Moving to http://rickology.tumblr.com

Hi All, It's been fun here at Blogspot, but there is way more fun occurring at http://rickology.tumblr.com. My AVR Tool chain and all other project updates will be at over there.


http://rickology.tumblr.com

AVR GCC Makefile build project

I thought this wouldn't be too bad, and it was easy to get started, but to really know what combination works is really tricky. I started with gcc-4.5.1 and it compiled great with mpfr, and gmp simlinked into the source directory. But when I started working gcc 4.3.2, 4.3.5, 4.4.4 each of these got the relative pathing wrong.  Basiclly, instead of ../ configure generated ./ so the code was unreachable. Then I tried using --with-gmp, and --with-mpfr. I got the gmp version recognized, but mpfr was still not findable.

Anyway, the code is on Github, and I will be updating it with whatever positive improvements I find.
http://github.com/ricklon/avrgcc-macosx-makefile

Makerbot Heated Platform 2.0

img_5591.jpg
Originally uploaded by flirianders.
Just some quick notes on the experience. Overall not difficult, and straightforward. However:

1. Remember to get Kapton tape.
2. Remember to obtain solder paste.
3. Think about the color of led you would like. It comes with red, but you can always substitute your favorite color.
4. Wasted time on soldering 3 wires onto an adapter. Could have just used a servo cable instead.

5. The thermistor solders to the PCB in an annoying way.

 So you have to solder one wire then put Kapton tape over it and the solder the other wire. More room could be made for this in the design.

I'm planning to work with Matt from Fubar Labs to re work the aluminum so that it screws together flush. I'm worried the extruder head will crash into the exposed bolts.

That's all for now.

Thoughts on the Adafruit protoshield

I built another Adafruit proto shield tonight. Good design and fun to do, but there some things to think about. The first thing is do you want them to be stackable? If you want the to be the top shield, or the only shield in your experimental sandwich then they are great as is. But, if you want to make the stackable what do you do? Well, you need to get some stackable headers. Then you need to figure out where those headers should go. Not so complicated, they need to match the pins on the Arduino board you've got. With stackable headers you can keep going and going. Following the Adafruit directions you alternate inside and outside, which doesn't stack. So think about what you want from you proto shield, and order extra parts as needed.

So why would you stack a proto shield? Well, in my case I have a nice Serial Display and an awesome Serial shield from Mark Sproul. So that has to go on top, doesn't make sense to stack things on top of your output display anyway. I've got a nice GPS shield from Adafruit. Oops, that not got stackale headers either. Anyway a decent accelerometer from Adafruit on a break out board. I'd like to combine all that info together, and equipment together. The theory goes, stack on an Arduino the GPS shield, add the accelerometer on a proto shield, and finally the serial shield with a 2x16 read out of the serial data.

I'll get this done, once I've got my stackable headers.

Adafruit Wave Shield Kit 1.1

Originally uploaded by flirianders.

Yea! Another kit assembled, and just shy of being ready to try out. It's bed time, and I'll have to check it out in detail tomorrow.

Completed GPS Logger

Completed GPS Logger
Originally uploaded by flirianders.

Yea. it's done and works. Now I'm looking forward to playing with it and and see about incorporating it into some new projects.

In general the "make it" section of the Adafruit site was great. Easy to follow and solder. It was a lot tougher following the steps in the "use it section." Being on netbook and going through section was somewhat confusing. There steps where the wires need be configured one way to test the GPS unit, and another for testing the SD card, and then plugging it all back together. For some reason it wasn't as clear.

So I soldered in an extra row of header pins and just jumped the wires over to reconfigure easily. Made it easy to try the different configurations.

I found that it was critical that the SD Cards be formatted in fat16. Reading through the forums, that seemed to really trip people up. GParted on Ubuntu made formatting for fat16 very easy.

The last issue was that there was multiple versions of the code to upload to test with and it wasn't clear which worked with the 328 chip. Also, it wasn't clear if the memory hack for serial by bring the buffer down to 32 was necessary for the 328 chip. I don't think it was but I'm not sure, I'll have to check that out.

I was thinking with the one kind of hack I'd like to do is have timestamp of when the position were recorded and then sync to a photo set for gathering geolocation data.

Not March Madness: Adafruit GPS Log Shield

Adafruit GPS Shield
Originally uploaded by flirianders.

Yea, I get to do something nice and physical tonight. I soldered up the Adafruit GPS log shield and didn't have to write a program to see if it worked. So satisfying. I'm going to got o bed around 11pm.

No longer do I have to program from 10pm to midnight, and then debug until satisfied. I can do it tomorrow. Yea! Another thought about March madness is some projects had physical components, then the Arduino sketch, and then some program that listened to the serial port. That program would have to talk to some web server, and ... so on. Tough to get all that done in one day.

Here's a Flickr set of the fun I had:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rickanderson/sets/72157623626704103/

Next time I promise no iPhone documentation.I'll get my real camera.