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News - The AVC Is Today | about a year ago

So, what were the results? I had to leave before the end. At that time the surface leaders were Minuteman, Donuts/coffee/muffins and TOBOR. I think only one had finished the circuit in the aerial division, whose name escapes me…
Inquiring minds want to know!
DLC

Product LCD-09363 | about a year ago

Spankin' cool board.
I downloaded all of the code above for use on my new Arduino UNO board with this shield. All of the code worked – I had to fiddle the straight (non Arduino) code slightly to compile as a C project but that was trivial.
Here is my gripe.
Is this a case of NIH (Not Invented Here)? Every single one of these code bases picked a different “upper left” corner. Yup, three sets of “drivers”, three different “upper left” corners.
What gives?
Surely there is a (0,0) pixel, and it is always in the same place, so why three different “upper left” corners?
Regardless, nice work everyone, all the code worked as advertised! I’m totally tickled here. Now to come up with a game or something!
Have fun,
DLC

Product DEV-09115 | about a year ago

I’m using this board just fine with the Arduino environment. However, I also use avrgcc with avrdude (5.8 at this time) to program my M328 boards on occasion when I want more control. In the case of using avrdude, I get this error:
“avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding"
every time.
Has anyone figured this out, or have a hint for me? Here is my invocation:
avrdude -c arduino -p M328p -P /dev/cu.usbserial-A700e5Jl -U flash:w:gen328.hex
Any help is appreciated,
DLC

Product DEV-10008 | about a year ago

The FTDI Basic board works great with your Arduino Pro board in the Arduino environment. What is weird is that it does NOT work with avrdude 5.8 using the -c arduino flag. Is there something new or different that needs to be done to get that to work (in avrdude or on one of the boards?)
Thanks,
DLC

News - Antimov Competition | about 2 years ago

Well duh!
This is the perfect forum for experimenting with junk bots. I’m not going to put a $60 solid state compass in this, but I’d be happy to “Rube Goldberg” a compass-like piece of Steam-punk crap using a boy scout compass and (not giving away any silly tricks.)
This is all about imagination. Most competitions have run for so long that the optimal solution has already been ironed out which makes it about as much fun as watching paint dry. Here you can let your imagination run free to solve a problem that no one has!
Think “Those Amazing Young Men and Their Flying Machines”, the movie. Oh, yeah, you kids can check it out on Turner Classics or maybe on The History Channel. ;)
Hmm,
DLC

Product DEV-08255 | about 2 years ago

How did you get the BT module to work with the Arduino bootloader? I’ve been trying to get a Bluesmirf Gold to do this for ages and failing! I don’t see anything to reset the the MEGA168 chip on the schematic, what is the PD7 connection to the RES line on the BT module for?
Thanks!
DLC

News - Free Day is January 7th, … | about 2 years ago

It was not a hoax, I know someone that did get in on the deal – I didn’t, for which I shrug my shoulders. There must have been 10,000 people lined up for this, and only a 1000 were going to get it.
All of you screaming bloody murder out there – The SF servers are only part of the equation. Your ISP and router path to SF play in this drama too. Do a trace route to see how many boxes you have to go through to get to Sparkfun, you’ll be amazed. Your session can go bad at any one of those stops depending upon the traffic load.
It’ll be fun to see the traffic reports on the event!
DLC

News - Free Day is Done | about 2 years ago

Well, I didn’t get in – my router path voodoo was inferior to the 1000 folks who did get in. Better luck next time. On the bright side, the servers are responsive again so I can just make my order that I was going to make anyway! :)
You folks that are all irate about not getting your free stuff – Give it a rest, you were warned that this was a grand experiment! No guarantees were implied or expressed.
SF – I look forward to all of the graphs and tables, it should be enlightening.
Have fun,
DLC

News - IR Tanks and Side Bets | about 2 years ago

I’m going to buck the trend of the “experts” out there and say that everything will come off fine. Sparkfun is “paying it back” to their customer base and as such positive karma will come into play. In these days of “spit on your customer” sorts of mega-corporations who only pay lip service to customer service and the whole “customer experience” I applaud Sparkfun going their own way.
As for the, er, cynics suggesting changes to the plan in order to get something even if catastrophe strikes – I will also buck that trend, I want the stuff whether I get it free or not! I want Sparkfun to still be here next year so I’m not going to complain if I actually have to pay for it!
You go guys!
DLC

Product TOL-08938 | about 3 years ago

When they have their promised Mac software done I’ll get one. This looks very promising. There is at least one other $180 USB unit out there that has Mac software, but I didn’t see a logic analyzer module that does I2C/SPI/etc.
I’m waiting with baited breath…
DLC