Software user

Fellow Arduino enthusiast Anjan sent me these photos of his own interpretation of IllyClock , encased in a "compatible" Lindor chocolate case. I think it looks great. From the email: I put this one in a Lindor chocolate case and so the name. I had to cut the Lindor case to almost 2/3 rd the height to make it fit and look nice. The front design is still not complete, as you can see the  components and wires inside. He used his own LED matrices with my Dual bi-color LED matrix shield , hence the wires and the prototyping board in the next two photos. Keep up the great job Anjan. You are an inspiration to others.

Here is some motivation for you: Wyolum is offering two " $1,000 Innovation Grant " to the most qualified open source project applications submitted from now until Dec 3, 2011. From the "news release": WyoLum, LLC �s mission is to �Promote Open Source Hardware�. To that end, we are pleased to announce two $1000 (USD) grants to be awarded to the most qualified applicants. Entries will be evaluated on: ? Innovation ? Originality ? Technical feasibility ? Commercial viability ? Planned use of funds ? Timeline (Projects with goals that can be achieved within six months after the grant is awarded will score more favorably.) Qualifying projects will be 100% open source (hardware and software) from development through to production. WyoLum team members will be available for advice and assistance throughout your project. If you have a killer idea, but have never fabricated a PCB, programmed a micro-controller or designed an enclosure, don�t let that stop you from submittin

You have a Megga Jr RGB "game console" from EMSL and you are tired of playing or writing new games for it. How about making it into a clock? This takes a bit of hardware hacking on your side; I provide the basic-clock-functionality sketch ( download here ). In the end, the "Meggy Jr Clock" will look and work as shown in this video. Here is a list of what you need (beside an working Meggy Jr): DS1307 and a 8-pin socket; crystal (32768Hz); coin battery (CR1220) and a holder for it; a small piece of prototyping board; 2 pieces of 6-pin female header; 6-pin right-angle male header; a few wires. We will start with hacking the Meggy Jr board, which involves 3 steps: remove the FTDI connector; you know the drill: desoldering wick, pliers etc; in place of the FTDI connector solder a 6-pin female header; connect, with a short piece of wire the 2 points as shown in the picture below. The hacked Meggy Jr board will look as shown in this photo: Next, we will build, on prototy

As promised , I am returning with the sketch ( download from here ). Justin and Wyolum Co. also promised (wink, wink) that the next revision of I2SD will have the needed digital pins accessible through headers. This "mixed breed wise clock" is using the I2SD (with on-board RTC and SD card), the display (and idea) from Book Clock , and code borrowed and adapted from Wise Clock 2 . Missing are the user buttons and a tilt switch, which may be connected to the free A0/D15 - A3/D18 pins available on the header of the  I2SD board. ( Note: The buttons and the tilt switch should be also supported in software as well, code which can be copied from the existing Wise Clock 2 and Book Clock sketches . )

The great I2SD board  from Wyolum (also introduced here ) offers almost everything one needs to make a simple Wise Clock : it's an Arduino with ATmega328 (and FTDI connector); has on-board RTC (DS3231) with backup battery; has on-board SD card (with the 3V3 regulator and voltage level shifter). In other words, I2SD is equivalent to  Arduino + Adafruit Logging shield , but equipped with a better RTC (DS3231 instead of DS1307). And it is much smaller. And cheaper (I think). One of the essential ingredients in making the clock is the display. I chose to use the simpler 3208 LED display because it requires only 3 wires (CS, WR, DATA) in addition to the Vcc and GND and it's easier to manage in software (requires less code). Here I show how to connect the I2SD to 0832 display from Sure Electronics . First, we need to realize that this is a hack. I2SD was not designed to be used as a full-fledged Arduino. Most of the digital pins are not accessible through headers. Well, in our c

I am sure many of you will find this trivial, but since I couldn't see any reference to something similar, I thought I should document it. This hack allows you to measure tilt with a 90 degrees "accuracy" in a vertical (or I should say "non-horizontal") plan, basically to determine the orientation "up", "down", "left" or "right". You will need 2 simple tilt switches  and 3 resistors, wired as in the schematic below and assembled on a piece of prototyping board as shown in the photo. It is important to place the 2 tilt switches as shown, 45 degrees on each side of the "vertical" axis. The little board now becomes the " 2D tilt sensor ". It is shown connected to the Arduino with 3 wires: Vcc (red), GND (black) and A1 (white-orange). I used axial tilt switches, but radial (as those sold by adafruit) work as well. The voltage on analog input A1 of Arduino is dependent on the orientation of the 2D tilt senso

Many people are building stuff using the 3208 LED display from Sure, based on projects I have shown here (e.g. BookClock ). The test code I published doesn't work "out of the box" with these newer displays. So they ask the question: why? Here is the answer. The "older" 0832 LED display uses the HT1632 chip. The "newer" 3208 (which comes with either 3mm or 5mm LEDs) uses the slightly different HT1632C chip. (Note that HT1632C chip is also used in the bi-color 3216 displays .) The difference between these two chips, from the software perspective, is in the initialization procedure. Here is part of the ht1632_setup() function for the 0832 display (with HT1632 ):   ht1632_sendcmd(HT1632_CMD_SYSDIS);  // Disable system   ht1632_sendcmd(HT1632_CMD_COMS10);  // PMOS drivers   ht1632_sendcmd(HT1632_CMD_MSTMD); // Master Mode   ht1632_sendcmd(HT1632_CMD_SYSON); // System on   ht1632_sendcmd(HT1632_CMD_LEDON); // LEDs on And here is the similar code for

A while ago I received the good-looking  I2SD kit  from Wyolum . This is another open source project created and generously shared by the same team that brought us ClockTHREE and C3Jr . The I2SD kit is pictured below. As you can see, it is mostly SMD (0805 and SOIC packages). Not for a novice, but definitely easy to solder by anyone with a steady hand and a good pair of eyes. As always, when I assemble a kit, I try to skip the "read the manual" part. I don't recommend this to anyone though. This is just a test for me to assess how user-friendly the kit is. (Note: Ironically, this test would fail for my own  Wise Clock 3 kit because of the 3 resistors of 4K7. One really need to know exactly where those resistors go (R5, R6 and R7). An improvement in a future version of Wise Clock 3 would be to have the resistor values on the silkscreen, as C3Jr has.) Well, the I2SD kit passed the "no manual required" test, which means that the kit is well thought and desi