Marc's Public Blog - Arduino Hacking


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Table of Content for arduino:
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2011/01/20 Mobsendat Arduino board from Arduino Miniconf 2011
π 2011-01-20 01:01 in Arduino
After the last linux.conf.au, and my going to the arduino miniconf, I got (voluntarily I guess :) conned into learning about a new field: arduino. The learning curve was a bit steep since I started with the second miniconf which featured a pretty sweet board, the mobsendat one of the volunteers had just designed.
Mobsendat (mobile sensor data) offers pretty good IO that's useful to log to its built in sdcard: a DS18B20 1-wire temp sensor, a barometer (with 2nd temperature reading), a 3 axis accelerometer, and connectivity for a GPS, a 433Mhz radio chip, and a Zigbee chip, all this for barely over $100. It was designed to be put in rocket bodies to record the flights, but I figured I'd find other uses for it :)

I got to solder the whole thing during the miniconf:


all done
all done

Putting aside some problems due to a short in my board that came from a pre-soldered chip (not my fault :) ), it worked great. I was even able to hack in a dirty mod to let me unplug the GPS when I don't need it


Programming with arduino was reasonably easy. I haven't done much work on that specific board yet, but I have on the other one (next post).

See more images for Mobsendat Arduino board from Arduino Miniconf 2011
2011/01/19 Pebble Shield from Arduino Miniconf 2010
π 2011-01-19 01:01 in Arduino
I missed the arduino miniconf in 2010, but I was able to buy the pebble shield from a former participant, along with an arduino mega board. This board was a bit better for me to first learn on than the mobsendat because it had more interactive I/O to play with (potentiometer, LDR, LEDs, LCD display, and more).

This gave me a chance to learn the Aiko framework from Andy Gelme, which allows for registering event handlers that get called at a specified interval. I ended up writing some handlers that were missing, like a button handler that calculates which combination of buttons is pressed from the combined resistance generated by the 3 buttons. I used this to tell the board at what frequency to flash an led based on potentiometer or LDR light input.


slightly improved version with LEDs connected to the relays
slightly improved version with LEDs connected to the relays

I have a video showing this live:

This was a good way to learn how to play with arduino and learn programming, as well as being a test platform for the Zigbee chips I bought. I'll get a chance to do some more serious work on my mobsendat after that.

See more images for Pebble Shield from Arduino Miniconf 2010
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