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Computer controlled shutter for the Automatic 100 series packfilm cameras with manual exposure control. See www.chemie.unibas.ch/~holder/shutterpic/index.html
Arduino UNO does PWM (pulse width modulation) – 16mm scale.
This test board has a UNO configured to provide 6 PWM servo outputs as a microcontroller for points (turnouts) and/or signals on my 16mm scale narrow gauge exhibit. Two vero strip boards incorporate the required crossovers to provide Futaba/Hitec/etc format servo pinouts on the UNO’s digital output sockets.
Each of the UNO’s analogue inputs is held at intermediate potential by a pair of 1 Kohm resistors. The remote commander has a 20 foot wander lead and its four momentary push buttons short out one or other 1 Kohm resistor to take the analogue input to LOW or HIGH potential as a tri-state switch. The UNO picks up the change in potential and moves the corresponding servo through the number of degrees pre-programmed in the sketch, via the selected PWM output.
This basic setup will enable the option of automated signal and point control on the 16mm scale exhibition layout by linking the UNO's analogue inputs to other sensors.
Continued from the other day, some of the initial circuit has changed, and now includes a built-in sound trigger. Except that the sound triggering is giving me fits... that part of the circuit is analog, and the logic, of course, is digital. Apparently, the microcontroller and I have differing views of what "rising edge" means, and the trigger causes the flash interrupt well before it's supposed to. So far, I've not been able to work it out.
I'm sure I will, though. The problem is probably in my code, with a second choice being the analog interface into the digital logic section. Anyway, this is the most complicated circuit/microcontroller code project I've ever worked on, and I've had surprisingly few issues with it, so far...
Anyway, since I don't have the photos I was building this to help capture, here's a description of what it does, when I think about it, blissfully absent from the hard reality... notes above describe the various parts.
Prefocus and compose the shot on the unsuspecting firework. Turn on the device, wait for the "ready" indicator light. Push the little yellow button. The shutter interface opens the shutter in bulb mode. Half a second later, the igniter circuit activates, cranking 4 amps through the rocket motor igniter. Since 2 amps should "guarantee" ignition, that should be good. Once the igniter circuit goes hot, the sound trigger starts listening for the boom. When it hears the boom, it signals the microcontroller to cut power to the igniter, pop the flash, and close the shutter on the camera. Then it recycles, waiting for the next one. Except, of course, it doesn't... it doesn't do that, at all.
Unfortunately, I've already begun to get distracted... it occurred to me today that I could probably make a cheap-o 16-24 channel logic analyzer with an Atmega16. That's very appealing to me, because sometimes an analog scope isn't enough. It's painful to work out chip-to-chip communications with a 2-channel scope. I may switch over and work on that for the rest of the night. Of course, I'll have to implement a USB interface, and write a Windows app to actually use it, so there's like a zero percent chance I'll have it done this weekend. Which means that by next weekend, I'll be on to something else...
update!!! Live fire trial run tomorrow!!! Fixed both known issues (both were code - one was a misread register name, the other was a lack of understanding of how code optimization can jeopardize variables)!!!
An Atmel microcontroller, the ATmega8, on a little protoyping module, plugged into a solderless breadboard. This is the controller that I've been using for a number of small projects, including a persistence-of-vision wand and an LED dot-matrix display. The CPU runs at 16MHz and is programmed in either assembler or C.
I built a PC Meter which display CPU and Memory usage for an attached computer. It's driven by an Arduino microcontroller, which is fed the stats by a C#.Net application I developed. More information, source code, and a video demonstration can be found on the project web page here:
This is a microcontroller-powered temperature controller for a fridge I built out of fabricated necessity and spare parts last weekend.
Backstory: We replaced our ancient 2nd fridge with a big new upright freezer, which left our little chest freezer empty. Sometimes we do need the extra fridge space though during harvest season at the farm, so I figured I could just turn the temperature up on that old chest freezer and turn it into a fridge. Nope. Highest it goes is -4C. OK. Time for some gratuitous technology. See the notes.
First test painting with light (long exposure) using the new version of the PointyThing writing with single Neopixel (red/green/blue) LED at the point, being controlled by the microcontroller. Photo is a long explosure (about 300 seconds) of it rotating in a spiral
The results of a DIY project writing custom code for a Node MCU micro-controller to control addressable LEDs.
