my little blog
Category : Arduino, Electronics, Uncategorized
I was just checking out if there was anything new on Modified Electronics, those who makes these genius small pico arduinos.
And yes! A very nice shield for use with the pico, Pico Protoshield Kit!
Of course the small breadboard and the pico arduino is sold separately!
Category : Electronics
I just came over this Arduino clone if I may say, it’s called NetDuino It looks almost the same as the Duemilanove board. Anyhow, you program it in Visual Studio C# Express using the .NET Micro Framework.
Netduino is an open source electronics platform using the .NET Micro Framework.Featuring a 32-bit microcontroller and a rich development environment.Suitable for engineers and hobbyists alike.Netduino is an open source electronics platform using the .NET Micro Framework.
Featuring a 32-bit microcontroller and a rich development environment.
Suitable for engineers and hobbyists alike.
Specifications are:
Atmel 32-bit microcontroller
Speed: 48MHz, ARM7
Code Storage: 128 KB
RAM: 60 KB
all 20 digital and analog pins: GPIO
digital pins 0-1: UART 1 RX, TX
digital pins 2-3: UART 2 RX, TX
digital pins 5-6: PWM, PWM
digital pins 7-8: UART 2 RTS, CTS
digital pins 9-10: PWM, PWM
digital pins 11-13: SPI MOSI, MISO, SPCK
analog pins 4-5: I2C SDA, SCL
And for only 34,95 USD it’s very interesting 🙂
Yupp, just a short little update.
I got the RF sender & receiver from Sparkfun today!
RF Link 2400bps Receiver – 315MHz
RF Link Transmitter – 315MHz
Also a 20×4 serial LCD, gonna be useful for advanced applications. Anyhow, if you got the RF kit, and was like me wondering how to get it working. I found this nice guide at LMR.
Now it’s just to find a nice way to use the RF links, it’s only one-way communication, but it’s gonna be awesome to use it as a remote for one of my robots!
Category : Arduino, Electronics
Thought I write some about my two robot projects! They both use a Modified Pico, since it’s the smallest Arduino I’ve found. And it also fits on a small breadboard!
Botty 2:
This is the most advanced robot I’ve built, but it’s not nearly finished.
It’s current task is to drive straight forward until it senses a object with it’s IR-sensor, then drive away from it until it’s cleared, and continue in that direction. Really simple 😛
It uses a Sharp-IR sensor, mounted ontop of a servo, so it scans the horizon while driving forward. The sonar in the picture isn’t in use, since I actually like the IR sensor better.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pscYXg-Rkp0;ap=%2526fmt%3D18&w=425&h=344]
BewBit:
Simple and yet fun to make arduino bot. Just follows the strongest light source. Using two LDRs, a modified pico and 1xAA and 2xAA battery packs, to give out 4,5 volts. Just enough to power theSN754410 and motors. But it gets around. It also includes a low-voltage alarm, which beeps when the voltage goes low.
Had a little accident, it drove over a carpet, or it came about 30cm into it and some funny gear-whining noise came 😛 A lot of hair in the gearbox, had to take it apart and clean it.
Future plans:
* Crash sensor, a small micro switch in front.
* Speaker, plays sound according to light source 😛
* Better code
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRqkj8t63pA;ap=%2526fmt%3D18&w=425&h=344]
Hi
I just want to write a few words for those new to Arduinos, or those looking for tutorials, guides etc. If you haven’t got a Arduino board yet, you can get one from several places, I’ll list some of my favorite shops. And of course you also need the Arduino Software!
Or, Modified Electronics for the great Pico! (not recommended for beginners, you’ll be better of with a normal board).
What you are looking for is the Arduino Duemilanove, the USB board. Which will suit most your needs. It’s very easy to use, and wires can be plugged right into it. Later on you might want a Boarduino or maybe a Pico as mentioned above, they are great for using in combination with breadboards! Alternatively you can get the Starter kit, almost all shops got these. Sparkfun got a nice kit, which is worth a look.
If you should want more I/Os, or just more space for code the Arduino Mega is a great choice! Or the Sanguino!
Parts!
You will always need parts, resistors, leds, breadboards, wires etc. I’ll list up a few shops that I use the most.
Lots of cheap basic parts! recommend the resistor packs, and they also got cheap breadboards. And all of the shops mentioned above stock parts too. For jumper-wires I recommend these at seeedstudio. Futurlec also got some nice jumper-kits. For extra small breadboards these at Seeedstudio are very nice!
Great site for robotics, motors, gearboxes etc. They also got a nice tracked chassis. They got a lot great products, sensors, motor controllers, etc.
Tutorials/Guides/etc
1. The basic guide, from sparkfun. You should start with this!
2. The Complete Beginners Guide to The Arduino
3. Adafruit’s Arduino Tutorials
5. Arduino.cc Reference! Not tutorials, but handy!
Also the Libaries page at Arduino.cc is great! I’m sure you’ll find something to use in several projects!
Well, thats all I’ll write for now. I’m sure I left out alot, and will update this post when I find something new to add 🙂
PS. If you got any questions etc, please take it in my forums post here.
