This is a touch pad controller I'm putting together to control several systems on my set-up. Mount, environment and dew control and a preliminary focus control panel. I have 3 screens now. You navigate between them with the arrows in the lower right corner. Mount panel has the normal direction keys and other keys that are on the SciTech hand pad. The Env/Dew panel has displays for the readings from the sensors master on/off power meter and status. The focus panel is very preliminary. But it will look something like this one.
I have the Arduino talking to the display and the sensor now. Reading the messages from the display so I know all the keys are working. Navigation between screens works. I'll use a few pins capable of pulse width modulation to drive the dew strips. Dallas semi 1 wire sensor for the telescope temp. I'll be patching into a JMI motofocus unit for the focus piece. I'm assuming its a stepper but don't know for sure. Either way the Arduino can handle it. The display is a 4.3in tft touch panel put out by 4-D systems. Their development software is very nice. You can program down on the bare metal or go completely visual.
Just need to pick up an optoisolator for the controller to mount connection. I'm not using the power and ground from the controller so I thought just to be on the safe side I should probably isolate the two.
Griz. Great little project. A bit beyond my skills with Arduino but definately something I would be interested in learning. Look forward to following the development.
Not that hard really with the Arduino. You only have to write the init and your main loop. Most things you will interface with it come with a library and examples. I just start with the example and modify to taste. I have it reading the sensors and putting the data to the displays now as well as moving the mount. Just purchased a pair of ESP8266 wifi modules and I'm working on getting those interfaced now. Very easy to use those they have a built in AT command set like the old modems. Its 3 layers now. The Arduino mega then the shield for the display then a proto board that has the wifi module. The module on the white pegboard is the temp/humidity sensor. Thought about mounting that with the wifi but I think the heat from the electronics will throw it off so I'll put it on a 1x1 inch pegboard so I can place it away from anything heat producing.
