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PC controlled curtains

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youandih:
I'm not familiar with building robotic stuff at all, but Im trying to start somehow.
As some sort of first 'experiment', I want to try and make my curtains (roller blinds), be controlled through a program on my computer.
My idea was to connect an electric motor to the rope which pulls it up. It simply needs to run at a constant speed controlled by USB (or bluetooth, but I suppose that's far to complicated). If anyone can get me started with controlling an electric motor by USB, that'd be awesome.
Greetings, Youandi Hoefman

Pogertt:
Here is an inexpensive motor / gearbox that would give you several speed / torque ranges to experiment with.
http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/70

Pulleys and other drive attachments are available at http://www.servocity.com/html/smooth_hub_pulleys.html

Can you explain why you want your computer to control the blinds?

youandih:
Sure it's cause I recently moved to Amsterdam, and I got one entire room for my computer and electronic stuff. My PC is now running Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and i'm trying to make it respond and sound similar to JARVIS from Iron Man. Now since JARVIS controls an entire house instead of just a computer, I'm trying to make it control my room by computer, by Dragon, and thus by voice. I already figured something out for the lights to be on and off at my command, but obviously my fantasy didn't agree with just that. So the next step would be controlling my blinds by voice.

Soeren:
Hi,


--- Quote from: youandih on November 24, 2012, 05:38:22 AM ---I'm not familiar with building robotic stuff at all,

--- End quote ---
How about soldering then?



--- Quote from: youandih on November 24, 2012, 05:38:22 AM ---My idea was to connect an electric motor to the rope which pulls it up. It simply needs to run at a constant speed

--- End quote ---
Get a small gearhead motor for that - without the gearing, it won't have the muscle for it. How fast do you want it to run?



--- Quote from: youandih on November 24, 2012, 05:38:22 AM ---If anyone can get me started with controlling an electric motor by USB, that'd be awesome.

--- End quote ---
Just get something like this:
USB Relay Controller with 6-Channel I/O

You'll need to have some sort of detection on when the blinds are fully opened and closed (unless you want to only control it manually while looking at them).
You'll need two relays (ore one relay and one I/O plus an external transistor driver) to control each blind (unless you control all motors in parallel).

The relay board has a temperature sensor as well.


How's your programming skills?

youandih:
1) No, unfortunately I'm not familiar with soldering either.
2) The best speed I think is for the curtain to move up at 3 or 4 inches per second, so considering the gear sizes 1 rotation per second for the wheel connected to the string should do it.
3) If you mean software programming, I'm not that skilled, but my father is, so he can help me with that, that shouldn't be a problem.

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