I'm a ME who needs a few suggestions on the electrical side of a project.

flinxsl · 6 months

You should try to use prebuilt modules as much as possible. Since you are designing as a 1-off the cost of the system isn't as big as an issue as in mass production. Arduino would be overkill but that is OK since its just 1 thing and there is a lot of support out there for it. Nothing comes to mind for motor module, but this shouldn't be too hard to google up. Some common types of motors that might work in are servo and stepper. Unless the whole thing is really heavy you shouldn't need something fancy like a brushless DC.

stroopsaidwhat · 6 months

Adafruit Industries makes a nice motor shield for the arduino as well as some great tutorials on how to get started with it and the arduino in general. They are written for complete beginners in mind and the owner is an MIT EE graduate.

derphurr · 6 months

How exact does the 60 min cycle have to be? Can it be off by some percentage? How long does it have to run the winch? will you have limit switches, or just some amount below the water and some amount in the air? Does the water level change over months? Is this solar, or do you have enough battery to run the winch? How much power can the control system use? Motor will be impossible to give you recommendations without some idea of what it has to do? Torque/power/rpms...

You could use arduino, but an analog solution seems much simpler. I'd recommend a 555 timer. Depending on budget for the motor, you could use stepper motor. I'd recommend just getting windshield wiper motor from the junk yard.

Fr3nch · 6 months

I would look at using a Lego NXT. Buy the kit that includes the lego DC stepper motors. My professor loves them because they are cheap, easy, and reusable. I have used them extensively for simple tasks such as this. NXT's are not really laboratory grade equipment, but for something simple like moving an object in and out of water on a schedule the they should be sufficient. The programming for a simple experiment like this would take about an hour to learn and implement.

five_to_one · 6 months

Maybe I am crazy, but can't you just use a simple plug in timer and a small pump. something like this all you would have to do is figure out how big to make the drain, so that the samples are in the water for 10mins. Everything you need would be at a hardware store (and relatively cheap), and would be simple and easy no programming required. And as an added bonus, it would mix up your salt water solution to give you better ion distribution.

kmoz · 6 months

If you know labview, theres a labview for arduino toolkit thats pretty easy to use here

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