Arduino Control

[Patrick Andrews]

Hey All,

I am looking at controlling a set piece via an Arduino board and some stepper motors (and driver boards).

I was wondering how many people have done such things and what your opinions would be on my 2 thoughts for control via QLab.

1. Simpler Approach:

Since you can control the Arduino via USB and the Arduino Serial Monitor I thought a simple USB to cat6 converter set and a script cue to send input to the Arduino Serial Monitor which would send out USB to the Arduino board might be the simplest way to go. Is this actually possible? I believe this would avoid a whole bunch of extra Arduino programming which is not my strong suit.

 

2. More Complex/More Stable(?) Approach

I also have an Ethernet Shield for the Arduino and had initially thought that I would be sending OSC messages from QLab to the Arduino. As I look into this further it seems to be getting more and more complex. Is there advantages to the OSC option over USB if I am just sending a simple string input to 1 Arduino (e.g. "5" and then "enter")? 

I have found other posts on here about OSC/Arduino control but no mention of the Script Cue/USB option which means nobody has though of it (highly doubtful) or its just not a (good) option.

Thanks in advance for your input!

Patrick

[richardmoores]

Hi Patrick

You probably can't applescript the Arduino serial monitor directly - it's pretty basic.

If you go the USB route CoolTerm is a much more complete serial terminal and it has a lot of Applescript support. A guy called Roger Meier writes it and there's a forum etc...(it's free)

A really basic script to send a character from CoolTerm looks like:

tell application "CoolTerm"

local w

local d

set d to "A"

set w to "CoolTerm_0"

Connect w

delay (2)

if Connect w then

Write {w, d}

end if

end tell

You would probably need to add a few bits to make it more robust but that should work. Maybe create the connection in an earlier

Q as it takes a moment to establish.

I haven't used an Ethernet shield on an Arduino but it's worth saying that you don't really need to implement fullblown OSC on the Arduino end - just use the Raw UDP option in QLab's OSC cue to send a single character or whatever you want the Arduino to listen for - it shouldn't be too painful to program.

Hope that's some help

richard

[Patrick Andrews]

Thanks Richard,

I'll explore the CoolTerm app and I'll maybe try to not be so daunted by the Ethernet shield option. 

I appreciate the input!!

Patrick 

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[Alexander (Mailing List) Taylor]

Hello,

I have an Arduino with PoE set up to control our motorized projection screen via relays.  It accepts OSC commands to trigger it's relays, so I can control it from QLab.  I've attached the workspace and the .ino file for you're reference.  Note the .ino file I cobbled together from examples and the like, so it's not very neat.

I'm actually working on getting an Arduino Yun (with PoE) to control our houselights via ETC's Legacy Unison Serial Access Protocol.  It's definitely the model I'll buy for any future Arduino projects.

Alexander

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[Patrick Andrews]

Wonderful! I'll give these a look through. 

Thanks Alexander!!

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