Tinkerlog

LCDs are often used in microcontroller projects. Most used are these green character displays with two or more rows to display menus, status or debug messages. With mass production of mobile phones, color LCDs get that cheap, that they can be used as replacement.
Some time ago I ordered a Nokia 6100 LCD including breakout board from Sparkfun. To test the display, I hacked a kind of small digital picture frame, that fetches pictures from Flickr. (more…)

This is a new version of my Tengu clone. This time on a printed circuit board (PCB). I have them produced by Olimex and I am very pleased with the quality. The PCB worked on the first try and has some minor issues only.

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Today my first PCBs arrived. Hooray! For me, this is definitely like reaching the next level in DIY technologies.

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TV-B-Gone is pure subversive fun. If you don’t know it, it was invented by Mitch Altman and it is a universal TV remote control with a single button, the power button. You can only switch TVs off. No longer dumb advertisements everywhere you go. Just switch them off. Extra portions of fun in a MediaMarkt.

Just another fine device, well suited for DIY.

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Arduino is a great prototyping platform and most of you probably know already about it. If not, check out the Arduino pages and the Arduino playground and dive into it.

A couple of month ago I ordered my first Arduino board. It was one of the Diecimila revision. As I often try something on my breadboard, I found out, that it can get troublesome to connect the Arduino with the breadboard over and over again. Others found that out as well and have solutions for that. An Arduino clone that snaps nicely onto your breadboard, e.g. Boarduino or RBBB.

So what to do if these boards are far away across the ocean and it is holiday season everywhere? You may have guessed it, we build it on a prototype board.

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Back in March I published my first instructable called Programmable LED. The idea was simple, have a device that is able to record and play back light sequences. Light sequences are recorded with an LDR, a light dependent resistor and played back with an LED.

After a while some users at Instructables began to rebuild, modify and improve the Programmable LED. Ok, that’s what Instructables is all about, to share and to distribute, but it was astonishing to me, how it worked.

This is a gallery of these derived and improved versions. Kudos to all the builders.

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I just finished the tengu clone on a prototype board. Here are some pictures.

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When I first saw Crispin Jones Tengu, I was sure, I must have one. If you don’t know tengu and don’t want to follow the link, it’s a small face, made of LEDs, that reacts to music and sound.
It did not take long until I decided to clone this funny little device. All it needs is a microcontroller, an LED matrix and a sound sensor.

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I recently switched from Windows to OS X. I bought a MacBook and I already love it.

The downside is, that I have to build up the complete environment to program AVR microcontrollers again.

This is a write up of things to install and confiure to get the tool chain up and running.

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After some trouble with my SMS sending routine I am finally able to show some working code.

Features so far

• Displays menu via serial port if attached to PC
• Can run unattended or interactively for debugging
• Fetches GPS positions and sends them via SMS every two minutes

If the circuit is powered on, the following sequence will be executed:

1. Boot up, switch on the GPS-GSM module
2. Initialize the modem
3. Fetch the GPS position, redo until position is fix
4. Parse and format position
5. Send formatted position as link to Google Maps as SMS
6. Wait 120 seconds
7. Goto 3

Rebuilding it

Well, now you have all information and sources to rebuild and program this device, at least you should. If not, please tell me, what is missing.

But I had some hints in the comments that this can be done easier with the built-in Python. There also other very promissing sources and that is definetely the next thing, that I want to try out. If that works fine, which is not really doubtful to me, I could drop nearly all the external components. That would make it cheaper, easier and smaller.

Nevertheless, the firmware can be useful, if you would like to see, which commands to use to talk to the Telit module.

Links

• Part I: Interfacing an AVR controller to a GPS Mobile Phone
• Part II: Using Google Maps with a mobile GPS tracker

Downloads

• Firmware:beacon-v0.03.zip