My new project, is a simple led-strip which shows CPU load. 9 led’s are used for this, could have used more but my tiny breadboard couldn’t hold more. Anyhow, it uses serial communication to receive how much the totalcpu usage is. For this you need a C# program running on your computer, it just sends a value from 0-100. And the Arduino reacts and lights up leds accordingly to how much load your CPU got.
I will not go into how you make the program in C#, therefore I’m uploading the .exe here for you to download. I’ll also include the source-code for it.
What you need?
1x Arduino
9x LEDs
Some wires
1. Wire it all up like in this Fritzing picture.
2. Load up the Arduino with the following program.
3. Download the C# program here.
When you start the .exe file, you only need to select which Com port the Arduino is using. And the click connect, and then it should start communicating with the Arduino. And show cpu load.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecbdUhiOWes&w=425&h=344]
PS. If you got any questions etc, please take it in my forums post here.
Look at it?!
I just fell in love with it 😛 Also, 24$ isn’t bad. So if you’re considering the Arduino Nano, why not try this one instead?
Features:
ATmega328 running at 16MHz with external resonator (0.5% tolerance)
On-board FTDI232 USB to Serial Connection
Supports auto-reset (choose Duemilanove w/ ATmega328 in the Arduino™ software)
Operating voltage of 2.7 – 5.5 VDC
Schottky diode reverse polarity protection
Auto-sense power input between USB and external source
Resettable 500 mA fuse for overcurrent protection
On-board pin 13 and communication LEDs
Go check it out =)
Made a followup to my light tracker, except this one can go up and down. So it follows light in more directions than the other ones.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fw6ausjl9o&w=425&h=344]
Made of some cheap plastic-foam, wont last forever but long enough for me to test it.
PS. If you got any questions etc, please take it in my forums post here.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEhX27ahreI&w=480&h=385]
This is how to make a simple light tracker/follower with the Arduino. The components you need apart from the Arduino is:
2x Photoresistors: “PHOTOCELL2 Miniature Photocell”.
2x 470 Ohms resistors.
1x Servo.
And of course some wires, and a breadboard or two :). Next step is to wire it all up, I’ve made a drawing in Fritzing that you can follow. Basically each photoresistor is wired likes this:
PhotoR 470Ohms
+5 o—///–.–///—o GND
|
Pin 0 & 1 o——-
Program Code:
#include <Servo.h>
Servo myservo;
int pos = 0; // Variable to store the servo position.
int inputPhotoLeft = 1; // Easier to read, instead of just 1 or 0.
int inputPhotoRight = 0;int Left = 0; // Store readings from the photoresistors.
int Right = 0; // Store readings from the photoresistors.void setup()
{
myservo.attach(9); // Attach servo to pin 9.
}void loop()
{
// Reads the values from the photoresistors to the Left and Right variables.
Left = analogRead(inputPhotoLeft);
Right = analogRead(inputPhotoRight);// Checks if right is greater than left, if so move to right.
if (Left > (Right +20))
// +20 is the deadzone, so it wont jiggle back and forth.
{
if (pos < 179)
pos++;
myservo.write(pos);
}// Checks if left is greater than right, if so move to left.
if (Right > (Left +20))
// +20 is the deadzone, so it wont jiggle back and forth.
{
if (pos > 1)
pos -= 1;
myservo.write(pos);
}// Added some delay, increase or decrease if you want less or more speed.
delay(10);
}
PS. If you got any questions etc, please take it in my forums post here.
It’s always good to have servos that works like a geared motor. That also can go in both direction and speed is adjustable, it’s very handy in robotic project or general vehicles. The servo I’m using is a Mystery Micro Servo 9g SD90. But most of these small servos got the same internals so I guess you can use this on other servos.
1. Remove the stickers on both sides, and unscrew the four long screws that goes from the bottom to the top. One in each corner of the servo.
2. Gently lift off the top cover to uncover all the gears. Notice, it’s smart to remember the correct order of the gears, so that when you put them back you know what goes where. But I took a picture close to make it easier to remember where they all go. Use picture below for this purpose.
3. Remove all gears, no need to clean the grease off. Just put them in a box just for now.
4. Take the top gear and snip the little plastic bit off it, look at pictures below. This is the part that stop the servo from going more than 180 degrees.
5. Now we need to glue the potmeter, look at picture below. Just remove the plastic cap thats on the shaft of the potmeter to show it’s internals.
6. Attach the servo to the ardunio, using pin 9 as the signal. Use this program or just some other program that gives the servo 90 degrees. If the potmeter is centered the servo should stop the motor from turning, if it doesn’t try to turn the potmeter shaft one or the other way until it stops. You now got it centered so that 90 is stop, just add some glue to the internals of the potmeter to keep it locked. Before moving onto step 7 let the glue dry.
7. You now need to cut off the end of the potmeter shaft, this keeps the potmeter shaft from moving. Look at picture below for more info.
8. Now you only need to put it all back together. Just use the picture in step 2 for reference when adding all the gears.
There you are, now it should work like a continous servo. Any questions just leave a comment below.
Video of the final product:
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