Quote Originally Posted by Dan Brown View Post
i'm sure i could use mach3 to run some motors for some random affects but if i could get the steppers to move in time to the music i would be 'the man'
Hi Dan,

I'm going to start off my conversion by running the steppers from an Arduino Duemilanove board which is a small processor with lots of IO and is easy to program. It has analog inputs which you could use to sample the sound and should directly drive a stepper controller from it's digital outputs.

They're programmed in C using a PC to compile and download the program which is then self sufficient. Big advantage is cost - £25 + whatever the analog circuits cost (probably not much more than a fiver) and simplicity (it's programmed via a USB cable which can also act as a serial link for basic debugging).

You will need to be able to program in C (or C++) though or find a tame programmer but there is a good support forum for it.

I should know more in a couple of weeks - I'm expecting a 3 axis System4 setup to arrive just in time for Christmas :-)

Mark