Thanks to Airic for his work on the engine so far, it is awesome. I hope to have my rig up and running soon, once that happens I will have a look at the code to see if I can implement any of these changes myself. Having gotten a bit further on the development of my PT head here are some of my suggested features, some may be repeats of what others have asked for, but I am putting them up since I agree they are very desirable. Most important features listed first.
Multiple axes:
Although adding more axes to the base unit would be good, I think that a better solution may be to create a different board that can be daisy chained to the current V2 or the future V3. The new board would offer connections for more motors, but wouldn't have a screen or controls, keeping down costs. Control of all motors will be done using the main mini engine unit, and each extra unit will be responsible for running one or two motors. A simple bus network could be run between the boards carrying signal and power.
The motor-only boards could probably use the simpler Atmega chips, and could potentially be made as a dedicated board, rather than a shield. In addition to the motor connections, limit switch imputs and a few other imputs/outputs could be broken out on the pcb to allow for a bit of expansion and customisation.
The original mini engine v2 should also be able to act in a slave mode when on the bus, so it can be used alongside the motor-only boards, being controlled by another v2 or v3.
Better control input for real time moves:
Although you can use the potentiometer to control a single axes in real time it would be good to have a solution which can control multiple axes at once. I have previously used an Xbox handset to control my rig (https://vimeo.com/51856361), but this required a PC to take care of the drivers, I am unsure if an xbox controller could be hooked up to an arduino with USB host, but it is a possibility. I am unsure about just putting a joystick on the v3 as this will still limit you to 2-axes and there are lots of gaming handsets available that have already had a lot of money invested into ergonomics design etc...
3 point keyframing
Would allow more complex moves to be completed with just the miniE
Manual triggering
Would be good for stop motion work and use.
Ministudio - programmed moves keep running once computer is disconnected.
I really like that you have started development of the ministudio and it is one of the main reasons I bought the miniengine, keep up the good work, I will try it out as soon as possible. If this hasn't been implemented already it would be a great feature.
Gigapan
This is another one that I implemented on my own controller before switching to miniE. It should be fairly simple, allowing the user to select the top left and bottom right extents of their photo, or just select 360 for a full rotation. Then set the number of column and rows, then time between photos.
Bluetooth
Adding bluetooth (or possibly wifi) support so that in the future a phone or tablet client could be made for the v3. Maybe a footprint can be left on the pcb to allow the user to choose if they want to add the bluetooth module? Perhaps when daisy-chaining is implemented a bluetooth board could be connected to the bus to allow control via portable devices?
Compatibility with other moco suites
As I mentioned in a previous post it would be cool to have dragon frame compatibility. GB timelapse is another that some use that may warrant integration.
Thanks for all your hard work, hopefully I will have something completed to post on the forums soon.
Multiple axes:
Although adding more axes to the base unit would be good, I think that a better solution may be to create a different board that can be daisy chained to the current V2 or the future V3. The new board would offer connections for more motors, but wouldn't have a screen or controls, keeping down costs. Control of all motors will be done using the main mini engine unit, and each extra unit will be responsible for running one or two motors. A simple bus network could be run between the boards carrying signal and power.
The motor-only boards could probably use the simpler Atmega chips, and could potentially be made as a dedicated board, rather than a shield. In addition to the motor connections, limit switch imputs and a few other imputs/outputs could be broken out on the pcb to allow for a bit of expansion and customisation.
The original mini engine v2 should also be able to act in a slave mode when on the bus, so it can be used alongside the motor-only boards, being controlled by another v2 or v3.
Better control input for real time moves:
Although you can use the potentiometer to control a single axes in real time it would be good to have a solution which can control multiple axes at once. I have previously used an Xbox handset to control my rig (https://vimeo.com/51856361), but this required a PC to take care of the drivers, I am unsure if an xbox controller could be hooked up to an arduino with USB host, but it is a possibility. I am unsure about just putting a joystick on the v3 as this will still limit you to 2-axes and there are lots of gaming handsets available that have already had a lot of money invested into ergonomics design etc...
3 point keyframing
Would allow more complex moves to be completed with just the miniE
Manual triggering
Would be good for stop motion work and use.
Ministudio - programmed moves keep running once computer is disconnected.
I really like that you have started development of the ministudio and it is one of the main reasons I bought the miniengine, keep up the good work, I will try it out as soon as possible. If this hasn't been implemented already it would be a great feature.
Gigapan
This is another one that I implemented on my own controller before switching to miniE. It should be fairly simple, allowing the user to select the top left and bottom right extents of their photo, or just select 360 for a full rotation. Then set the number of column and rows, then time between photos.
Bluetooth
Adding bluetooth (or possibly wifi) support so that in the future a phone or tablet client could be made for the v3. Maybe a footprint can be left on the pcb to allow the user to choose if they want to add the bluetooth module? Perhaps when daisy-chaining is implemented a bluetooth board could be connected to the bus to allow control via portable devices?
Compatibility with other moco suites
As I mentioned in a previous post it would be cool to have dragon frame compatibility. GB timelapse is another that some use that may warrant integration.
Thanks for all your hard work, hopefully I will have something completed to post on the forums soon.