Electronics Question (arduino)

You could always put a small micro controller on the remote control (like an AT-Tiny) and gather the necessary data from each input device and then send down via RS232 (Serial 3 wires) a series of data packets whose values can be interpreted by the master Arduino (Uno i'm guessing) and sets those values to the servo's motors' and LED's?  That means you're going to have to power your remote control with a 9v and a switching regulator and then have at least a 3 wire cable going to the arduino.  You might as well use RS232 over USB since the master USB port on the Arduino will function as a functional RS232 port for data acquisition.

Heck go a step further maybe part 2 of your project once you have it working, get yourself an Xbee and go truly wireless.  Once you've built the RS232 communications protocol for the data its just a matter of changing the media by which the data is transfered.  Wired to wireless.

http://www.digi.com/products/wireless-wired-embedded-solutions/zigbee-rf-modules/zigbee-mesh-module/xbee-zb-module

Good Luck!

Hi Tim.

Thanks very much for your help.

That seems like a much better way then taking 7 wires to the arduino uno.

The Xbee would be a great idea however my budget wouldn't be able to stretch to it.

I'll let you know how i get on when finished.

Ricky

Sure,

Feel free to ask more questions during the development.

Should be a fun little project

Sure,

Feel free to ask more questions during the development.

Should be a fun little project

Hi Tim.

Just a quick question for you, what model At Tiny would you recommend? And what programmer or can i program it via the arduino uno.

I have also attached a picture of the circuitry so far.

Thanks

First, the ATTINY85  is a nice unit with a fair amount of memory and capabilities. Ben uses them a lot in his designs. There are a number of ways to program it but for your project probably using the Uno would work.

Here is a nice Instructable how to do exactly that.

http://m.instructables.com/id/How-to-program-attiny-using-arduino-uno/

Check that out and give it a try. Gonna need a few parts which are all listed in there.

Tim

Hi Tim.

That Instructable looks fairly good and i have most of the parts already so i'll go with that.

Could you give me an idea what type of outputs i will be sending from the attiny to the arduino.

Thanks