Thought I would list some other things that I have done in the last couple of days with the Arduino. More for my own record keeping, but also as a web log of my activities.
So far I have done the blinking LED, and what Arduino owner hasn’t.. once you blink and LED with Arduino there is truly no looking back! After that I played with the thermistor that came with the kit that I got with my Arduino. I also set up a 7 segment display program that I found on the web. I just happened to have a HC4511 and a 7 segment display.
I have ordered the Arduino ADK version since I am now keen to look at getting some sort of remote access to the device. The fact that Arduino can work with ADK is awesome. It opens up so many opportunities that I have also ordered a frame (motors, ESC’s, props,…) for a Quad Copter and will be looking to put that together as the brain for my Quad Copter.
However it will be a while before that all arrives so I have to be content with my UNO for now.
I found some interesting articles about using the serial interface and SerProxy to communicate back to a web page. I wasn’t all that keen to set the system up with Flash since I couldn’t think of any reason why this would require Flash.
I have to admit it took me a bit of time to work through the issues, but I was able to get a non-Flash SerProxy running. The best part is that I can also have my UNO send back serial data to the PHP script. Here’s how I did it…
Update the serproxy.cfg file and change this line (which is default ‘true’ for Flash support) newlines_to_nils=false
Honestly, this one issue eluded me for an hour as I tried everything to get the serial data back from the UNO.
The other trouble maker for me was that my BAUD rate was not the same within this file as it was within my sketch.
Here’s my code, and I have to admit that I borrowed 90% of this code from sources all over the web. The code simply turns on a RED led when I access a web page. The simple page outputs the state of the LED and that message comes from Arduino.
Here is where the code came from http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,40424.10/wap2.html
The SerProxy config file (and I am using Serproxy version 0.2.0) follows; serproxy.cfg (I am using COM11)
My plan is to use this to control a robot arm over the web. I need to get some motor drivers, or I may use yet another donor RC car….
The robot arm awaiting it’s next life…
Note: I have since realized that I would need 5 H-bridges or Arduino motor driver to get the arm working properly.. Grrr…