ARDUINO BASED ANTENNA ROTATOR - PART3 - Software tracking update

[@adamskypixelds6390]

Great work yet again Viorel ! ... Stay safe mate, good to see your keeping busy at home

[@dergerd_]

Me again. the one with the Urals. We still have something in common. It's a very exciting project. Ham Radio Satellites. I would also like to become qrv there from the home station. So far I am only portable with a self-made arrow antenna. I am currently trying to build a rotor with stepper motors and worm gears. Unfortunately, I'm not that good at programming this in Arduino. I'm currently putting this together from various sketches. Well, it's been like that so far. But it doesn't work yet. You seem to be further there. I wish you (and me) continued success. Kind regards, Gerd (DL5BBH)

[@Racov]

Hello Gerd. The mechanical part is the real challenge. If you want to go further with this project, please let me know. Don't worry about Arduino, I am a beginner too, and still managed to pull this out. We can adapt the code to your needs. Sincerely, Viorel

[@pcostadias]

Hi Viorel! I managed to get it working thank you so much just missing the antenna position green arrow it doesn’t show up to me :(

[@Racov]

Hey Pedro Please give me more details. Green arrow? What tracking software do you use?

[@pcostadias]

@@Racov im using the PST rotator software. I’m missing the position feedback in the software which would be the green line

[@Racov]

@pcostadias the green arrow always shows up, it's just how PST works. If there's no feedback, it stays at zero. Make sure to select communication protocol (AZ/EL) K3NG Easycomm. Your email doesn't work.

[@pcostadias]

@@Racov hi Viorel thanks for you Mr reply! I’ll try to reinstall I have full functionality except that! I really appreciate your help and support!

[@binisol7353]

Great but cant you use stepper mottors instead of dc motors theyre more accurate and better control i was thinking towards nema 23?

[@Racov]

Hi Bini Sol, Of course you can use steppers. As I said, this is what happened to be laying around in my junk bin. A wind-shield wiper motor with gears. Beware that building a home-made rotator is much more difficult than making the Arduino controller. The motor choice is just a small step. Cheers.

[@thepuncio]

Hi, I have a problem, sorted all but only 1 I can't. How to extend Azimut rotate? working from 0 to approx 345-9 dig. Display shows 359 but is not right. What I need to change thank you. 73. M7SPS

[@Racov]

Hello Sebastian. I believe you should do the calibration procedure. You'll find the instructions right there, near the arduino code. If you need more help, let me know.

[@kane35467]

Hey im just wondering, is there a way for me to actually send the serial into the ardunio software, such that I can read it through there? Saw you had the output of the Orbitron DDE to com7, is there any way I can read that com7 into arduino. Maybe even to print just the string. Because my idea is to hopefully pass the az,el in your case from com7 into ardunio, and use a PID to control the motors to that specific AZ, EL displayed. Thanks :)

[@kane35467]

Sorry I guess the simplified question would be, where does the orbitron DDE output go and how do I read it. Thanks again :)

[@mikemc7540]

Your link to the arduino code does not work

[@Racov]

Hey Mike. I updated the link. Please check now, thank you.

[@arthurbatera2011]

hello...I have a question: do the potentiometers need to be of the multiturn type? thanks

[@Racov]

Hello Arthur. No. Any potentiometer between 200 and 1000 ohms will work fine. The higher quality, the better, of course.