Arduino+ Android Treadmill

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murph101
 
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Joined: Sat Jul 28, 2012 1:52 am

Arduino+ Android Treadmill

Post by murph101 »

Hi there everyone

I am looking for some advice on a project I am about to start.
I am looking at designing and building a mechanism very similar to a treadmill.

The user powers a belt which turns a roller. This roller has a friction brake attached which is actuated via a stepper motor.
A second stepper motor is also used in another aspect of the project.
A rotary encoder is fitted to the roller to gather data on rotational speed.

I need to create a user interface for the project. This interface will provide the user with infomation such as the distance travelled, max speed achieved etc.... This data will be calculated from the rotary encoder.
The interface will also need to control the position of the two stepper motors.

I have had limited experience with Audrino microcontrollers and programming them, but am very keen to learn!

So thats the background to the project! Now here is my main question...

I am considering using a cheap Android touchscreen tablet as the user interface for the project, with an Ardunio microcontroller. I picture the user being able to adjust the steppers and get feedback on speed very simply from the touchscreen.

How complicated would this be to achieve and what hardware/ software would be needed?

Thanks for your help in advance.

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Arduino+ Android Treadmill

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

The Arduino ADK is probably a good place to start. Documentation for that can be found here: http://developer.android.com/tools/adk/index.html

Depending on the torque & current requirements of your steppers, you may be able to use the Adafruit MotorShield to control them. Interfacing a rotary encoder should not be a problem.,

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