News @ Suspect Devices

Tag: artbot

  • Day 28: Thing 28: Charley plexed display

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/28/day-28-thing-28-charley-plexed-display/)

    Today I made the software for some hardware that I built a while ago.

    The origional question was if I got 15000 leds for next to nothing and it costs 4-15 per 8×8 array (with the 4$ solution also needing 4 to eleven additional parts) to drive them are we getting anywhere? I looked at 2 solutions before realizing that the leds were to dim to do much of anything that interested me. One solution was to drive the led rows with cmos shift registers and sink the columns using TPIC6 based shift registers.

    The other solution is called charlyplexing.

    The idea is to multiplex a series of leds in a way that maximizes the leds per io pin avaliable. The led connections are paired and driven one at a time depending on the direction of the output pins. The remaining pins are tri-stated out of the way. It is a pretty intense software complexity vs hardware problem.

    As only one led in the array is on at a given time, multiplexing the leds into an array reduces the brightness significantly making my near free leds impractical for this application. (These are 5×6 array, the fonts i used were for 5×7 displays)

  • Day 25: Thing 25: AntiSocial(ism)

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/25/day-25-thing-25-antisocialism/)

    I went to radio shack about a month ago and bought an utrasonic distance sensor made by parallax called a ping))).

    I have been feeling cranky and anti social lately so I thought I should make something that didnt want to be bothered.


    I am considering adding an air horn for people who dont respect its limits but think that the neighbors might not appreciate it much.

  • Day 23: Thing 23: DELETED!!! (Button and screen)

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/23/day-23-thing-23-deleted-button-and-screen/)

    After the last two days of disaster I got a new board in the mail.

    It has one of the new atmel USB avrs on it which I would like to work with instead of the the ftdi chipset for programming avrs and arduinos. Rather than attempt to do another complicated and ambitious project I decided that my first project with this board should be to run the example keyboard code that atmel provides and modify it to send a “<shift><command>B” sequence followed by a “<CR>”. The sequence I use to “bounce” the 5o or so pieces of e-mail that get past my already overambitious mail filters.

    I needed a button!

    So I used the rem from resin for the displays to cast this one.

    I thought a “Display” might not be a bad idea either.

  • Day 18: Thing 18: CD Hole Based circuit board.

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/18/day-18-thing-18-cd-hole-based-circuit-board/)

    I havent made a circuit board in ages. I was thinking that if I made circular pads for the leds they might make a decent reflections for the display. I made the etch mask for this out of the holes for press on cd lables and 1/8″ engineering tape.

    In the middle of this I realized that I need to get some more tinning solution.


    I plan to cast this in less expensive fiberglass resin once I have finished the 4 panels.

  • Day 16: Thing 16: Headbucket Headlights (more things that go blink in the night)

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/16/day-16-thing-16-headbucket-headlights-more-things-that-go-blink-in-the-night/)
    I went to the hardware store to replace the tip on my new Weller soldering iron after discovering that Radio Shack did not have a suitable one. At radio shack I picked up two 1100 mcd leds. On the way back I went to the art supply store to see if they had copper small enough to work with the led arrays. They told me about a bead supply store downtown so I went I bought some silver coated copper wire and made anouther led pannel. (it looks like I have enough resin to make 4).

    Then I went to putting the leds on the front of my helmet. If they arent too police blue, I am finally legal.


  • Day 15: Thing 15: 8×8 Led Array Panel (Another thing that Goes Blink in the Night).

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/15/day-15-thing-15-8×8-led-array-panel-another-thing-that-goes-blink-in-the-night/)

    Yesterday I went to Tap Plastics and bought some resin after working on the programmer (yesterday’s thing).

    At dinner last night (which saved me from pulling my hair out for the entire evening trying to get virtual pc to flash the xbee modules from my mac) I was complaining that I have had a problem engaging the current zeitgeist and writing new (poly punk) music. It was suggested that perhaps it was because I was too focused on things that go blink in the night.

    So today built an 8×8 panel using cat 5 wire with the insulation trimmed back. After experimenting with the resin I was able to cast this using the mold that I made wednesday.

    I am relatively happy though it is a little time intensive.

  • Day 14: Thing 14: Remote Arduino Programmer.

    (Archive of : http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/14/day-14-thing-14-remote-arduino-programmer-failed/)

    I have been so happy with the programmer that I have been using that I wanted to add this capability to the xbee rf modules that I built a few months ago. I wired dio0 to both send and recieve boards and put the cap on the output side and wired up a reset.

    Then I figured out that the data passing would require updating the flash on both boards and that that required a windows based PC. (LARGE PILE OF EXPLICITIVES REMOVED HERE) I moved the passthrough to the rts/cts pairs which the old firmware is supposed to support met NOOOOO!

    If I built it but it doesn’t work yet did I make a thing?

    UPDATE: 25feb08 I found an old ob900 (I have like 15 old omnibooks in various states of running) that was running W2k and upgraded the firmware on both radios. I will test them out after I have had some sleep.

  • Day 11: Thing 11 — led arrays

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/11/day-11-thing-11-led-arrays/)

    Today I got 2000 little leds in the mail.

    They are really bright. So of course I had to play around with them. I made 2 8×8 arrays one is made of magnet wire with no supporting background. I will figure out if I am going to mount this on somehting later. In the mean time I built one on a perf board. Both took for EVER to make. The one on the perfboard is wired to a maxim 7219 led driver to be driven by an arduino.

  • Day 7: Thing 7: TA8080K Motor Board

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/07/day-7-thing-7-ta8080k-motor-board/)

    TA8080K

    I have long been annoyed with how the l293s require 3 pins per motor to drive them and traded a couple of on hand mega8s for a bag of these toshiba parts. They are 1 amp motor drivers and perfect for some of the things I am working on for thing a day.

    Board

  • Day 6: Thing 6 — Motorized Etch-A-Sketch(r) mechanism

    (Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/06/day-6-thing-6-motorized-etch-a-sketchr-mechanism/)

    Etchy Sketchy.Several years ago I took apart an Etch-A-Sketch and took notes on the “complicated pully system” inside. have wanted to build one of these since then. With this  and several other projects in mind I bought a small pile of Tamaya pully sets. (this project ate most of 3 of them)

    This turned out to be a bit more complicated that I origionally thought. I wanted to use the check reader motor mechanism that I have a pile of them but mounting them turned out to be less than straight forward. once I got through that I had to repully and thread each axis 4 or for times. My first attempt at the pivot point was a small disaster as well. However we persevered and there it is.  Tomorrow my thing will probably be a motor driver board to use with this.