How to connect openhab to arduino w/ stepper motor?

Hardware Home Automation
1

I’m want to use openhab to control window shades going up and down.

The hardware part of the blinds will be an Arduino with a wifi shield, controlling a nema stepper motor.

I’m just unsure how I should have the arduino connected to openhab.

I thought about doing it with mqtt on the arduino, but I’m now thinking that if I want the ability to control the blond position besides all the way up or all the way down, then mqtt prob won’t work.

I’m hoping some one maybe could give some insight. Thanks so much for any help.

Travis

2

I haven’t used MQTT for a “production setup” yet - only played around with it in my test setup so far - but I am curios to know why you think MQTT should be a limiting factor in trying to do what you want?

From openHAB you should be able to post any type of command through MQTT, e.g. START_GOING_UP, START_GOING_DOWN, GO_TO_HALF_OPEN_POSITION, etc.

Similarly, from the Arduino you should be able to post any type of status update, e.g. NOW_AT_HALF_OPEN_POSITION, NOW_FULLY_OPEN, etc.

This should give you all the control you want, or am I missing something?

3

Thank you so much for your answer and now I am very confident that mqtt will suffice for this project.

Looking forward to completing this, thanks again.

Travis

4

hi Phaze3131
already a longtime ago you’ve posted about arduino / stepper motro and OH.

Did you got this up&running? You mind sharing this here, as I want to build exactly the same…
Like to learn more about your setup!

1 Like
5

If I remember right I never got it working there was a hundred steps that could of been the reason, I sort of gave up.

6

LoL… After some more researching I found some other similar solutions which I’ll give a try soon.
Hope you are still a fan of OH and a nice setup up&running!

7

awesome! I would love it if you could post what solutions worked out for you!

8

I now use the ESPeasy project to build nodes and connect over mqtt to OH3. In ESpeasy I use the servo plugin, you can then use any type of servo, there are heavy duty ones available of over 50KG of force!
It takes some reading to hetinto ESPeasy but very rewarding and usefull for much more nodes: Welcome to ESP Easy’s documentation! — ESP Easy 2.1-beta1 documentation