My Autopano Pro forum

This is a very nice project!

Controlling the Merin/Orion through the TTL serial line is very easy. The internal controller uses only 1 line, connected to both RD and TX of both micro-controllers (PIC16Fxxx or something).

So, as for the TTL-RS232 or TTL-BT converters, you just need to wire the RD and TX signals of your Arduino to this line, through 2x 220 Ohm resistors (if these RD/TX signals are TTL; don't connect to RS-232 levels!). From the Arduino point of view, you read/write on your serial line as usual; you just have to think that the transmission is half-duplex: once you have written a command, you have to wait for the head answer.

You will find the Merlin/Orion protocol there:

http://www.papywizard.org/wiki/DevelopG … nprotocole

Hope this helps.

Yes, the wiring is that one.

I'm not sure you will be able to use only one pin: once you have send all the datas for a command, you will have to switch your line in input mode; doing this, you may miss datas from the head. And you will also have to implement the serial timing on a standard IO pin (9600-8-N-1); I think using the dedicated serial port of the Arduino is muuuuch more simple.

Good! Can you tell us what you plan to do? I'm interested to have a small controller with pre-defined presets, for full-spherical panos, for example...

I have an Arduino board too, so I can make some tests with your firmeware if you publish it from time to time...

Hi Guzzzt,
a WII Nunchuk is a nice gadget to set positions via joystick, it is easy to combine with an arduino

code you can find on arduino playground "input devices"

or a lcd with joystick look under news in the arduino forum: Low-cost graphic Nokia 3310 LCD shield & Joystick

Last edited by Paul (2009-08-05 20:43:53)

GuzZzt wrote:

I had to do something while I waited for the Merlin mount to arrive...

You also could have worked over your web-site . . . nice text on it . .
(i know the problem . . . )

best, Klaus

P.S.: a complete rig of head and controller would be interesting!

And here is a comparison photo so you can see the size of it compared to the Merlin/Orion mount.

Yes, I know. A designed PCB with both the Arduino and the rest of the electronics plus smaller buttons or a toutch screen would make it a lot smaller. But now I know that it is possible to get it to work and I can start to take shots with it.

I guess the retro look was a little bit accidental, but I like how it ended up

The project was suprisingly easy to implement. But in reality is it just down to three parts. 1. A display and others have already done nice libs for this. 2. Buttons, I used a shift register to shift it in but that is also easy with the arduino. 3. Communication with Merlin mount. fma38 and the other Papywizard developers have already done the hard work here on how to talk to the Merlin mount so it was just to convert it to Arduino code.

GuzZzt wrote:

It took me 33 minutes to take the 312 photos. Is that a long time compared to Papywizard?

No thats quite a good value.

May  you share your Arduino code? I have an Arduino with LCD shield and want to give it a try ...

thanks, so I will wait for it ...

Thanks! I'll put a link in Papywizard main site.