The mark 2 version of this circuit which was entered into the Dangerous Prototypes 7400 competition has now reached successfully five weeks running on it’s own backup super capacitor. During this period it has maintained the alarm status and powered the indicator LEDs on more then 25 occasions.
The first version ran for seven weeks, but with less LED activity. So there is room to balance costs and backup time with the current 7400 design. An order for some pico power PICs will be sent soon, so the mark 3 version with a few more bells and whistles can be prototyped.
As always, if you would like to be a part of this project in any way, leave a comment here, or at the project site at Launchpad.
Lately my ‘relaxation’ project has been dabbling in ‘building’ an autonomous maze solving car. Sounds grand, but in reality just using an off the shelf remote control Jeep and the RoboRacing bootstrap shield kit, both from the Xinchejian Hackerspace.
The Jeep has been stripped and an Arduino and the motor controller installed and tested.
The Arduino software has progressed to create an extensive framework manage:
task prioritisation
sensor data
collision and obstacle avoidance
selection from several maze solving algorithms
two simple maze algorithms trialled in simulator
additional logic to cater non-standard mazes and loops
basic motor control on/off and PWM motor control completed.
For more relaxation, a maze solving simulator has also been developed using Processing. It shares some of the Arduino program and data structure.
The Big “to do’s” are deciding on approach to sensors – type(s), positions, number and the collision and obstacle avoidance, guidance, position tracking, and all the other code I am sure to have forgotten or just think is already working. So tomorrow I am off for some more ‘relaxation’ at the monthly Xinchejian robot race to check out the track and sensors used.
So now I’ve gone public on this, pride is at stake, so I’ll have to give updates of my future progress, or I’m sure my competitors at Xinchejian will only be to happy to report on my lack of progress 🙂
Even just the presentation titles from Sketching in Hardware 2011 are exciting, and the content is even better. I found many great ideas and challenges!
Improvement? and Sideways Invention: Alternative Technology
Building the Web of Things …. fast prototyping Web-based physical mashups
Motivating the Masses to Make
Inspired by Edison
What does “DIY” mean?
What does “DIY” mean when you depend on a massive global industry for your raw materials?
Playing in the Scrapyard: … Recycling … Re-use
Help Wanted… how to transform a great project into an awesome product…
BYO Hackerspace
Re-inventions and Improvements
Personal Fabrication
Modular electronics documentation
State of the [Open Source Hardware] Union
Open Innovation as a model for invention – OpenIDEO
Eliminating barriers … from connecting weird stuff to the internet
Connecting Open Hardware to Its Source
Programming Programs to Program Programs
I have shortened a few titles to highlight the things that leapt out at me. Once again I encourage you strongly to read or watch the presentations yourself, as your interests will be different to mine!
A “Community Event list” has been started to list key information on interesting ‘special’ events related to creating, making, tinkering, hacking, or your own community.
These events, may be organised by local communities, but are not ‘local’ community events, they special events, that are widely advertised, open to others and hopefully share the outcomes.
It is linked in the main navigation on the left hand side.
The list format and content is very much in test stage – this is my first Wiki, let alone leaping into using Semantic MedaiWiki extensions.
A rough to do list is:
to link in the data entry form,
add several views of the events for example a list / table and calendar styles, and
keep adding in more events.
A key theme of {U}sable {D}evices is Community Sharing, which goes hand in hand with contributing, so please jump in and add to the Wiki, or discuss changes.
To change the menu language from Chinese to English and other languages, and back again.
First up, please read this post on the remote control English button names. It also has a brief description on using the PVR (recording) functions.
To navigate the menu system, read the on screen prompts, they do provide instructions on getting to the favourite menus and other sub windows panels.
To change from current language to English:
Turn on TV and the OCN STB.
Make sure you are viewing an OCN cable channel on the TV.
Press the following buttons on the remote and you should then see a screen similar to those below.
Press arrows keys until the yellow menu highlight is on the 5th menu on the left (second from the bottom).
Press OK or Right to select the inner menu.
Press up or down arrows keys until the yellow menu highlight is on the menu second from the bottom left corner.
Press OK or right to select the User menu, then Enter password 1234.
Press Down arrow to select User parameters, then press OK or right to enter the sub-menu.
Press down arrow to select 4th menu item, then press Left or Right arrows repeatedly, until the desired language appears.
Press Down to get to the OK, then press OK, then Guide, Exit, and finally Return.
To switch from English back to Chinese, the process is the same, except of course choosing the other language.
I have only tried this with the larger model that has the PVR functionality. The smaller STB & remote should work the same, and hopefully there is enough help here to get you going on that model.
The additional English content is mostly education or language, but there are a LOT of channels & “radio” stations, you may well find some interesting things that suit your needs, I’ve only had a quick browse!
I can confirm that the EPG is lacking a lot of detail. It really only lists the timeslot and type of show, there is no episode or movie information. For example you might see when a movie is playing, but it will not say what the movie is, and then a large portion of the EPG on the two English channels is still in Chinese. I guess the VOD (Video On Demand) button will work if you subscribe to the advanced services – maybe you also get better EPG content on those channels!
The PVR function does work. I did manual and scheduled recordings, and the reserve function also works (this just switches to the show instead of recording it).
It’s hard to resist the bargain bin – found an alarm clock module.
Now it has extensions for alarm control plus a radio power supply and FM stereo converter. Still in use today!
Bargain bin alarm clock - with addons
I designed and built an archery sight for blind people – electronics worked, but the optics failed 🙁
I really wished I could use an FPGA for this project, but the cost was in the thousands of dollars! I should have used a PIC – but the idea never entered my mind – that was a “computer” – not a logic controller! In the end I moved all my logic into an EPROM.
