Will Baby Orangutan Work: 1 motor, 2 actuators

Hi,
I’m in a mechanical senior design group and our design needs a controller. I’m very familiar with programming VB, C, Java, etc… but, the circuit side of things has me feeling very lost. I see $3 controllers and $100 controllers and they all seem like they might work. I think I know what I need, but there’s almost too many controller options. The Baby O, I think, is what we need. I just want to have a sanity check from someone who’s familiar with these things. I’m planning on building an H-bridge for the motor since I don’t think the O’s can handle it.

I’ve sketched out what I think I need:
4-5 Outputs:
1 PWM to run the motor (stall = 6A @ 6V)
pololu.com/catalog/product/1572
1 or 2 PWMs to run two mirrored linear actuators
2 LEDs as status indicators

6 Inputs:
1 “Stop” button
1 “Get Ready” button (moves actuators)
1 “Go” button (activates the motor)
1 3-position manual override switch (actuators: up, down, stay)
2 Voltage inputs (watching for a voltage change for automatic shut down)

Timer
After X time or voltage drop, shut down motor and move actuators. The code should be ~50 lines

Thanks for any help,
Steve

It sounds possible that the Baby Orangutan could work, but I don’t know enough about your application to tell for sure.

What kind of actuators are you talking about besides the motor? If you are building an H-bridge, I think your might be being optimistic about only needing 1 PWM. How do you plan to do it? Are you not wanting to drive the motor in both directions? How do you plan to do the 3-position switch with one input pin? What kind of power supply will you be using?

- Ryan