kevin.fonner.net

Remote Control and Gumstix

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 0:35:59 -0500

This is my new blackberry storm. For a while I was going to build a hardware based remote control for project-E... but as the design became a little clearer to me; the remote control became a little too complicated for a hardware based system. I thought the touch based interface on the storm would make a nice remote control. The entire remote can then be implemented in software which makes a lot of neat possibilities easier to do. So far the storm has been pretty fun to develop for. It's completely java based and very well documented. I know it's not the geekiest phone out there right now but it was the best one for my purposes. My first choice would have been the G1 but unfortunately it's only on a network that doesn't have anywhere near the coverage that Verizon has. I don't always like all of Verizon's policies but it's hard to beat their network coverage. I absolutely love the design of Apple's phone, but they don't seem to be very friendly towards developers and I find it difficult to understand how so many developers get excited over a phone that its company is so restrictive about.

Here is a look at my current work. Most of my work has been concentrated on gumstix development for the last couple weeks. I have the custom code written and communication up and running between the gumstix and the roboaudiostix via i2c. I'll start posting my code soon... I just have to figure how I want to start posting the code to the blog. I also have bluetooth communication working between my blackberry storm and my gumstix although the code has to be finished on the gumstix. The custom code is working on the blackberry but I simply used minicom running on the gumstix to verify my data coming across so far. My next step will to write the custom c code that runs on the gumstix to handle the incoming messages from the storm.

Here is a closeup of my new gumstix board. I now have a verdex pro XM4-bt to use as the main computer for the parade. I changed to a new board for two reasons. One is that I needed enough memory to store the wav file for the parade and the new verdex pro boards have an on-board SD card slot on them, and the other is the control system is now a blackberry storm. The best way way to control project-E with the blackberry is via bluetooth so it just made sense to have a board with built in bluetooth.

Some Additional Details About My Halloween 2008 Project

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 3:00:53 -0500

Here is an overview of the entire design of the pumkins.

Here is the schematic for the candles. I doubt if it is that good... It's the first real schematic that I have ever put together. I created it in eagle CAD.?

This is just the simple power supply for both the converter and each candle. I put a power supply on each candle so I could increase the voltage on the lines running to the candles to compensate for the longer runs if necessary.?

Here is the schematic for the RS232 to RS485 Converter. I used this to connect the "Pumpkin Network" to my computer. I would send commands out the RS232 port on my computer into this thing. The commands would then get converted to RS485 signals and broadcast to all the pumpkins. This version currently does not support two way communication. I only needed to tell the pumpkins what to do.?

Getting Started with Xbee

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 2:54:04 -0500

To get started with Xbee I am flashing all the firmware on the chips and making sure my newly built kits from Adafruit Industries are working correctly. In the picture I am using an arduino board without the chip as a USB to TTL-232 converter to talk to the Xbee Chip. I later ordered a couple of cables from Adafruit Industries that do this for you. They come in real handy!?

If you couldn't tell already why I had the helping hands in the previous picture... here is a closer look. It's holding one of the wires connected to the Xbee directly to a point on the Arduino board that wasn't exposed on one of the connectors. Hence why I found it a little nicer to order the USB-TTL232 cables. It worked just fine... but those USB-TTL232 Cables come in handy for so many things. I often use to debug my microcontrollers by hooking a max232 chip up to the microcontroller. I would then use a USB to RS232 cable to hook my computer to the MAX232 chip. Now I just plug the USB-TTL232 into my computer and hook it up directly to my chip. Works great.?

Assembling my Xbee kits from Adafruit

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 2:51:11 -0500

Thank goodness for companies like Adafruit Industries! One of the pain in the butt parts of project-E was going to be that I wanted to use Xbee connect all the robots together. Xbee is awesome, but it has two challenges to integrating it into common circuits. One is that the spacing of the pins is not .100 like bread boards and prototyping boards are so you are going to need some sort of pcb to make it fit and also that the Xbee chips are 3.3v and are not 5v tolerant. Well Adafruit makes this wonderful kit that does all the voltage level shifting for you so you can use a Xbee chip with a 5v circuit and with a nice breakout for breadboarding!?

