Arduino Bluetooth-Controlled Mini-Lift

We love our workshop, but it has one downside (or maybe upside) - a large flight of stairs to the gallery. We constantly need to move parts and components between one floor and the other, so we’ve been plotting different ideas: drones, dogs, carrier pigeons and what not, and then it hit us! A lift!

Since we recently added HC-05 Bluetooth Module to circuito.io, we decided to try it out in this project.

Here's a short video that shows how it works. Pretty neat huh?

Let’s start building!

1. Setting up

Start by making sure you have all the parts you need. There's a list above that includes all the components for the project.

Then, go to the circuito.io builder.

As you can see, the parts for this project are already pre-selected. You can change them if you need to - for example, if you have Arduino Micro instead of Uno, or if you want to use a different motor, and then click on Generate and you’ll see all the information you need.

2. Wiring

Scroll down after the list of components, and you'll see a step-by-step wiring guide. Click on "next step" and "previous step" to browse between steps.

Looking at the circuit, we can see the two main components: Bluetooth and Stepper.

Connecting the Bluetooth

The HC-05 Bluetooth module has only 4 pins we’ll need to connect: TX, RX, GND and VCC. Technically you can connect them directly to the Arduino. We use a breadboard so that we can add more components.

Connecting the stepper motor

The Sparkfun stepper motor comes with cables that need to be soldered to the stepper motor driver. If you don’t know how to solder, here’s a great tutorial you can learn with. Once you get this done, you’ll need to connect it to the power and data supply from the Arduino.

3. Code

The next step of our project is the code. If you scroll down on the circuito.io reply page, you’ll see the Code Section:

• Download the code from circuito.io

• Extract it

• Open the firmware.ino using Arduino IDE. If you don’t have Arduino IDE installed, download it from here.

• Upload the code as-is to your Arduino. If everything is wired properly, it should upload in a few moments. If for some reason it doesn’t work, you can find some troubleshooting options on our forum.

After you see that everything is working properly, copy the new code from the github repository in the link below, and paste it into the "firmware" tab in the code you are already working on, so that you have all the libraries already set-up. Make sure to leave the first part at the top of the code, which defines the pins and libraries (the part in the image below).

4. Configuring the Bluetooth

The HC-05 is a bluetooth to serial device. On one end it is connected to the Arduino over serial and on the other end needs to be connected to a bluetooth device. On the bluetooth side it can be connected to a smartphone app or any other bluetooth device by pairing the two devices together. There are many apps you can use. For this project, we chose to use ‘Arduino Bluetooth Control’. We chose to use the app’s voice command option.

Pairing your Bluetooth device

After you download and install the app on your Android phone:

• Turn on your bluetooth from the settings menu of your smartphone.

• Turn ON HC 05 Bluetooth module by connecting it to the power supply.

• Scan for available devices.

• Pair to HC 05 with default password 1234.

• Open the app.

• Connect to the HC-05.

• Under setting menu of the app, navigate to ‘voice command’.

• Define your strings and what will be sent for each voice input, for example, we set “u” for up and “d” for down.

5. Setting up the lift

We placed the electronics on a piece of wood and built a winch out of two other scrapes of wood. Then we took some string, tied it to the winch and started playing with the stepper.

We decided to control the lift with voice recognition but you can also define buttons and switches if you prefer.

This project is an example for one of the thousands of combinations you can do with circuito.io. We’d love to see more projects you made with circuito.io on our Community Hub. If you have any questions feel free to comment or contact us via email: hello@circuito.io or through our facebook page