NASA Spaceship And Mission Control Desk

Spaceship in bedroom

You have to watch this video of a homemade NASA spaceship and Mission Control desk, part of which is controlled by an Arduino.

The above video is featured in the June 26 "Making Fun: Kid’s Room Spacecraft" post on the Make magazine website. The Mission Control desk featured in the above video and Make post was highlighted in a February 19 Make post, "Making Fun: Mission Control Desk," and was explained in this video. If you liked the video and are interested in details of how Jeff built some of the parts, make sure to read the two posts linked above.

After watching that spaceship video, I was both inspired and embarrassed. Inspired by the awesome job Jeff Highsmith did of building the Mission Control desk for his sons, then later building a NASA spaceship thats linked to the Mission Control desk.

Control panel in spaceship

As someone interested in learning about microcontrollers (MCUs) and about building things with MCUs, I was very much inspired by the variety of switches, lights, controls and realistic panels on the amazing desk and spaceship that Jeff built for his sons. As an engineer I was also inspired when he said in the video, "I put in an iPhone dock for future expansion. For now it will just play video from NASA, but in the future I plan to have some homemade satellites to monitor." I dont know if he meant homemade satellites that hang from the ceiling of his sons room, or if he is figuring that in a few years, there will be civilian satellites and he plans to have one or several of those civilian satellites be his. Either way Im sure his expanded system will be cool, and his sons will have a great time with

Mission Control desk

the desk, the spaceship, the satellites and other additions Jeff and the boys make to their private space program. Can you imagine how much those two boys are going to know about electronics and building stuff by the time they reach high school!

Now to the embarrassing aspect of the Highsmith Space Program. Im a bit embarrassed I never made anything half as cool as that for my kids. Im also a bit embarrassed that the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group hasnt come up with a really unique and interesting project that four or more people want to put a bunch of knowledge and skill into that will make people who see it say, "Whoa, thats really awesome!"

There are a couple things that I want to do a little differently as a result of watching Jeff Highsmiths videos and reading his Make magazine posts about the Mission Control desk and the spaceship.

Payload bay remote camera monitor

The first thing to do differently with MCU projects is to think big while paying attention to details. Jeff appears to have had a big picture idea of what he wanted for his sons -- starting with a homework desk that can convert into a NASA Mission Control desk, then extending the space theme to his other sons bedroom with a spaceship. But what makes the desk and spaceship fantastic accomplishments is the close attention to the details. The control panels have complex and extremely realistic looking labels, switches, lights and controls. To make the experience authentic for his kids, Jeff incorporated recordings from NASA and simulations of actual astronaut problems. I realize the only way to tackle a large project is to break it down into small steps, but you have to have a good picture of what the large project will look like, and you have to pay attention to the small steps. When you know the big picture, and youre taking care of details, then commitment and perseverance have to kick in.

Mission status light panel

So, for the Humboldt Laser Harp and the Electronic Light Orchestra, the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group should discuss, agree on and document what the big picture is. How much time and effort do people want to put into that project. Next we should get more specific, more detailed on the finer points of what wed like the Humboldt Laser Harp to look like and to do from both a music and a lighting standpoint.

The second thing to do differently on MCU projects is taking more photos and videos at each stage of a project, planning ahead of time the shots to capture for each project. Jeffs videos have excellent documentation of building the desk and spaceship. I became less embarrassed but no less inspired when I read that Jeff is a full-time videographer. That explains thinking things out enough ahead of time that he captured cool construction sequences while he was building the projects. It would be really good if the Humboldt MCU group could find a videographer or two who are interested in MCUs and electronics and would like to participate in the groups activities. They would know how to capture the story of a project, and theyd be able to put together a cohesive and impressive video.

Ardunio used to control instrument panel

I think Ill keep a link to Jeffs spaceship video handy and watch that regularly to keep me inspired and to remind me of how rewarding completion of a big, complex project can be.

**********

Read More..

