Tag: Arduino

Arduino Garage Door Opener – Prototype

I’m done with school now, degree and all, and still have a couple of weeks before I’m officially on the job.  In the meantime I’ve been fooling around with some home automation hardware, specifically the veralite from micasaverde.  While I haven’t spent too much time with the veralite yet my first impression is that it is still a little undercooked.  Developer documentation is rough to non-existant, serial support is sketchy, and the Android app seems hit or miss.  That said, I do like the box and there seems to be a ton of progress being made on the backend.  In an effort to learn the Lua language used for plugin development, and to keep myself busy, I’ve taken on another hardware and software project. Pictured below is the first prototype of this project.

IMG_20130624_224956

 

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MSGEQ7 Arduino Library

The digital section of my Bright Light Controller is fully functional and I’ve gone ahead and made a library to help interface with the MSGEQ7 IC.  As of Version 0.1 the library will probably only function on a 16MHz or slower Arduino.  This shouldn’t be too difficult to modify, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.  A video demonstration of the library performing a “readAll” is provided below.

The library is available here: https://github.com/EngineeredEntropy/MSGEQ7

Documentation: https://github.com/EngineeredEntropy/MSGEQ7/wiki/MSGEQ7-Library-Documentation

How to Repair an Aruino Nano

 

Step 1: Purchase a new Atmega. This is the version of the chip from digikey  Atmega328P

Step 2: Carefully desolder the old processor.  I found that is very easy to lift the pads in this process.  If I were to try it again I’d probably try using a heat-gun.

Step 3: Solder the new proccessor onto the board.  Pretty straight forward, assuming the board was not damaged.

Step 4: Program the Arduino bootloader. This can be done using another Arduino board, or a dedicated programmer. I used my USBTinyISP for the first time and it works great. It interfaces directly with the Arduino IDE and is a lot more convenient than having to wire up a spare Arduino every time.

Step 5: You’re arduino is now repaired.

Arduino Bootloader Programming

Bright Light Controller Schematic

I have recently stumbled upon a service called BatchPCB which offers cheap single run PCB prototyping.  I’ve decided to give them a try since it seems safe for someone whose never designed a board from scratch.  After some digging it seems like going to their supplier, Gold Pheonix, would work out cheaper if you’re looking at a design that’s larger than 35 inch^2.  This requires a minimum order  though, so for now I’m going to give BatchPCB a shot.  I’m going to convert one of my old wire-wrap designs, a light controller, to test out this service and practice PCB design.

 

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Arduino Power Supply Selector

I’ve been looking through the Arduino schematics in search of a circuit to perform automatic power supply selection in the case that there are two available supplies. I had convinced myself that there was a design flaw in the Arduino Uno selector, however upon further inspection it seems it should work just fine.

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