Hi everyone,
I am looking for a beginner's circuit kit to control control an actuator, a servo, and an on/off switch for a light. I would prefer that the controls be wired to external switches as opposed to being controlled at my laptop. This for a shutter trigger and servo for a camera.
Jim

 

What form does the servo take? Purpose?
All manual control?
Not sure you can get a all-in-one kit to do it all.

 

Does the beginner know how to code? If so, all of his/her requirements can be met with a microprocessor development solution. An Arduino Nano or an ATTiny85 with a programmer (<$20) from SparkFun.

 

Does the beginner know how to code? If so, all of his/her requirements can be met with a microprocessor development solution. An Arduino Nano or an ATTiny85 with a programmer (<$20) from SparkFun.

I have taken some computer science classes and have a little C++ residue in my brain.

 

What form does the servo take? Purpose?
All manual control?
Not sure you can get a all-in-one kit to do it all.

I would like to find a short stroke actuator to press a shutter button on a camera. The servo would be to rotate the camera 365 degrees. Manual controls, yes.

 

The simplest may be a stepper motor, where no feed back is required.

 

Does the camera need to be turned on? Does it have a control port?

A project I had spent time with was a camera system that was awaken by wireless remote PIR sensors. The camera would then pan to the preprogrammed location of the PIR, and take a series of images at various zoom settings. Another mode was to wake from an RTC, and perform a panorama sequence. The pan drive was a repurposed geared stepper. The camera was commanded over USB. Turning the camera on/off was a bit of a hack, but was done through the unused USB contact (older canon a510) Controllers were AVRs

 

Does the camera need to be turned on? Does it have a control port?

A project I had spent time with was a camera system that was awaken by wireless remote PIR sensors. The camera would then pan to the preprogrammed location of the PIR, and take a series of images at various zoom settings. Another mode was to wake from an RTC, and perform a panorama sequence. The pan drive was a repurposed geared stepper. The camera was commanded over USB. Turning the camera on/off was a bit of a hack, but was done through the unused USB contact (older canon a510) Controllers were AVRs

It doesn't need to be turned on. But now that you mention it that might be a good idea.