Hi guys and gals,

Sandy brought up a great point when he said using a Mega is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I don't have any experience with a Mega, but I ordered some yesterday. I was looking at all the inputs that the Mega has and started thinking what they could be used for.

I figured maybe we could kick around some ideas for future expansion that would make the Mega insanely awesome as a polar graph machine....

Maybe we could eventually build our own shield for the Drawing Machine 🙂

Here's some ideas I had:

LCD screen that shows total number of commands, current command that it's on, and/or maybe a simple progress bar and/or ETA to completion.

buttons to pause the queue locally on the Mega.

buttons could also be used to navigate files on the SD card (shown on LCD)?

LEDs to indicate machine status. Red LED when queue is paused, green LED when running, flashing red LED when error encountered.

Limit switches that would pause the Mega from drawing if the gondola strays for any reason, activates flashing red LED

buttons to move the gondola manually for any reason needed

Track/display hours of run time, could be used as a rudimentary measure to help you determine when you should replace your drawing pen. IE....I know my pen draws for around 8 hours, pause the drawing at 7 so I can swap them out. Run hours might just be a fun thing to know how many hours total your machine has been at it 🙂

I know this is all extra stuff that is not needed or necessary, so don't think I'm demanding anything. I know you're working hard on the motor shield code. I just thought it would be fun to dream up future features 🙂

The work on the custom board sounds very interesting! I get the feeling you frequent some other sites/boards and maybe there's some awesome stuff going on over there.

I know you're not a fan of cheap eBay Chinese Arduino products...but there's an inexpensive LCD shield for sale that has the LCD along with a bunch of buttons all in one setup. I can't remember if it's an 18x2 LCD or 20x4 or whatever that size is....but I'm sure you've seen them. Something like that might be perfect for the initial Mega kit you offer. (you could make your own version too)

I'm working on my next project and I'm running into the same issues. I want to initially spend a lot of time planning out the hardware/shields....so I can add extra features later than only require a reprogramming and a simple plug in of a new sensor or whatever.

It's on eBay, but what do you think about something like the 'Arduino MEGA special sensor shield' that is $20? You could sell that with your kit....and in the future sell 'brick' sensors or add ons that users just simply plug into that sensor shield. Obviously you could build your own sensor shields for cheaper than $20, but that was just an idea. Something modular that any n00b can plug a new component into and be up and running.

Unless your goal is to make more money, and when a new feature comes out, you just sell the person an entire new setup. There's nothing wrong with that, and I totally understand how that works (cough....Apple!)

The brick sensors/shields seem to be a Chinese Arduino thing. I'm new to the whole scene, so maybe you know more about it all than I do. You could design shields/sensors with your own connectors, so then the average person has to buy your hardware to plug and play. M'eh, whatever