Arduino_XY_hacks

Arduino Files for hacking HomeScope's XY axes

Here we can find files with code to understad the Arduino XY code

Move a single Servo motor

Servo motors are the engines of the XY robot used by HomeScope to move the biological samples is the focussed XY plane Here we can find a file with very simple code to move a single Servo motor

move_single_servo.ino

Read JoyStick values

The JoyStick of HomeScope can be used to communicate movement wishes to the XY robot. For this we first need to know how to read the analog values. A very simple example of this is to just send the analog input values to the Serial port.

Joystick_values_to_Serial.ino

To move or not to move: send message with JoyStick

As the analog values of the JoyStick input are several, we can discretize the possible input by defining a threshold of deflection. Once the Stick is bended beyond it can be interpreted as a message to move in a given direction. A simple code to implement this is:

Joystick_to_Serial_move_or_not.ino

Print mesage (XY coordinates?) to an LCD display

To Print a message to an LCD display using i2c protocol, the default library to achieve this is the LiquidCrystal_I2C by Frank de Brabander. In the Arduino Environment the library is called LiquidCrystal_I2C.h For more on this library see:

https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/libraries/liquidcrystal-i2c/

The simplest code to write a message is:

LiquidCrystal_I2C_Frank_de_Brabander.ino

However, the XY robot uses the Servo library and it is imcompatible with it. For this reason we use the LiquidCrystal_I2C_Hangul library authored by Junwha Hong, Dohun Kim, and HyungHo Kim instead.

Not all Liquid Crystal i2c libs are compatible so make sure you are using this one.

The XY robot can print coordinates to an LCD display using an i2c controller. The controller is usually located behind the LCD and it is sadder to the LCD's pins This way we only need two GPIOs to transmit messages

In the Arduino Environment this library LiquidCrystal_I2C_Hangul.h. For more info see:

https://www.arduino.cc/reference/en/libraries/liquidcrystal_i2c_hangul/

The minimal code to write to the LCD is:

LiquidCrystal_I2C_Hangul.ino

You can play with this code, and now putting all togther, and adding a 2-state machine structure to the code, we can now understand the code files listed in the Arduino XY repository