As for me, well, since I can't foresee being able to get back into things in the near future, consider me dropped back off the face of the planet (to use unsped's words) once again. With any luck I'll post again one day.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Better men than I (aka, Tinct Lives!)
Monday, March 24, 2008
Distinct Tincts
When I decided to go ahead and have my own PCBs made for what would become the Tinct I posted a request for people who would be willing to split the cost of fabrication with me. Two people - Brad Hill and Devon Jones - were brave (or foolish) enough to respond, despite having no reason to have any confidence that the design would work; without them, I probably wouldn't have proceeded because of cost. It's great having people with whom I can bounce ideas around, to whom I can complain when things aren't working, and to whom I can brag when things finally work.
I'm very pleased to report that, a mere week after I completed the first OcTinct, Devon has completed his. We decided to go with computer science-style numbering, so we're calling mine Tinct 0, and his is Tinct 1. Brad isn't slacking off, either, and has been working on a number of monome/Arduino crossover projects, which you can see pictures of on his Flickr page.
A few other quick Tinct updates: I'm pretty happy with the current version of the firmware, and have cleaned up and commented the code to make it usable by others. I'm willing to call this a "release candidate," whatever that means in this context. There are a few minor optimizations I want to try, but I have one that works without any known bugs. I rewrote the TinctSerial program; the serial performance of Processing sucked, so I rewrote it in Python (my first Python program ever). That solved all of my problems, although the current version is a processor hog. Devon taught me everything I know about Python (over IM, no less), so he's going to fix up the code. Finally, the controller board design is forthcoming. I just need to test my power supply circuitry to make sure it works, and then it's time to have the boards made. After that, all that's left to do is build a case!
I'm very pleased to report that, a mere week after I completed the first OcTinct, Devon has completed his. We decided to go with computer science-style numbering, so we're calling mine Tinct 0, and his is Tinct 1. Brad isn't slacking off, either, and has been working on a number of monome/Arduino crossover projects, which you can see pictures of on his Flickr page.
A few other quick Tinct updates: I'm pretty happy with the current version of the firmware, and have cleaned up and commented the code to make it usable by others. I'm willing to call this a "release candidate," whatever that means in this context. There are a few minor optimizations I want to try, but I have one that works without any known bugs. I rewrote the TinctSerial program; the serial performance of Processing sucked, so I rewrote it in Python (my first Python program ever). That solved all of my problems, although the current version is a processor hog. Devon taught me everything I know about Python (over IM, no less), so he's going to fix up the code. Finally, the controller board design is forthcoming. I just need to test my power supply circuitry to make sure it works, and then it's time to have the boards made. After that, all that's left to do is build a case!
Monday, March 17, 2008
The OcTinct is up and running!
The OcTinct, the 8x8 member of the Tinct family (a full-colour monome clone), is up and running! The colours don't show up nearly as well in my videos (if anyone knows how to fix that, please let me know):
Technical details after the jump.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
RGB monome clone update and rename: Tinct!
The gist: the video above is of the second version of my RGB monome clone. The reason is looks so much worse that the first version on video is because it is so bright that it saturates my camera's CCD; in reality, it looks much better than the original. It is fully compatible with monome programs and the colour can be changed on the fly via software. The project has been renamed "Tinct," the 4x4 version shown above is called TiniTinct, and that's how I'll refer to them from now on. Right now, production kits are looking unlikely, but I do have a couple of extra sets of the prototype boards if anyone is interested in them. For more details continue after the jump.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Boards have arrived!
Wednesday was board-day for me, as both my AVR ICSP breadboard adapter (ordered from BatchPCB) and my RGB button pad (ordered from Advanced Circuits) arrived. Much to my delight (and, to be honest, a little to my surprise), they both seem to work great. If you got in touch with me about the breadboard adapters, you'll be hearing from me soon; some are not spoken for, so if you'd like one, get in touch (jmg shift-2 upwardnotnorthward dot com). Expect a full post on the RGB pad once I've got it all up and running (right now I only have four RGB LEDs, so I'm waiting for more to arrive before I can fully build it).
Oh, and Advanced Circuits included a bag of microwave popcorn with my board order. Seriously.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
In the works: RGB monome-esque kit
Update: This kit probably isn't going to happen for various reasons. Read about it in this post.
After talking with Brian, and obtaining his blessing (and advice), I've decided to invest the money to produce a custom PCB for an RGB button pad prototype. This design is completely different than my original, offering improved colour-depth and brightness: the pre-prototyping I've done blows the old one out of the water. I hope to have the design completed and the custom PCBs in-hand by the end of the month. What I'd like to do is order a medium-sized run of these boards so that I can split the development cost with like-minded hardware hackers. These would not be "plug and play" kits by any stretch of the imagination: these would require significant extra work to get them to do anything, and comfort working with electronics. The numbers will be kept small, so we can all easily communicate, and hence people who want to participate will need to be in touch with me first. This will be nothing like the monome kits, which are much more user friendly! You have been warned! If you fit this description, I need your feedback, so please read on and respond!
