Blinds adjuster desk control panel
Background
Earlier in 2019 I had built a blinds adjuster and back in 2017 a desk control panel. Now it was time to build a device to control the blinds adjuster from my desk. So I streched my imagination to its limits to name it as blinds adjuster desk control panel.
Technical details
The blinds adjuster desk control panel consists of the following three main parts:
- The hatch
- The panel itself
- And internal components
All the 3D models for the control panel can be downloaded from here. In addition to the 3D printed parts I used the following parts and materials:
- Raspberry Pi 3
- Servo controller board (self design)
- A standard servo
- Some basic electronic components such as an IR sensor, an IR LED, two rotary encoders, an optional normal red LED, several resistors etc
- Nine ball bearings (size: 10mm x 15mm x 4mm)
- Lots of M3 screws, nuts and nylocs (screw lengths: 10mm - 30mm)
- A piece of leatherette
- A piece of plywood (thickness: 4mm)
- And of course, a desk where to install the whole thing
Note: the IR LED and rotary encoders are recycled parts. Rotary encoders are from an old audio amplifier and IR LED from its remote control. IR sensor is a leftover from an earlier robot project.
Action
The control panel has the hatch which opens by swinging a hand in front of it. When it opens the panel itself is revealed. In the panel there's bigger and smaller buttons. By rotating them the bigger and smaller blinds in my room turns.
There's a short video below telling more precisely how it works. Enjoy!
Next, all I need to do is to fix the blinds adjuster.