2 drop collision into Xanthan gum mix, blue ink and a little Dettol kitchen cleaner.
The blue/green in the rise is from gels on the 2 flashes behind the glass.
100% uncropped and unedited.
2:1 using Canon 7D and 100mm f/2.8L macro with 68mm of extension tubes (full kenko set).
Computer controlled shutter for the Automatic 100 series packfilm cameras with manual exposure control. See www.chemie.unibas.ch/~holder/shutterpic/index.html
I built a PC Meter which display CPU and Memory usage for an attached computer. It's driven by an Arduino microcontroller, which is fed the stats by a C#.Net application I developed. More information, source code, and a video demonstration can be found on the project web page here:
Photo taken to accompany short article on working with AVR microcontrollers, and making minimalist target boards for programming them.
Some time ago I built a wooden flexure stage because I wanted to take focus-stacked macro photos. Originally the contraption was meant to be operated manually, but last week Sophia automated the thing as part of a homework project for her high school electronics class. An Arduino microcontroller drives a motor that advances the stage towards the camera in tiny steps, and a relay that triggers the camera. The size and the number of steps, and how much time the camera needs between steps to take a picture, are entered via an infrared remote control.
This is a binary clock that was built into a 3d-printed case created in Minecraft. It shows the current time in a binary coded decimal format.
The model was exported with the free tool Mineways and printed on a Zprinter 650 3d-printer, with a block size of 125mm^3 (so every block has an edge length of 5mm). After printing, LEDs were glued into the case after filing the openings a bit wider. Then, the LEDs were soldered to form a 4x4 LED matrix, and the matrix was connected to an Arduino board.
A technical description of the setup as well as downloads of the model and the code can be found here: postapocalypticresearchinstitute.wordpress.com/2012/07/18...
In the past the setup of this laser signal was always a pain. This adjustement need to be very exactly to have the max reflected signal on the microcontroller. Now the new setup make this adjustements simply. I can finetune the laser into all direction, first very coarse and then very precise into the X and Y direction. As you can see there are a lot of small parts. But this new setup give me the assurance to have always the max detection signal. This cost me 5 days of heavy works to make all this very small parts! once for the left side and once for the right side. The IR laser works at 840 nm and is pulsed 20us on and 20us off. The difference between the ambient light and the IR laserlight is processed into the AVR controller ATtiny45 into a separeted macro lens the AF60/2.8Dmicro from Nikkor. The information go to the central CPLD controller to make the decision to take a photo in focus.
Using Digispark ATTINY85 USB board, programmed Zoom Mute and Video toggle keystrokes to the buttons (guitar pedal switches).
I've assembled a few of the new boards so far - it's been a while, I'm a little out of practice, but these are looking good after some minor rework.
The other boards are waiting for now, I didn't notice that I was missing a part for the main quad pcb (the expensive gyro, I apparently only ordered a small qty and used them all in other boards)
The new scrap of veroboard is a simple interface to drive an LED from Pin 21 of the PIC microcontroller to indicate optimum audio input level.
Ruined by the Flames of Excess, 2011, Wood, steel rod, epoxy clay and feathers.
A Phantom Torso, 2011, Silkscreen printed polystyrene, expanding foam, & microcontroller with servo.
Photo: Ola O Smit
Homemade using an Addressable RGB LED Light Strip and Microcontroller Board
See my YouTube video showing all of my current Light Painting Tools and how they work.
www.youtube.com/user/michaelrross1
You can find get to the detailed tutorial information and videos to make this tool yourself on my personal website under the new Tutorial Blog at:
Photo taken to accompany short article on working with AVR microcontrollers, and making minimalist target boards for programming them.
Photo taken to accompany short article on working with AVR microcontrollers, and making minimalist target boards for programming them.
Arduino UNO does PWM (pulse width modulation) – 16mm scale.
This test board has a UNO configured to provide 6 PWM servo outputs as a microcontroller for points (turnouts) and/or signals on my 16mm scale narrow gauge exhibit. Two vero strip boards incorporate the required crossovers to provide Futaba/Hitec/etc format servo pinouts on the UNO’s digital output sockets.
Each of the UNO’s analogue inputs is held at intermediate potential by a pair of 1 Kohm resistors. The remote commander has a 20 foot wander lead and its four momentary push buttons short out one or other 1 Kohm resistor to take the analogue input to LOW or HIGH potential as a tri-state switch. The UNO picks up the change in potential and moves the corresponding servo through the number of degrees pre-programmed in the sketch, via the selected PWM output.
