New version!

Well the code I posted earlier was just about the simplest control you could have for the robotic arm.  I've been playing around tidying it up a lot into some functions and have just tested a new version.  Its far from perfect - but I think it represents the next milestone in development: the arm movement is defined through a series of command line arguments / switches.  You can download the file here.

The simplest way to understand how to use it (as a user rather than a programmer) will be to run the following command:

python arm_1.py --help

 which will bring up something like:

 Python program for connecting to USB Robotic Arm
Usage: arm_1.py [options]

Options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -s SHOULDER, --shoulder=SHOULDER
                        Value 0,1,2 for shoulder motor (off/up/down)
  -e ELBOW, --elbow=ELBOW
                        Value 0,1,2 for elbow motor (off/up/down)
  -w WRIST, --wrist=WRIST
                        Value 0,1,2 for wrist motor (off/up/down)
  -g GRIP, --grip=GRIP  Value 0,1,2 for grip (off/in/out)
  -r ROTATE, --rotate=ROTATE
                        Value 0,1,2 for rotation (off/cw/ccw)
  -l LIGHT, --light=LIGHT
                        Value 0,1 for light (on/off)
  -t TIMEDELAY, --time=TIMEDELAY
                        Time (s) to wait before off default0.1

So e.g. python arm_1.py -g 1 -w 2 will close the gripper and move the wrist down simultaneously for 0.1 seconds.  Whilst python arm_1.py -r 2 -l 1 -t 3 will rotate the arm in the base counter clockwise and turn the light on for 3 seconds.

NOTE Depending on how you have your user privilidges set up you may not have access to the USB port - I need to run all these commands as root, e.g. sudo python arm_1...