I need help with my arduino controlled laser pointer

Question

I have cats and they like lasers so I'v bin working on a 2 servo mechanism that moves the laser up down and side to side, this is controlled by and arduino nano but I don't know why the code isn't working. pics and code below

#include <Servo.h>

Servo xAxis; //left and right movement of laser

Servo yAxis; //up and down controll of laser

int posX = 0; //stores posision of x axis servo

int posY = 0; //stores posision of y axis servo

void setup(){

xAxis.attach(19); //attaches the x axis servo to pin 19

yAxis.attach(20); //attaches the y axis servo to pin 20

}

void loop(){

xAxis.write(posX); //sets servo to posX var

yAxis.write(posY); //sets servo to posY var

}

posted pics on twitter, they were to large to put right on the post

http://t.co/7VEEE71eDy

Robert Peter Oakes · Accepted Answer

The effect your getting in your video is spurious noise when plugging in the wire.

Can you upload a sketch to it. If not the arduino IDE would report an error, if you get an error then you may be correct and it could be bootloader missing.

it looks like it has an ISP header, if so then you should be able to upload a bootloader or even the program on its own through that. This assumes you have an ISP Programmer designed for that 6 pin header on the end of the board.

neilk · Answer

Hi Kyle There isn't much code here for the servos to do anything except sit there at position 0 in both axes. If you include some code to change the values of posX and posY, do the servos move? Neil

fvan · Answer

Hi Kyle, as Neil suggested, you somehow need to specify the values for posX and posY. If you don't want to specify them yourself (through Serial for example), you can generate random values for both. (see http://arduino.cc/en/reference/random ) Resulting in something like this: void loop(){
 xAxis.write(random(0, 180)); //sets servo to random value between 0 and 180&#176;
 delay(500);
 yAxis.write(random(0, 180)); //sets servo to random value between 0 and 180&#176;
 delay(500);
} Frederick