I'm completing a senior design course at my university and I need a way to control an AC motor and a digital temperature gauge. I was told that an Arduino would be the best board to do so on, but I figured I'd ask the wonderful people of the internet first since I have never done this before. The ideal case is that I buy the Arduino, download the program environment and then download drivers are some sort of software that will allow me to control these two items. Analog or digital doesn't rly matter and price is not really an issue since analog and digital can be similarly priced.Does anyone know how I can accomplish this? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, even if you're idea on how to control the motor and temperature involves something completely different. As long as I can variate the speed of the AC motor and the temperature of nichrome wire, I'll be a happy camper. I do have experience programming, so if that is the only option, so be it.
You need to be a LOT MORE descriptive about what you are trying to achieve, how fast the response times must be, etc. For all I know from your description, you have an AC motor driving a fan which blows air over a nichrome wire that is being heated by some fixed current and you want to adjust the fan speed so as to appropriately maintain a fixed temperature on the nichrome wire... with no mention of how you measure that temperature. You are FAR FAR away from providing anywhere near enough specification to get any help at all.