Here is my completed kit. It was pretty easy to put together.?

Here is my kit with the Xbee chip in place.

My new Gumstix

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 2:48:16 -0500

This is the gumstix that I bought to be the brains of the robotic swarm. In this picture I have a gumstix on top, a tweener board in the middle, and a roboaudiostix on the bottom. I've been looking for a reason to buy one of these for a while.

The very early morning of the party

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 2:44:43 -0400

Here are the 7 candles almost done. That was one night with a heck of a lot of soldering.?

Here is one of the completed candles up close.?

Here is the bottom of one of the completed candles.?

The madness begins

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 2:39:01 -0400

Now for the mad rush. I should point out that all of this construction is happening the night before my Halloween party. At the bottom of the picture you can see my first completed candle. Laying circuitry out on a breadboard is obviously not the same as laying out a circuit for a production model so I had to build one first to see how it would go. I decide to just to use some prototyping board from radio shack to build my 8 candles. It would have been better to create a pcb for these, but I hadn't done that before and I definitely didn't have time with less than 24 hours till party time.?

Here is a closer look at my completed first model.?

Here are a few of the remaining 7 halfway completed with some of the components on the board.?

Prototype is beginning to work

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 2:36:31 -0400

Well my crazy debugging scheme worked well enough to allow me figure out how to send a command to my candle from my computer to tell it to start flickering yellow.?

Here is my candle prototype flickering blue after transmitting it the appropriate command.?

Getting started developing the candles

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 2:36:06 -0400

To describe what is going on in this picture... - I would first send command messages for the candle via RS232 serial signal from the computer to the small board on the left which would convert it to a RS485 signal so it could be broad cast to all the candles throughout my dungeon. - An RS485 signal travels from the converter (small board on the left) to the larger board on the right which is my led candle prototype. - Then on a temporary basis I have debug messages sent via TWI serial interface from the candle prototype(large board on the left) to the circuit for debugging purposes (large board in the top right). - That board then sends the debug messages via RS232 back into the computer to display on a terminal screen. This may not have been the best way to do this, but it sure was fun seeing if I could make it work. All that being said on my next project I really need to figure out how to properly debug Atmega microcontrollers.

First Proposal to Buddi on Split Transaction Support

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 1:41:12 -0400

This is my proposal to the Buddi project for adding functionality to the application to split transactions into multiple categories.

First I would start by adding a split button next to the category drop down box in the transaction entry area on an account form. If one is concerned that the split functionality is too complicated for some people then I may make it a preference similar to the reconcile and clear transaction boxes. The split button is really the only major change to any existing forms so if it was disabled by default then the application would behave exactly as it does now. I'm not saying it should be disabled by default, only that it is a possibility if you wanted to keep the application extremely simple by default.

Now lets say that you wanted to enter a transaction for the store Target. Now that is a store I always need to split transactions for. Let's say that spend $15.53. I would just enter the transaction like normal except that when I get to the category drop down I would simply press the split button next to the drop down. A window would pop up with another category drop down in it and 15.53 next to the drop down. Let's say that I spent roughly $10.00 on wine (I know... cheap wine) and $5.00 on a soccer ball. So I would select groceries as the category and then enter 10.00 over the 15.53....

when I press enter or tab or whatever then a new line would automatically be inserted below the existing line with another drop down and 5.53 in the amount window next to it (since this is what remains of the split). Now at this point I could simply choose a category and press save or if I had more splits to do I could continue this trend until I have assigned all money a category. You will not be able to press save successfully without assigning everything to a category.

After you press save and then press enter to complete the transaction then the transaction would simply show -split- (or something like it) to show that the transaction has been split.

Everything else pretty much works like normal. If I click on a category in the budget screen then the transaction would be listed just like normal in the list. A couple of notes... It would probably be nice to make a mouse over the split category field show a list of the assigned categories but this would only look right for 5 to 10 transactions or less.. This will probably cover 99% of people though and I would just display a ... for people who feel the need to split a transaction more then 10 ways. I put a line at the bottom of the list to display the amount remaining to be split. This line may be unnecessary or may be helpful to the user... I have to think about it still a bit. There may be also a need to add a button that manually adds a new line to the transaction split window.