Archery sight transmitterArchery sight receiver
I bravely promised a friend it would be much cheaper and better to build a kit metal detector for some serious detecting. I tried two different kits – both were total failures with my build – sorry Dave 🙁
Metal detector - Electronics AustraliaMetal detector - Elektor
Instantly turn your project into a “kit”, or any other open project – is this possible? Yes, well nearly. It is now easy to have your PCB produced and for sale on the web, but did you realise that you can also have your project part list “instantly” available for sale?
Dangerous Prototypes has made a great start with a central parts list for all their projects, plus of course the part list for each project, but the exciting bit is that they are also creating a ready made cart at one supplier. I am sure others are doing similar as well. Imagine if the costs for these projects were automatically updated with current costs, plus “kit” and volume discounts.
While not all parts are always included, typically missing the PCB and a couple of parts, this is a huge step in being able to “painlessly” purchase most parts of a project. It almost turns the project directly into a kit. Of course the delivery cost still has to be factored in, but this is a great step forward.
Just image the powerful effect of having people look at your project and being able to “buy now”, when all you have to do is publish your project files and PCB layout.
Imagine when all the current project repositories have this – how many more purchases will go to suppliers? Imagine massive lists of projects with buy now that has current pricing and choice of supplier, even source your project from multiple suppliers (with due care to delivery costs)!
We all have a huge buying power and should be able to convince more suppliers to offer this functionality and we all made sure to publish project parts lists in this fashion, then I am sure that:
competition amongst suppliers would start to reduce these “kit” prices
group purchases would also help drive prices down for some
suppliers would be able to improve internal processes and offer bigger discounts on these “kits”
all sorts of opportunities for percentage discounts, or percentage of sales would be possible
Octopart had a partlist, here is one example, for a while and are thinking of bringing it back, that would be another great way to wake up suppliers to this opportunity.
Now I don’t take credit for this idea, Dangerous Prototypes, Folknology & many others have been getting these ideas out there. There are also many related issues relating schematic and board design with part libraries. More on this in coming posts.
So, this is a shout out for everyone to:
encourage their favourite suppliers to add shareable shopping carts, and
use the shared shopping carts that already exist.
I have started a forum for further discussion on this.
There are several situations where common alarm systems fail to provide any indication that something bad has happened, such as the limited time sirens can sound. This varies according to your local/country regulations, and but when you return, the siren will most likely be off.
Alarm strobes, if fitted are highly visible deterrents, but:
generally provide no external fail safe indication
no indication if power totally fails
relatively heavy power use, so require a significant battery
Alarm strobe lights can run from battery and be left on for long time, but if the the power has been cut off, will your alarm survive without power during your annual holidays?
This system provides a simple, effective and practical enhancement to existing alarm systems to tell you if your alarm has been triggered, tampered with, or lost power. It has been designed to minimise risks by:
giving a safe to enter signal (Green led ONLY)
has fail sale indication (NO indicator = issue)
indicates if alarm system has been tripped (Red led)
indicates if the alarm system has totally lost power (Yellow LED)
can survive on it’s own power for 2+ months
The schematic is shown below, and the Eagle version is here.
Safer Alarm - schematic
Informal testing has shown this circuit works well. It also survived 7+ weeks without power and around fifteen to twenty tests of the indicators.
Safer alarm
Further testing using an Arduino and LiveGraph software shows a ‘pretty’ graph of the charging of the super capacitor. I also wrote lots of test code to capture the discharge cycle and occasionally turn on the LEDs, but this went badly wrong as the Arduino test circuit injected power into the system via the flip flop inputs when it was logging, or drained power from the system when left connected, but switched off.
safer alarm test setupCharging the supercap (LiveGraph)
Charging the supercap (LiveGraph)
I have just started an open source project to get community help to take this project further. If this project was awarded any prizes,they would be used to encourage further community input to this project (and not given to me or my family, friends, relatives).
Further enhancements could include the use of a pico power AtTiny PIC, this would also open opportunities for more enhancements, including more indicators or count of times alarm triggered, and remote indication, whilst keeping low price and matching input signals to typical alarm active collector active low outputs.
Here is a selection of presentations that I found really really inspiring from the recent Open Hardware Summit. I have also included brief notes highlighting the key points that inspired me.
My apologies to those presenters not singled out below – this does not mean your talk was not inspiring! It just means that I focussed on the key content that really inspired me and changed my thinking. It also means that I have only read the static document, and not seen and heard your presentation, which makes a huge difference!
Collaborative:People and professionals from all over the world creating Protei
Already talking about reuse “Reappropriated for other purposes”
Even though it is very complex involving physical and electronic design, it is not about the tec/hacking, it is about large scale practical use in remote and hostile locations!
very well documented – a key to enable others to build and enhance
the speed with which the community created, built and deployed
Major use of open source by the scientific community – you want need to follow back to their main sites to see what they are doing – moodular PCI-e cards, major extensions to KiCad, …..
Yet another leap in a different direction – I read the title, but it did not really sink about the scale of what we can all be invloved in until I read the presentation.
I would encourage you strongly to read or watch the presentations yourself, as your interests will be different to mine!
You might also want to check out the 2010 summit – it also had some very inspiring talks, and of course keep an eye out here as I have more inpiration posts coming.
I wanted to relax and watch some cable TV in Shanghai. But the remote was all in Chinese. I could see that there was an EPG (on screen TV guide) and also PVR functionality (recording to USB disk), but I could not work out most of the functions. Neither the manual or OCN website was any help with my very poor Chinese, so with a lot of searching I found these button names and with the help of a Shanghainese friend, we worked out which button was which and created the following:
OCN remote control with english text labels
A second post is in the works to explain how to change the onscreen menu language, and briefly describing some of the additional content (English for dummies like me) that you can then find.
