/nanoROTOR

open-loop control of a HAM radio antenna rotator by an Arduino nano and standard cheap modules

Primary LanguageCMIT LicenseMIT

nanoROTOR

A minimal ArduinoNano-based replacement for the control unit of a antenna rotor (AR-302). Work in progress. Contact @mgiugliano in case of questions.

Authors

MIT License

Features

  • stand-alone control unit with LCD display and basic GUI
  • no discrete components, only cheap modules (~25 eur)
  • open-loop rotor control by two relays
  • uses EEPROM to store/recover the last position
  • 'going home' function (i.e. position = 0 degree)
  • manual control and "zeroing" for further calibration

Components

  • AZ-Delivery Nano V3 (AZDelivery, 9.99eur amazon)
  • KY-040 rotary encoder (AZDelivery, 11.29eur amazon)
  • Relay module 5V, 2 channels with optocoupler (AZDelivery, 15.49eur amazon)
  • HD44780 1602 LCD 2x16 LCD display module (AZDelivery, 11.99eur amazon)
  • I2C Serial Adapter Interface (AZDelivery, 9.99eur amazon)

Links to Amazon are NOT "affiliated/sponsored". We have been appreciating the quality of AZ Delivery's product, but we are NOT associated to/affiliated with/sponsored by them.

Acknowledgments

We have been inspired by Giovanni iw1cgw's project, whose (Arduino?) source code we could unfortunately not find online and therefore re-engineered from scratch.

Diagram and photos

Diagram Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3

Photo 1 Photo 2 Photo 3 Photo 4 Photo 5 Photo 6 Photo 7 Photo 8 Photo 9 Photo 10 Photo 11 Photo 12