Archive for the “Microcontrollers” Category

Mecanum Wheel Rover 2 (or 1.1)... mmm floating switching regulator looks funny

Rather than calling it a reprint of the original, I would like to think of this as a ‘MkII’ improvement.  Slight modifications to the 3D models to make it easier to print as well as use more common parts.  A servo frame has been added to the Thingiverse ‘Thing’ collection as well as frames for the batteries and Chumby/Insignia Infocast.
This is not really a refined product but an idea to be shared and improved upon by others.  e.g. the Chumby/Infocast frame might be useful to others.

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Around one year ago I ordered some of those supposedly wonderful TI eZ430 “Hackable” Watches but only received them last October since I had to wait for the 433Mhz version.  Three months later I finally decided to have a go at trying it out and wrote a Python library for in the process.

Silly video first…

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Couldn’t resist extending the software test on the mecanum wheel base…video comes later this time…

The ‘quick and nasty’ software files are still the same as in the previous post.  Pure software test only, couldn’t resist the temptation to try it via WiFi on a stock Chumby instead of USB tethering.  As such the hardware frame is a bit too flimsy and the batteries aren’t enough to power the Chumby without brown-out resets.  These will be improved upon soon :)

This demonstrates the ‘touch’ (initialize) and ‘swipe’ (move/offset) control on touch screens.  Will try the DeviceMotion Javascript API on iOS 4.2 devices (iPhone 4G/iPad) if I can get my hands on that filth… :P

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Yup I’ve jumped to a bathtub test and bypassed the lovely soldering and coding… will revisit later but here’s the video :-

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After getting my EasySync USB-Can Adapter it was time to resurrect the mChumby project.  The interface GUI design hasn’t changed much, namely because its been lying idle but I figured it is good enough to try putting it onto the car for a test run.

I didn’t want to fiddle around with getting power to the Chumby, so the test is simply using my trusty old laptop and the EasySync adapter.  Only the speedometer, the tachometer and the accelerator pedal position is attached because again I’m too lazy to fiddle with my cable layout and as such its connected to the Mazda HS-Can bus only rather than the MS-Can where the goodie trip computer information is contained.

Almost every concoction of technology is used ranging from CAN, USB, PHP, HTTP, Shared Memory, XML, Flash, to an obscure programming language called HaXe.  Here is the result :-

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Just a teaser that all (most?) the parts for my ‘MFC’ is ready (It could be Madox’s F‘ed-up Contraption) has all arrived and ready for assembling when I find the time.  Hopefully before the Australian Battle Group meet in June where I hope to use the contraption (…erm camera) to film the ships shooting each another to smithereens.

Picture time :-

Most of the gear laid out on carpet

Most of the gear laid out on carpet

Read on for a little bit more…

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Well this chronicles my first attempt at compiling a toolchain for programming ARM’s in ELF code.

Why do I need a toolchain for programming ARMs?

  1. I found a LPC2378-STK development board in my room
  2. I want to give ARM programming a try (PS WinAVR is great for programming AVRs)
  3. I found I have some spare ARM7 LPC2378′s lying around (WTF?) and thought I’ll actually complete my Chumby Speedometer on my car project!

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