This month we have two workshops. One on interfacing Purdata with the outside world and one on programming midi devices. I designed one board that should work for both classes.
I will blog a bit more about this technically later at dorkbotpdx.org/feurig but that was my thing for the day.
(Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day.com/?p=3803)
3.3v regulator added to benito.Will re-photograph and backfill data.
This was started at http://www.thing-a-day.com/2008/02/04/day-4-thing-4-aduino-adaboot-programmer/
It is part of the way that I do programming on the avr platform and the Arduino.
I was using the programming half of a a bulky prototype that I have been working on to program an RBBa based maze solving mouse and I looked at the pile hanging precariously off of the coffee table and thought to myself.
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The programmer is based on the Auto-Reset Hack and the AdaBoot bootloader. The reset is pulled by putting a capacitor on the DTR line of the serial interface which is also the bootloader interface. Most people put the cap on the Arduino but I put it on the programmer (where it belongs). This programmer was built using the ftdi ft232rl breakout board sold by sparkfun. I had to trim it down to get it to fit in the pretty blue box i bought at Tap Plastics. The chip out of the box presents two of its 4 gpio (general pourpose i/o) pins to indicate when serial is being sent and recieved. I wired a pair of very bright leds that I had to them and then tried to pipe the light to the corners using some translucent plastic tubes and hot glue. It looks pretty cool!
This was started out as one of my things for Thing-A-Day (2008) (http://www.thing-a-day.com/2008/02/22/day-22-thing-22-the-15-wiring-board/)
This follows my work getting the wiring software platform working on some generic mega128 boards. It is somehow related to my work on reducing the costs of the Arduino runtime to less than $4
I recently found the code for an Stk500v2 based bootloader at http://www.avride.com/article/wiring/ for the new wiring platform. I have wanted to run wiring on several of the systems I have using the mega128 and the olimex header board that sparkfun sells. Between sparkfun and Ebay my per board cost is about 11 bucks. With the ftdi ft232rl usb to serial chip at $4 that would make the wiring platform affordable :)
My initial attempt was using Wiring 0014 which seemed pretty darned broken. It didnt take long for 0015 to come out fortunately. Once I got the bootloader to work with wiring I realized that the wiring platform requires a 32khz clock crystal to be connected to tosc1 and tosc2. On the Olimex boards there is a space for this crystal. On some other boards like the Futulec ET-AVR-stamp this had to be soldered to the legs of the processor.
Once this was added to the boards things started working. Below you can see the Futurelec ET-AVR-STAMP running my “antisocial” wiring program.
(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.
(Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/24/day-24-thing-24-mouse-whiskers-touch-sensor/)
Two weekends ago Aidan and I went to radio shack and he was looking at these $9 bug bots which have a sound sensor, two touch sensors (antennae) and 6 legs. He was very interseted in both the walking mechanism and the touch sensor. We decided that we should add one of those to his arduino based mouse (A168).
(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.
(Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/21/day-21-thing-21-fred-644-an-attempt-to-port-arduino-to-another-processor/ )
I wound up on the bus for much of the day so I took my laptop and ported the arduino “Core” to atmel’s Mega644 which has 4 times the memory of the new arduino as well as almost twice the number of pins avaliable. When I got to the bootloader I failed. This was a bit ambitious so I suppose I shouldnt be suprised. I will do another thing and post it here if I don’t get the bootloader working by the end of the month.
(Archive of: http://www.thing-a-day2.com/2008/02/20/day-20-thing-20-arduino-on-a-simm-stick/)
In response to a conversation I had with “lady ada” in which she asked me “what is an arduino?” I have been pushing the question “What isnt?”. I have a bunch of stuff that I have built around the simstick platform which I wanted to reclaim so I put a 168 on a dt107 (dontronics) board and adjusted the IDE to see it. (this is in preparation for bigger and better mods)
(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.