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Auto rotate from Raspberry Pi/RetroPie ...

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Bolthouse:
Thanks for all the feedback! I've actually been trying to work out all the various classes of motors/controllers, as well as all the relevant specs (voltage, amperage, torque, RPM, etc.) in the past few days.

I seem to have come full circle back to the windshield wiper motors you're so fond of. The one online electronics dealer that I know who delivers quickly to Hong Kong has a variety of motors, but it seems like their high torque motors (gearbox or not) are priced around $200 - $300 USD. So I see why the windshield wiper motor is such a good option for hobbyists. Fortunately, Ebay has a variety of wiper motors that ship from Korea or Japan for about $60 plus shipping.

As for the motor drive/controller, I'll probably go with one of the Pololu simple motor controllers that where recommended elsewhere on this site. They seem to handle a 5.5v to 40v range up to 12 amps or so. That should cover just about any wiper motor I can attach to it. Plus they're well documented/supported, which means I'm not totally in the dark when it comes to setting them up.

The screen I have is a 19" Fujitsu panel that I pulled out of an old 5:4 Sony monitor (I'll crop it to 4:3 with a bezel) ... https://www.cnet.com/products/sony-sdm-hs95-s-lcd-monitor-19/specs/  ... which I proudly upgraded with a new LCD control board (adds HDMI, so no DVI adapter needed) and converted it from CCFL back lights to LED (significantly reducing the power consumption). It's also a really good LCD screen with even viewing angles from all sides, perfect for rotating.

The monitor will be mounted with a swivel plate, then rotated using gears or a screw drive ... or maybe something else. I've got a good handle on the mechanical aspects of rotation, I'm just fuzzy on motors and motor controllers ... but that picture is starting to get more clear as I research.

I won't even have the motor and controller in my hand for a few more weeks, so don't rush on the software side.

Thanks for your help!

DaOld Man:
Hi Bolthouse.
Sorry I had to back away from this hobby for awhile.
About the windshield wiper motor: Do you have any junk yards or used parts stores? You should be able to pick one up for around 10 us dollars.
I can get you one here, but Im not sure what shipping would cost. That may be the catch.

DaOld Man:
Here is a video of my test rig using a 24 VDC actuator to rotate a monitor. The actuator is controlled by the RPi, with Emulation Station.

raph:
A lot of people use RaspPi's to control servos using the same Micro Maestro controller board that I used to do my PC-based project.

Some links:

http://www.linuxcircle.com/2015/02/08/raspberry-pi-pololu-maestro-python3-tornado-servo-control-part-1/
https://www.pololu.com/blog/68/controlling-a-maestro-in-c-using-a-raspberry-pi
https://github.com/FRC4564/Maestro

ZoOl007:
Hi, I am not really a hardware guy but I actually coded/anticipated for rotating monitor support in RGBcommander.
It has all the (mame) monitor orientation data build in and it runs on pi2/3, linux and windows. It actually uses that data already. It would 'just' be a matter of adding support for the hardware.
So, if people are willing to list me the most used/popular usb motor steering boards I can look into this.
The end result would be that end users can activate a certain board in the daemon's configuration xml and then the monitor would rotate on a rom or emu based setting.

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