Kaffir Lime Flowering ✓

Kaffir lime - Citrus Trees - Canada

So Ive just noticed our kaffir lime has started to flower/fruit. To think here in Canada it flowers in march/april is quite different (but I could be tricking myself). The strange thing was, I think this was by accident. A while back I brought a few Meyers from our hot sunroom
( 25c+ )  into our greenhouse  ( 13c ) during the winter and almost instantly they started to flower. This same situation/reaction happened with my Star ruby grapefruit. Now after moving our kaffir lime from the greenhouse into the sunroom there was an instant flowering. So I cant be positive of all varieties of citrus but it seems like they are like other species of plants where cold weather signals them to fruit, almost in a dash to save it genes. This is great for growers in canada with stubborn trees that are harder to flower ( To bad this wont work with bananas tho). Try setting your plant out side for a minute  ( not directly on the cold ground or in snow ) this might  stimulate that tricky tree. Please feel free to comment if this scenario works for you or what trees/plants you have found this trick works with.

The kaffir only gets half light but still fruits

We also noticed a friendly new predator spider the other day, while weve seen one like him thats all black with white stripes, this one was much larger with almost a blueish white on the stripes, not sure if its just more mature but Ive never seen one this size before.

Natural pest prevention

Attack spider

Read More..

9 Jeremy Blum Arduino Wireless Tutorial MCU Group Mtg August 7

Tonights post is a bit of a preview of Jeremys #9 Arduino video tutorial about wireless, along with a couple related comments and alternatives regarding microcontroller (MCU) wireless tutorials for future use by the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group.

But before I get into the Arduino wireless tutorial, there are two special deal items for people who buy MCU-related electronic components. I found out about these from SparkFun and Jameco emails.

1. SparkFun Retrosparktive:  "SparkFun will be vacating its offices at 6175 Longbow and moving on up to Dry Creek Parkway...As part of the Retrosparktive, each week we are offering up a selection of classic products at “historically low prices” (sorry, couldn’t help myself). We’re calling this first selection the “Bare Necessities” - great things to have around your workspace or office. This selection of items is only on sale from 8/4/2014 at 12:01 a.m. MT until 8/10/14 at 11:59 p.m. MT - so get ‘em while you can! BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! We’re also offering a promo code good for $10 off any orders over $40. Just put the code “RETROSPARK” into the box at checkout to get your discount. This code is good until August 31, 2014."
2. Jameco Free Friday Electronic Components Giveaway:  "Jamecos team of component buyers hunts for special buys and every Friday we will highlight one of these great buys by making a limited supply of one product available for free at www.Jameco.com/Free. Well
   
   post new inventory every Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and it will be available on a first come, first serve basis."

The next Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting is this Thursday, August 7. The main topic of the meeting will be to discuss Jeremy Blums #9 video tutorial, so tonights post takes a look at that tutorial. The topic is wireless communications with Arduino, and the #9 video exercise uses XBee radios. Wikipedias entry on this type of wireless communication equipment says:

"XBee is the brand name from Digi International for a family of form factor compatible radio modules. The first XBee radios were introduced under the MaxStream brand in 2005 and were based on the 802.15.4-2003 standard..."

The XBee brand has a wide range of models, with 2.4 GHz and 900Hz options, and the XBee-PRO 900HP is listed as having a 28 mile range. Having an Arduino communicate wirelessly 20+ miles away without cellular or Internet service seems like it could be handy for some things.

XBee is a brand name, and generally speaking, follows the ZigBee protocol for wireless personal area networks (WPAN). However, not all XBee technology is compatible with everything in the Zigbee world. For different views of what XBee is and how compatible it is, see the Digi International page about this, the SparkFun XBee Buying Guide or the StackExchange thread on the topic, which says:

"ZigBee / ZigBee Pro are mesh communication protocols that sits on top of IEEE 802.15.4 PHY. XBee / XBee Pro are product names for radio communications modules made by Digi. The modules can be loaded with various firmwares to support ZigBee / ZigBee Pro / DigiMesh and come in several frequency bands. DigiMesh is an alternative to ZigBee that changes a few things, and adds some features to make it generally better to work with. But, you sacrifice compatibility with ZigBee devices. For example DigiMesh allows routers to sleep, has lower overhead, has 1 node type vs zigbees 3 leading to a more robust mesh, can run at higher data rates, etc."