There are a few ways I could do this that I'm considering, each with their own advantages and disadvantages (both for me and for you). This would only be a board with the buttons and LEDs on it, as well as the circuitry to drive the LEDs. No logic would be on-board, that would have to be handled by an external microcontroller, most likely an Arduino (although your favourite board could work, too).
What I'm most likely to make first is a 4x4 button pad design to work with Sparkfun's buttons. It would include a small overhang to hold the circuitry to drive the LEDs, which would interface serially with whichever microcontroller platform you'd like. The serial interface would only control the LEDs; the buttons' wiring would be broken out to control however you like. All of the inputs and outputs will be neatly bundled together in a ribbon cable. Code and schematics for running it off of an Arduino (and possibly other platforms) would be made freely available. It would be possible to daisy-chain multiple 4x4 boards, but this would require more complicated off-board wiring. This kit would be the least expensive option, and also offers the most flexibility. The disadvantage would be that it would require the most outside wiring to get working, especially if you're planning on chaining multiple boards.
What I'd really like to make, personally, is an 8x8 button pad on a single baord, which would include a full serial interface for both the buttons and the LEDs, as well as power circuitry on-board (an 8x8 RGB pad uses a lot of current!). It is highly doubtful that I would do this initially for several reasons: for starters, it would be a much more complicated board for me to design and test. Perhaps more importantly, it would require me to invest in the professional edition of Eagle, which is an additional $600. That's money I need to put up initially, and it's money that would have to be factored into the cost of the boards for any other developers. So, unless feedback is overwhelmingly in favour of the 8x8 pad, this would most likely come later, if the interest existed.
Finally, there's the logic board. For now (and probably forever), this would be an Arduino. If you want to hook it up to something else, then by all means you could do so; if I hook it up to something else, I'll probably post code for it. For now, though, I'm developing on an Arduino and maybe AVR, so that's what I'll offer.
In terms of functionality, it will probably be possible to make this "monome-compatible," like my monomuino project. Of course, the colour functionality would not be accesible in this mode, you would have to pick the colour you wanted to display. I can't stress enough: if you want to build a monome, buy the kits from monome! This is for people interested in hardware tinkering. This device could also be controlled with a to-be-developed custom protocol which supports full colour, but in terms of software to utilize this, it would have to be custom written. Hopefully, if we get together a group of about a dozen people to do this, we'll be able to put together some neat stuff.
Here's what I'd like to hear from you:
After talking with Brian, and obtaining his blessing (and advice), I've decided to invest the money to produce a custom PCB for an RGB button pad prototype. This design is completely different than my original, offering improved colour-depth and brightness: the pre-prototyping I've done blows the old one out of the water. I hope to have the design completed and the custom PCBs in-hand by the end of the month. What I'd like to do is order a medium-sized run of these boards so that I can split the development cost with like-minded hardware hackers. These would not be "plug and play" kits by any stretch of the imagination: these would require significant extra work to get them to do anything, and comfort working with electronics. The numbers will be kept small, so we can all easily communicate, and hence people who want to participate will need to be in touch with me first. This will be nothing like the monome kits, which are much more user friendly! You have been warned! If you fit this description, I need your feedback, so please read on and respond!
There are a few ways I could do this that I'm considering, each with their own advantages and disadvantages (both for me and for you). This would only be a board with the buttons and LEDs on it, as well as the circuitry to drive the LEDs. No logic would be on-board, that would have to be handled by an external microcontroller, most likely an Arduino (although your favourite board could work, too).
What I'm most likely to make first is a 4x4 button pad design to work with Sparkfun's buttons. It would include a small overhang to hold the circuitry to drive the LEDs, which would interface serially with whichever microcontroller platform you'd like. The serial interface would only control the LEDs; the buttons' wiring would be broken out to control however you like. All of the inputs and outputs will be neatly bundled together in a ribbon cable. Code and schematics for running it off of an Arduino (and possibly other platforms) would be made freely available. It would be possible to daisy-chain multiple 4x4 boards, but this would require more complicated off-board wiring. This kit would be the least expensive option, and also offers the most flexibility. The disadvantage would be that it would require the most outside wiring to get working, especially if you're planning on chaining multiple boards.
