AVR Studio is free and the AVR Dragon with a ZIF socket costs about $75. If you decide to use steppers or servos, which require finer control than is normally available with the Arduino, you could use AVR Studio and an AVR Dragon board to program individual microcomputers, each of which could handle a portion of the auxiliary drill's operation. You could choose to use an air-drill or an electric drill. You could choose to use an air-cylinder, a stepper motor or a servo motor to move the drill up and down. You could choose to use proximity sensors or micro-switchs to sense travel limits. The Shopbot could then drill a series of holes, knowing that the drill was positioned correctly and that the drill motor was running. It would detect the Down proximity sensor and then it would signal the Shopbot controller that it was ready to drill. It could read a tachometer to determine when the drill was at speed. When the Shopbot issued a "Down" command, the microcomputer would actuate the air-cylinder, the stepper or the servo to lower the drill. When the auxiliary drill is powered on, the microcomputer would output a "drill up" signal when the air-valve or stepper or servo had raised the drill to the Up position and the Up Sensor had been detected. The designer (YOU), gets total flexibility in selecting all components and the proper operation. It "offloads" those responsibilities to the microcomputer. It doesn't have to worry about interfacing to a 24VDC proximity sensor or a 120VAC drill motor, or a 12VDC pneumatic valve. The Shopbot doesn't have to use additional I/O to sense the position of the drill, or the speed of the drill. Raise the drill (and turn off the drill's motor) Lower the drill (and turn on the drill's motor)Ģ. Drill is in the down position and the drill is running.ġ. If you use a microcomputer (Arduino, or similar), you only have to use two input pins and two output pins on your Shopbot controller.Ģ. Let's look at an auxiliary drill as an example: However, (there is always a "however"), some things benefit from using a microcomputer. That's a very good question.Ī Shopbot has the capability to let the user easily interface electronic parts and pieces to extend the usefulness of the machine. I've received several emails from Shopbotters who asked WHY use an auxiliary microcomputer when the Shopbot has so many I/O pins. If you've ever wished that you could find an easy way to add capability to your Shopbot, the Arduino Uno may be just what you're looking for. There are on-line examples of both software and hardware that lets even the most inexperienced "maker", make a project work. The software and the hardware are all "Open Source", so there are no licensing fees. The programming software is free and it works with Windows or with Apple computers (it also works with Linux, but you might have to do some "tinkering"). The basic advantage of using an Arduino is that the Arduino was designed to "makers", not for engineers. Several shields are available, one costs only $17.00. After the design has been tested, I use a prototype "shield" to hard-wire the design. Those prototype boards let me use 22 gauge solid wire to quickly test a design. I use the white "no solder" prototype boards to test a design. The Arduino would handle the entire operation of extending the air cylinder, sensing the Up/Down position of the drill, turning the drill On/Off and then sending a "Finished" signal to the Shopbot. All the Shopbot would have to do is to position the air drill and then send out a "On" signal to the Arduino. You could use NPN, PNP, Normally Open, Normally Closed, Normally On, or Normally OFF sensors and with a few lines of code, make the signals from the sensors match the expected input on your Shopbot.Īnother use would be to add your own air drill. The Arduino Uno R3 is available from Radio Shack for $35.00įor those who don't know what an Arduino Uno is, just Google "Arduino Uno" and you'll see hundreds of projects that use the Atmel ATmax328 microprocessor that is incorporated into the Arduino.Ī very practical use of the Arduino would be to interface proximity sensors.
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