Boards for the #9 video tutorial

The moral of the story for MCU beginners like me is, if you want to do wireless communications with MCUs, use all the same brand and model of wireless radios. No need to try and figure out if your circuit doesnt work because the two or more radios arent compatible -- youll have enough fun just figuring out if the circuit is hooked up incorrectly or if your code has errors or poor design.

The exercise in Jeremys #9 video uses these boards -- two Arduino Unos, two XBee transceiver modules, two XBee shields, and a SparkFun USB to XBee adapter. In addition, youll need a stepper motor, a mini-B USB cable and a few other parts you probably have from other Arduino projects or tutorial exercises. Jeremy shows how to program the Xbee units ID numbers and how to hook up the Arduinos and other components. Then he walks the video viewer through the steps to write the program which allow the potentiometer connected to one Arduino to wirelessly control the position of the stepper motor which is connected to the other Arduino.

#9 exercise wired to breadboard

Excluding the two Arduinos and the miscellaneous parts you probably have, you can spend over $100 just on parts for the exercise in the #9 video. Ed Smith didnt have all the parts lying around to do this exercise and figured out an alternative exercise with a couple radios and other parts he did have around. He said hell explain on August 7th what he put together for an MCU wireless exercise.

The Humboldt Microcontrollers Group should consider discussing cost-effective options for a useful training session on MCU wireless technology.There are lots of options, but a couple starter ideas are:

1. Have people work in groups of two or three to do essentially the same exercise Jeremy demonstrates. The people can buy different parts that they want to keep after the exercise, or one person can buy all the parts and keep them when the training is finished.
2. Do essentially the same exercise as the #9 video, but identify less expensive components than the Arduino and XBee parts specd by Jeremy.
3. Use one wireless radio instead of two and find or write a tutorial involving one radio.

Others in the MCU group will know or think of additional options for MCU wireless training sessions. A couple specific training sessions I found in a quick search were:

CC3000

1. Wireless Gardening with Arduino + CC3000 WiFi Modules by Adafruit. I like this one because of the Humboldt MCU Garden project. The garden project would make the investment seem more useful than it would for a generic training exercise. Heres the CC3000 module from Adafruit, and heres a post about the CC3000 by ladyada.
2. SparkFun has two MCU wireless tutorials; Arduino Wireless Communication via the Electric Imp and Wireless Arduino Programming with Electric Imp.
3. Arduino Wireless SD Shield Tutorial from Instructables is one of the many Arduino Wi-Fi tutorials.

CC3200 LaunchPad

We could also find or develop a training session around one of the newer MCUs with built-in WiFi, such as the SimpleLink products from Texas Instruments (e.g. the CC3200 LaunchPad) or one of the other MCU manufacturers MCU with integrated Wi-Fi. Identifying some of those other integrated wireless / Wi-Fi components will likely be the subject of future research and blog posts.

In addition to discussing MCU wireless on Thursday, the MCU group will likely talk about upgrades to the Humboldt Laser Harp (HLH). After its debut performance in Eureka on August 2, weve got several improvements in mind. Im hopeful the HLH will make an appearance at the MCU group meeting on Thursday so everyone at the meeting can play with it and get excited about improving it, about making additional laser harps, and about designing and building other electronic music-light instruments which will help create the Humboldt Electronic Light Orchestra.

If you havent watched the #9 video, check it out. If you dont have time to watch it between now and Thursday but are interested in MCU wireless, come to the MCU group meeting anyway. Were looking forward to seeing you from 6 to 8 PM on Thursday, August 7, at 1385 8th Street, Arcata, CA.

**********

Read More..