What I'd really like to make, personally, is an 8x8 button pad on a single baord, which would include a full serial interface for both the buttons and the LEDs, as well as power circuitry on-board (an 8x8 RGB pad uses a lot of current!). It is highly doubtful that I would do this initially for several reasons: for starters, it would be a much more complicated board for me to design and test. Perhaps more importantly, it would require me to invest in the professional edition of Eagle, which is an additional $600. That's money I need to put up initially, and it's money that would have to be factored into the cost of the boards for any other developers. So, unless feedback is overwhelmingly in favour of the 8x8 pad, this would most likely come later, if the interest existed.
Finally, there's the logic board. For now (and probably forever), this would be an Arduino. If you want to hook it up to something else, then by all means you could do so; if I hook it up to something else, I'll probably post code for it. For now, though, I'm developing on an Arduino and maybe AVR, so that's what I'll offer.
In terms of functionality, it will probably be possible to make this "monome-compatible," like my monomuino project. Of course, the colour functionality would not be accesible in this mode, you would have to pick the colour you wanted to display. I can't stress enough: if you want to build a monome, buy the kits from monome! This is for people interested in hardware tinkering. This device could also be controlled with a to-be-developed custom protocol which supports full colour, but in terms of software to utilize this, it would have to be custom written. Hopefully, if we get together a group of about a dozen people to do this, we'll be able to put together some neat stuff.
Here's what I'd like to hear from you:
- Which kit(s) would you be interested in? How many?
- The LEDs I like are from superbrightLEDs.com, and are much more expensive than ones you can find on Ebay, but much higher quality. If I bought a bulk order of those, and sold them at around cost (that's the discounted bulk cost, not the individual LED cost at superbrightLEDs), would you buy them bundled with the kit? (This would add ~$20 to a 4x4 kit, and ~$80 to an 8x8).
- Similarly, would you want the Sparkfun buttons bundled with the kit? This would save you shipping from Sparkfun.
- Can I contact you in the future with questions about the kit, and/or with announcements about the kits' availability?
- Any other questions or comments you might have
If you email me (at jmg -atsign- upwardnotnorthward -dot- com), I will not give your information out to anybody under any circumstances. I will contact you precisely once, to let you know that the boards are available, unless you explicitly give me permission to contact you more, or ask that I not contact you at all.
If you don't trust me with your email address, and never want to hear from me, then simply leave your thoughts in the comments below. That's cool, too.
If you don't trust me with your email address, and never want to hear from me, then simply leave your thoughts in the comments below. That's cool, too.
Monday, February 11, 2008
AVR ICSP 6-pin breadboard adapter
Update: the boards have arrived. If you're interested in getting one, please email me at jmg (shift-2) upwardnotnorthward (period) com.
I think I'm really starting to get the hang of EAGLE CAD; not only is it no longer frustrating, I now really enjoy designing boards in it.
I've been teaching myself about directly programming AVR chips (stay posted for an article on that), and since I'm too stubborn (and cheap) to pay for a development board, I built and have been using an Evil Mad Scientist Labs-style minimalist target board. It works great, but the problem is you more-or-less need a different board for every different type of chip you want to program, plus, you need to shuttle the chip back and forth from the breadboard to the programmer. It would be great to be able to program the chip in-breadboard, by the dual-row header pin won't allow that. You can run wires directly from your programmer to the breadboard, but that's a little messy. So, I decided to make a simple breadboard adapter for the ICSP header.
This has been done before, but I really don't like dealing with perfboard, and I was itching to try having a PCB manufactured, so I designed the adapter and ordered a bunch up from Sparkfun's BatchPCB service. My design is set up so that the Vcc and GND connect directly into the bus lines of the breadboard to save two wires later on. I ordered a bunch of extras, so if anyone out there is interested in one, drop me an email and we'll work something out (assuming they work properly when they arrive).
I think I'm really starting to get the hang of EAGLE CAD; not only is it no longer frustrating, I now really enjoy designing boards in it.
I've been teaching myself about directly programming AVR chips (stay posted for an article on that), and since I'm too stubborn (and cheap) to pay for a development board, I built and have been using an Evil Mad Scientist Labs-style minimalist target board. It works great, but the problem is you more-or-less need a different board for every different type of chip you want to program, plus, you need to shuttle the chip back and forth from the breadboard to the programmer. It would be great to be able to program the chip in-breadboard, by the dual-row header pin won't allow that. You can run wires directly from your programmer to the breadboard, but that's a little messy. So, I decided to make a simple breadboard adapter for the ICSP header.
This has been done before, but I really don't like dealing with perfboard, and I was itching to try having a PCB manufactured, so I designed the adapter and ordered a bunch up from Sparkfun's BatchPCB service. My design is set up so that the Vcc and GND connect directly into the bus lines of the breadboard to save two wires later on. I ordered a bunch of extras, so if anyone out there is interested in one, drop me an email and we'll work something out (assuming they work properly when they arrive).
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