I am very sorry that i cannot be more specifik in my topic, or that the problem that will present most likely will not be interesting to most people on this forum.
Im just hoping that there is by chance a person here that think its a bit entertaining to help a noob.
Project; General intro:
I know almost nothing of mechanics or programming. But 2 years ago a computerinterested friend of me told me to not by a htpc but buy the components and put them together.
I did and while i encountered problems of how to dissipate heat i read a lot about fans, passive sinks and watercooling. I soon solved my problems with google and experimentation.
A half year later i found a old radiofurniture from the fifthies. A beatiful thing. I was a bit dissapointed that it was so easy to build a computer with all readymade components so i decided to buy it, clean it out inside, and go from fan cooling to water cooling. It became great, and while i didnt manage to use the buttons on the front, i started to develop a taste of solving problems and going into and customise electronics.
Project; Specifik intro:
A few weeks ago i found this radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_mu … _7025.html
And this is going to be my new build. This time i will make all front buttons work, and build computer, amplifier, and usb-turntable inside! I didnt know how to make the buttons work but i came up with a solution:
I took a numpad, cut it open and unfolded the membrane, sandwiched it between two transparent pieces of plastic that i had drilled holes in, and that gave me the oppurtunity to solder from the numpad memrane to the mechanical front interface of the grundig furniture, using all its buttons and knobs.
On the softwareside i use a freeware called keytweek to create commands and hotkeys from the numpad scancodes. This is a good solution. And the commands i use, the hotkeys, i can also use with my “imon” remote and reciever, to also control the same processes via remote.
Problem; General intro:
I will build a usb-turntable into the machine in a way that i cant directly control its buttons, and these buttons start mechanisms i want to start from the grundic buttons, and if i can, also from the remote. The turntable is not controllable from the usb, sadly. I had to find a solution. I wanted something to go from hotkey to mechanism. I found by googling, this things called servos, and bought a few together with the “micro maestro”. Now i have tested the equipment and easily made sequences that uses three servos to push the three different buttons on the turntable and start the mechanisms. With some reading and brainwork i will make conditional scripts for them very soon. If i use the three connections on the micro maestro that is left i could make button inputs directly from the Grundig mechanic front, and i guess this would be an ok solution, but i want more.
Actually i dont want to spend this connections as inputs because i could use them to do something on the amplifier via servos. And especially i would like to have it so that i can both start the turntable mechanism via the grundig-buttons and via the remote.
Problem; Specific description:
I would like to have a software that makes it possible for me to create a hotkey that signals to the micro maestro, preferably via usb, and when it recieves this signal it runs a script. Then i would be able to start the turntable mechanisms both from the grundig buttons and from my remote. Preferably i would like this reaction, of the micro maestro to the hotkeys, to happen whenever i have the home entertainment system on, even i dont have Pololu Maestro Control Center running (i dont want to start that program everytime i start the computer, and i would like to control the turntable/servos with hotkeys even i have another program centered on the computer).
Is it possible to do that?
I have never programmed in my life, exept writing the command “list dir” on an amiga when i was small, so i would hope that somebody already made such an software and would be happy to share it with me.
Otherwise i would also be happy for suggestions of alternative solutions to my problem.
(I am using windows vista 64, but will with this build also upgrade to the latest windows version.)
I am extremely thankfull for all kinds of help. This became a rather expensive way to start a turntable, and it would be very sad if it turned out that the servos was a dead end.
Kind Regards!
/Orbert