Comment by Marttyn

Marttyn — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:45:55 +0100

Datasheet for this part? Or reference number to search it?
Thanks!

Comment by pmonk

pmonk — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:29:08 +0100

Is it possible to order this shield without an XBee? It doesn't come with the one I want to use.

Comment by buffercam

buffercam — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:07:13 +0100

Edit: There has been some progress. People are able to get up to CIF resolution images off the camera (352x288). Check the forum for more info.

Still no one has been able to get JPEG images off the camera. Also note: JPEG compression is only available for the full 1.3MP images, not for the smaller image sizes.
Keep in mind that this camera is poorly documented - and the datasheet is written in "Engrish."

Comment by music2131

music2131 — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 18:02:32 +0100

+1 on the battery issue. When I opened it up, I looked at that thing and thought "who wouldn't put polarity terminals next to the battery contacts?"

If you just bought the meter, the battery actually goes into the plastic part that you remove in order to see the battery contacts. Inside the little black plastic panel, you shove a standard 9V battery in based on the polarity shown (it's keyed, so that you can't force it in the wrong way). Meter works fine for me.

Comment by viliam

viliam — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:39:03 +0100

http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/528292/overview

This is a GeoChron generated track of three laps around the SFE building on a bike. I tried to stay as close to the curb as i could but there was a car parked on the north side of the building so i had to avoid it. The yellow track represents where i was biking and the green track is the GPS position. Please note i did not have WAAS enabled.

This should give an idea of what to expect from GPS.

Comment by TBaumg

TBaumg — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 13:22:47 +0100

cpjolicoeur,

An LED and Resistor in series create a single path(circuit) for electricity to flow through. It doesn�t matter if the resistor is before or after the LED because the total impedance of that circuit is limited by the resistor.

It is similar to a water hose and a valve. The valve is like a resistor; it can limit how much water can flow through it. It doesn�t matter if the valve is at the supply side or the open side of the hose, the end result will be the same limited amount of water.

As long as you limit the amount of current that flows through the LED it will be fine. Hope this helps.

Comment by Gremlin

Gremlin — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:40:20 +0100

hey the class sounds great, im attempting to get out there from Manhattan Kansas in time but i just got blindsided by another car and my little civic is crippled =( so there might be an empty chair if i cant swing anything. Rock on!

Comment by partypants69

partypants69 — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:27:50 +0100

Has anyone got this working with the LiquidCrystal or LCD4bit library? I am having quite a bit of trouble getting it to work reliably and am at the point where I am going to try and code my own library for it.

Comment by WayneO

WayneO — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:05:30 +0100

The link to the data sheet is broken (again apparently)
could you please fix it as I need to create a footprint (in P-Cad) in order to use this part.

Comment by cpjolicoeur

cpjolicoeur — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:00:13 +0100

I'm still relatively new to electronics and have a question. When talking about the LED you mentioned:

"You may be wondering if the resistor/LED order matters. It does not. The resistor can come first and then the LED or as shown. Either configuration will correctly limit current through the LED."

Why is this so? I don't understand why you can put the resistor on either side of the LED. Wouldn't the resister need to come before the LED to resist the flow of power into the LED? How does it help afterwards when the power has already gone through the LED?

Comment by Antoine

Antoine — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:49:28 +0100

Hi guys,

A very simple question (but probably quite hard to answer):

Is it a true 5Hz update rate GPS (I mean not extrapolated) ?

I've been testing a few GPS sensors, from fake ones to good ones, but I haven't tested this one yet.

For example the EB-85A is not a true 5hz GPS and has a horrible latency. In fact, to reduce the position noise, it has a low pass filter on the accelations, which makes it good when translating smoothly (car application), but unusable on an airplane/helicopter.

The only good one is the Ublox5 GS406 with a real 4hz update and a very good configuration tool (u-center). You can specify the filter parameters (<1g, <2g, <4g accelerations for example) But it seems to not be in stock anymore...I luckily could buy one when it cames out.

So, has anyone check the latency/reactivity of this GPS.
The test is simple: At T0, start running in one direction. Measure the time T at which the GPS moves. T-T0 should be less than 300ms.

Subsidiary question :
Is the GPS velocity calculation based on doppler effect (of the carrier) or derivative of the positions?

Thank you, and have fun.
Antoine

Comment by peterb

peterb — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 03:55:12 +0100

this is a great tutorial, having fun.
when i set up my power supply though, i'm only getting 4V on the rails. why would that be?
thanks,
Peter

Comment by JaimeSamayoa

JaimeSamayoa — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:45:55 +0100

Hey rbarris,
The reason the image looks faded in the picture is that the camera used to take the image is not the best. Try the program and you will see that the image comes up full color. I have shown this to many people in person and people are always impressed by the sharpness of the image produced. Enjoy!

Comment by Fredjikrang

Fredjikrang — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:34:25 +0100

Yup! It's a surface mount connector.

Comment by Mac McNulty

Mac McNulty — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:43:18 +0100

do i need to solder this on, or how can i attach it?

Comment by noworries

noworries — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:19:21 +0100

Hauk: The effect you are seeing is most likely triggered by electrostatic discharge exciting the strip material or its adhesive. To see a dramatic display of electrostatic discharge, try opening a new trash bag in a dry completely dark environment after you have dark adapted your eyes.

O.K. why do I know this? Trash bags make a simple, temporary shelter from the elements for telescopes that won't be used for a few hours.

