<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > i hope someone here can help me. > > basically, me and my friend have a summer project. > > in this project, we need something that would basically function as a > blender. we know we'll need to buy a motor that spins, but what we're > having trouble with is figuring out how to program it. we want to be > able to control the speed of the motor. how would we accomplish this? > > i'm new to all of this, so i'm having a hard time wrapping my mind > around how it'd be possible to program one of those things :\ > > ex: what if i want the motor to turn for 10 seconds. stop for 5. then > turn the other direction. > > would you program it the same way you would on a personal computer > (via c, python, etc)?
It needs a bit more than just the motor - you need to organise some i/o (lines that the computer can control) and some kind of interface to control the power, and you have to put it all together - can you solder? It may be easier to forget about the computer stuff and just use relay logic for direction control - given that it is a DC motor that would turn the other way, and not a universal motor (like the one in a drill, that turns the same way given either AC or DC). Speed control for a small motor can be accomplished by a heavy rheostat in series with the motor. And that should be good enough for a summer project. On the other hand, if you (or your parents) have pots of money then you can buy digital to analog hardware that can be used to tell a powerful DC coupled amplifier what to do, and have a stab at programming the resultant combination. But if I were you, I would do the first kind of thing, and use the rest of the summer to soak up the sun, instead of breathing solder fumes in a basement, or crouching over a keyboard ruining your eyes watching a screen... HTH - Hendrik -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list