This basic setup will enable the option of automated signal and point control on the 16mm scale exhibition layout by linking the UNO's analogue inputs to other sensors.
Driving a stepper motor that was salvaged from an old Epson ink-jet printer with an Allegro A3982 chip. It's basically the same design as the MIT Machines That Make driver PCB: makeyourbot.org/a3982-1-0
PACK, Daniel J.; BARRETT, Steven Frank. Microcontroller Theory and Applications: HC12 and S12. 2 ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. xiv, 631 p. ISBN 0136152058. Inclui bibliografia e índice; il. tab. quad.; 24x16cm.
Palavras-chave: MICROPROCESSADORES; MICROELETRONICA.
CDU 621.3.049.77 / P119m / 2 ed. / 2008
This is my own version of the "weather picture"
The original microcontrollers are replaced by Arduino's with my own software, enabling me to display much more data. The only thing reused are the 7 segment displays.
For example:
- On the left middle and top display's, the Beaufort and km/h value are visible simultaneously.
- Also with the limited possibilities of 7 segment displays, the wind direction is shown in character format. It's amazing how fast I was used to this. 55u is immediately recognised as SSW
- Now, on one display I can show as many values as I want with a selectable delay between the values.
- The most useful addition for me is the 5 minute average wind direction (low left display).
- on the lower right display you see a few LED's. They indicate the barometric rise or fall and how fast it's going up or down.
A small project I did, using a Playstation 2 controller and Arduino to control the speed and direction of a bipolar stepper motor.
More information and source code: www.lungstruck.com/projects/ps2-motor-controller/
As the electronics hobbyist one of knowledge that we have to be familiar with is how to make our own printed circuit board (PCB). Making our own simple single side PCB actually is not require a sophisticated technique and technology as you might think, instead most of the required materials is already available at your home. For more information please visit www.ermicro.com/blog/?p=1526
I'm starting to feel the inclination to get back into electronics hobbyism these days - and on the photography side that means closeup / macro shots will be coming along soon.
The fever hits me now and then to make some LEDs blink, and the way I generally do that is to write software for a microcontroller (MCU) - a tiny, cheap, single-chip computer - to do it.
Why bother? You might well ask. Well! MCUs form the heart of all sorts of nifty circuitry - anything that isn't actually a computer and yet is "computerized", which is pretty much everything, anymore. I plan to make fun simple things like clocks and little games and decorative blinky lights, but stuff like homemade MP3 players, GPS units, simple autonomous robots, and Web-based remote control devices are now well within the reach of hobbyist designers. All you have to do is get specialized circuitry to handle the GPS reception or MP3 decoding or time displaying, then plunk a MCU down to order it around according to directions specified by software you write.
These three circuits pictured are all "programmers", or interface devices that let you send MCU software from the PC where you wrote it to the actual MCU chip. These are all for the PIC family of chips manufactured by Microchip, Inc.
In the upper left, the venerable PIC-1a from 1996, a small-scale-commercial variant of a famous programmer invented in April 1994 by a hobbyist named David Tait. The "Tait Classic" circuit, as it came to be known, was intended only for one kind of PIC MCU, the surprisingly useful 16C84. It had space for a 1024-instruction program and 36 bytes of data RAM. Much, much more powerful MCUs are available these days for less than the old C84 cost, but it was a great little chip. The Tait programmer made hobbyist MCU programming affordable, I believe; until recently the professional-grade tools for it were very pricey by hobbyist terms. The Tait Classic could be built for a few dollars or ordered pre-assembled from a cottage industry sort of shop like I did for, IIRC, about $50.
In the upper right, a cottage-commercial version of the P16Pro40, which is basically a newer and more flexible version of the Tait Classic, able to handle several different chips. I think I got this one in about 2004.
These two both still work, as far as I know, but they connect to the PC through the parallel port - and modern PCs don't often have parallel ports! Certainly the little netbook I use now doesn't. Hence, my decision to buy the programmer in the bottom of the shot, the Pickit 3. It's a USB-based programmer made by Microchip itself, and it has several features the Tait-types don't - plus it's fairly cheap, as things like this now are (about $70 for the "deluxe" version of the Pickit 3).
Nifty, eh?