-StillNotWorried

Comment by neutered

neutered — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 20:11:15 +0100

i had some time so i soldered some leads to the 2402 on the sensor unit (back to work tomorrow :-) and hooked it up to the analyzer.

on the receiver i see

ff 55 1e 09 0d 0d 01 a8 69 29 30 af b3 c5 16 c3 .U......i)0.....
3c 4f 28 56 1c 29 0b 8f fd 77 71 20 aa 1b a0 e2 ec 34 .4

this gets sent in groups of 9/11/10 octets as

c2 bd 0d 01 a8 69 29 30 af
b3 c5 16 c3 3c 4f 28 56 1c 29 0b
8f fd 77 71 20 aa 1b a0 e2 ec

the first three nibbles are different so i've been thinking this was used to 'encode' something since the remaining #s dont seem to be monotonic up/down like a timer would be.

the last byte in the first group appears to be a sequence #. the first nibble comes as 0 when the sensor hasn't triggered in a while (and as 'a' otherwise). the last nibble is a sequence 0-f.

i guess i'll have to attach to the pic to see what the timers are doing to actually reverse something.

Comment by c42533

c42533 — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:35:02 +0100

This is a great board, but could be even better with the addition of a reset button!! It's easy enough to make your own, but it's one of those nice-to-have features!

clokey - Your question is fairly old, but in case you're still wondering - you probably want to use a different board for programing your Arduino. It can be found here: https://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8772. (You can actually do some fancy stuff and use the board on this page to program an Arduino remotely, but I get the feeling that isn't what you're looking for.)

Comment by ArduinoFun.com

ArduinoFun.com — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:44:16 +0100

You can see this board in action on our blog at: http://arduinofun.com/blog/2009/01/04/lars-vers10-build1/

These boards are great! We used colored sharpie markers to mark out our holes rather than printing off a PDF file. Keeps you sane!

Comment by TravisGood

TravisGood — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:08:31 +0100

I've read that this works with firmware 1.x and requires a jailbroken iPod touch.
Is this true?
If not then can I used it with my firmware v.2.2 non-jailbroke iPod touch?

Comment by ArduinoFun.com

ArduinoFun.com — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 07:20:23 +0100

Highly Recommend. These boards are great! My son and I are just getting started learning about the Arduino and these made creating a shield fast and easy. I agree with the other poster that some bigger boards are needed as well. It would also be nice if there was one designed to fit the Arduino a little better by doing away with the 2 center screw holes.

Comment by dirtylies

dirtylies — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 19:43:26 +0100

Do you mean anti kickback diodes? I see no resistors on page 9, fig. 5.

Comment by Fredjikrang

Fredjikrang — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:56:53 +0100

These chips are available for much less straight from the manufacturer: http://www.invensense.com/store/index.html

Comment by Fredjikrang

Fredjikrang — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:55:45 +0100

Sure, video can be transmitted wirelessly, but not like serial data. The video feed is analog, so digital transmitters won't work. For some good stand alone video transmitters, check out Range Video.

Comment by mungbean

mungbean — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:08:35 +0100

Talking about a "3.3V" FTDI cable is quite confusing....

I have an FTDI cable here which is identified as "TTL-232R-3V3", but it's only the *signals* that are 3.3V, while the power line (red wire) is still 5V.

So according to the schematic for the Pro Mini/3.3, I can't connect this cable to the header because Vcc would then be over-voltage.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems I need to make an adapter for the FTDI cable that brings this 5V line into the RAW pin instead, so it comes in via the regulator?

Also the silkscreen on the underside isn't marked in any way (it lists all options), so there's no way of identifying this device as being 5V or 3.3V? Was somebody supposed to put a checkmark in one of the white boxes to identify voltage and clock speed?

thanks

Comment by Fro

Fro — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 14:21:54 +0100

Judging from the schematic, it looks like USB power feeds the battery leads and the board, meaning it should be able to charge the battery and power the board simultaneously. Is this true?

Also, would this work with XBee Pro boards?

Comment by jan.brutovsky

jan.brutovsky — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 13:44:46 +0100

This board allows to interface somehow virtually with this I2C sensor ( Humidity and Temperature Sensor - SHT15 ), if there is no hw port enabled/free for it.
thanks
JAn

Comment by guardianguy

guardianguy — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:44:01 +0100

"your bot/car/plane/heli has to drive itself." Can a dog be the "mechanical" part of it and the robot forces the dog to move around the building? kind of joking but kind of not...no human interaction..the dog is like a "car" and the robot navigates.

Comment by rawebb

rawebb — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:37:42 +0100

The wind vane outputs are discrete, not continuous, with eight 45-degree sectors more or less centered on the compass rose. Different resistors are switched in-line for each sector. One caveat: the boundaries are not crisp and you may see an open or an overlap (with two resistors in parallel) for a few degrees around each sector edge.

Values in K-ohms:
N 33
NE 8.2
E 1
SE 2.2
S 3.9
SW 16
W 120
NW 68

Comment by ksaves2

ksaves2 — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:20:29 +0100

What's the secret to getting this evaluation board to work with the Copernicus DIP module? The computer recognizes the USB port, power gets to the board by
the red LED lighting. I have the 4800 speed set in
the COM 5 port. I have an antenna plugged into the SMA
connection. The switches are set correctly I think to
USB / INT. I don't have a coin battery for it yet but I don't think that is needed to get the thing to run. Do
I have a bad board?

Kurt

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