I had promised in a previous post to share with you an arduino robot arm project at a later date. Well, that date is today! However, instead of using a joystick to control the arduino robot arm, I am going to pre-program the arm movements. Why? Well, because for starters the arduino joystick i bought has not yet been delivered. However, I am going to redo the project using the arduino joystick once I get it

Step 1: Requirements

Robot Arm
SSC-32
Arduino board (i used the arduino duemilanove)
Battery (you can use a 5v power supply instead of the battery)
Voltage regulator (not needed if 5v power supply is used)
2 USB to serial cables

I bought the Robot arm, ssc-32 and arduino board from Bizoner. The other materials were locally acquired

Step 2: Connect the Arduino Board and SSC-32

Connecting the arduino board and SSC-32 is an easy procedure, especially if you have been following my posts. You can also check out this link, to learn more on that.
After successfully connecting the 2 boards, set the SSC-32 baud rate to 9600 so that the two boards can communicate.

Step 3: Connect the Servo Motors

Connect the servo motors to the servo channels/pins of the SSC-32. You can connect them whichever way you want, depending on your code.
This is how i connected the servo motors on the SSC-32.

Servo motor-------Pin

a----------------16
b----------------19
c----------------20
d----------------15
e-----------------4
f -----------------7

Step 4: Power the Setup

Once the servos are connected, power the setup. There are several powering options you can use. See the different powering options in my previous posts.
I decided to power the arduino due and the SSC-32 logic via USB cable and the servos with a 5v battery as shown in the photos.

Step 5: Coding

Now you can generate your code. Write your code on the arduino IDE and upload it onto the arduino board and watch your robot arm come alive. I have a sample code that i will share with you. However, it is important to note that it only works if you use the same SSC-32 servo pin configuration. Therefore, attach your servo motors to the pins i have specified above, if you are planning on dry running my example code.

The example code is attached below. If you have problems downloading it, visit arduino robot arm tutorial and copy paste the code from there.