Grilled Cheese Smart Box Microcontroller And A Whole Lot More

The Smart Box uses a microcontroller (mcu), and a whole lot more, to keep fresh grilled cheese sandwiches hot, moist and crisp.

Fresh, tasty, warm grilled cheese sandwich

The Smart Box is an innovation that dramatically demonstrates two sometimes overlooked non-electronics aspects of MCU-focused projects that can require as much work as the electronics, if not more work. Those two non-electronics issues are:

1. Figuring out what you need the MCU to control.
2. Figuring out all the non-electronic hardware issues for the project.

The goal of the Smart Box designers was to create an environment that could extend the highly edible lifetime of a fresh grilled cheese from seven minutes to at least thirty minutes. As Fast Magazine tells the story, the design team tried to find,

"...a way to extend the sandwichs woefully short shelf life. They discovered that each Melt had about seven minutes before going cold, leaving the cheese to congeal and making for a subpar grilled cheese-eating experience...the team looked far and wide for a food transport box that could maintain just the right temperature while striking the right balance between moisture and crispiness for 30 to 60 minutes at a time...what we realized is that if you maintained the temperature, and you had even airflow, and a way to get some of the moisture out of the product as it sat in the box, that it can hold a Melt for over 20 minutes and still meet temperature, moisture, and crispness guidelines."

Sandwich container with ridges and holes for hot air circulation

The first part of the MCU project had nothing to do with an MCU. Most products and design projects involving an MCU will start by figuring out how the product or project ought to work to achieve the projects goal. For the Smart Box, the goal was a good tasting sandwich. So the first part of that project was to determine what ambient conditions would keep the sandwich from getting cold and soggy. It was obvious the grilled cheese sandwich storage and transport unit would need heat. They would have to keep the temperature low enough so it didnt cook the sandwich more, but high enough so the cheese would be nice and soft. And the temperature would need to be uniform throughout the sandwich storage and transport unit. After experimenting with different conditions, and probably eating quite a few grilled cheese sandwiches, they found the right temperature (190 - 200 degrees F) and the right moisture to keep the sandwich tasting good.

The next step was to develop a combination of materials, shapes, heaters, fans, etc, that would maintain the necessary temperature and moisture for the sandwiches. Air flow was key, both throughout the large insulated food transport box and throughout the smaller sandwich containers that sit on the shelves inside the food transport box. The majority of this physical design and development work didnt focus much on electronics of the project, other than to keep the fan pushing air and to keep the heater warming up the air. The Fast Company article explained:

"...for any of this to work, the air had to circulate around the sandwich so that the heat surrounding it was constant, like a convection oven with size restraints...Heres how it works: It uses a hot plate made out of aluminum to keep everything warm. But since direct heat can burn its contents, its covered with a shield while an internal fan ensures proper air circulation. The whole system is sensitive, so inside are sensors that monitor the environment for precise heat and humidity levels. A microcontroller is used to make small adjustments automatically, ensuring that the grilled cheese arrives at your door or desk nice and toasty."

Once the physical design of the box was mostly figured out, the electronics wizards started working their magic. They figured out what temperature sensors to use and where to put them. The fan power and controls were designed and the rest of the MCU functions were programmed.

Im sure figuring out the sensors, controls, MCU and programming took much longer than the length of the above paragraph indicates. But for the grilled cheese Smart Box, theres little doubt in my mind that the design-build issues requiring non-electronics maker skills or physical design knowledge took more time and brainpower than the MCU-related part of the project. The Smart Box illustrates why the Humboldt makers who really enjoy MCUs also need lots of other types of knowledge or need to collaborate with others who have the non-electronics skills.

**********

Read More..

Unboxing And Updating A Texas Instruments MSP430FR5969 Ultra Low Power FRAM MCU

[Tonights post is by Ed Smith, a member of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group]

I just received a Texas Instruments (TI) MSP430FR5969 LaunchPad! This is my unboxing post, Ill also cover updating the onboard programmers firmware for use with Energia.

Well kick things off with a few specs, or at least a quick product description. This is an unboxing not a review, after all.

