBLY a heat check on the spot welder xfrmer.. it gets hot..
(3) probe EDM, generate PWM for capacitor charging, then when voltage is high enough, trigger spark, off spark, repeat, advance stepper once spark does not decay voltage bus. (burned a hole) Uses, carry to jobsites, burn out bolts in expensive machines for pay.
(4) EDM for cnc milling machine attachment. (see above) Tied in through modbus in Mach3.
(5) Modbus emulator, controls serial opto22 cards by M-codes. Laser power modulation, pumps, coolants, cool mist, vari-head speeds, change, brake. Using chinese scales on knee height and tool height compensation. Not sure yet if I am going to power the knee.
(6) servo operated gauges running off streaming RS232 comm off the megasquirt EFI in the 57.. I have the virtual dash on my nexus 7.. I want a fixed instrument cluster too. (I just bought $300 of autometer gauges, so no hurry on this)
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Problems? porting over the visual basic code into odd-C for the arduino. I got the pushbuttons reading, the output modules coming on and off, the Hitachi RS232 LCD off the basic stamp has kicked my butt today thou, no clue.. it prints garbage like the com rate is off, wrote a ptogram to step it though all the configs.. nope..
Serial.Begin(19200,SERIAL_8N1) opens the port in the same configuration as the stamp did.. Printing ascii to the Port monitor is clear ascii, 65 gives you a "A" like it is supposed to, the LCD has junk, repeatable junk thou.. I am afraid I overwrote the text characters with the graphics command by sending it junk transmissions.. ascii 128 still clears it.
IF a lcd can kick your butt, you don't get into a hurry for the big things.. There is tons of information on the web on writing arduino software, examples, free code.. not all of it is right. Once again, beware, there is bad-coders out there recording your ISP, etc..