The MSP430FR5969 MCU is aimed at extreme low power consumption, to the point where when it is operating at full power it consumes ~100µA/MHz. Thats quite low; at 16MHz its consuming a measly 1.6mA. In the various sleep modes the power draw is measured in handfuls of micro-amps, and in deep-sleep it even gets down to nano-amps.

The FR5969 LaunchPad takes that MCU and gives it a home, as well as a built in programming interface, breakout headers (with very nice labels, as well see later), buttons, LEDs, lots of jumpers, and a 0.1F supercap. Thats not µF, thats not mF, thats a tenth of a Farad, something that would have cost a tremendous amount of money a decade ago.

For bonus points, Energia already supports this platform.

The box is a simple affair, nothing especially flashy other than the rocket logos. Even those arent flashy per se, not compared to modern marketing anyway. Its a sturdy box, I approve.

Inside the box we find, not surprisingly, an anti-static bag with a LaunchPad in it! There actually is a surprise in here, Ill focus on it later.

This is the bottom of the board, in case you hadnt guessed.

Here we have the top side, there are hints of greatness here too.

The last thing in the box is a beefy mini-USB cable, to connect the LaunchPad to your computer for programming and/or power. Its very nice of TI to include this, and I appreciate it.

Out of the bag we get more detail, we can see the two user buttons plus reset button, a wide array of jumpers for controlling how much of the MCU core is connected to the debug/USB/power side of the board, as well as the supercap and two user addressable LEDs. Note the amount of text near the headers!

On the bottom there are two things I really, really like. One is the amount of pin information printed near the headers, Ill zoom in on it in a bit. The other is the plastic standoffs. This is something lacking in the vast majority of dev boards out there.

The board sits nicely on the standoffs and bottom headers, no worries about short circuits to metal tables no MCU tipping over when you try to plug something in. Its a small thing, but I appreciate it.

The silkscreen on both sides of the board is very informative, it gives you plenty of options for charging or not charging the supercap, using or not using the supercap, current monitoring, voltage monitoring, USB power or external power, etc. It also has significantly more pin information next to the headers than one usually sees. Not only the port numbers, which is standard, but also designations as to which pins do what. Serial TX and RX are marked on most boards, MOSI/MISO/SCK(SCLK) for SPI and SCL+/SDA+ for i2c are not usually marked, and they are here. This cuts down on the amount of time needed looking at datasheets and pinout diagrams substantially. I dearly hope that other companies will follow TIs lead here; they seem to be thinking about the end user.

All is not roses with the FR5969 LaunchPad however. Maybe it is roses, and were getting to the thorns now. In any event, there are two revisions of this MCU. The first revision to come out, and the new Energy Trace revision. Energy Trace adds a solid set of features to check where the energy is going, but it also requires a newer firmware version for the on board programmer. Unfortunately for some reason or another it doesnt seem to have made it on to the first round of Energy Trace boards! On the plus side, updating the firmware is fairly easy.

Updating the MSP430FR5969 EZ-FET Firmware via Energia

This guide assumes youre going to be using Energia to do your programming, or at least your firmware updating. Code Composer Studio also ships with an updater I believe, and you can download a standalone command line updater as well.

The first step is to open Energia and find the Update programmer menu. Its under the Tools menu and is not hard to find.

You will need to run this a few times, as there is a bug in the update script somewhere that times out after updating one device, and there are three devices on this board that need updating.

For the moment, run it until you start getting errors. I was able to update two out of three devices without any further effort.

Once you start getting errors you will need to close Energia and download the TI MSP430 Flasher utility, the command line program I mentioned above, you can find it here:
 MSP430 Flasher Link


Once you have downloaded and installed it, you need to open two folders. One is the MSP430Flasher install directory (click the pictures to the right for a larger size), the other is the mspdebug directory inside the Energia install directory. The pictures to the right show the paths on my computer.


Once you find the two directories you want to copy HIL.dll and MSP430.dll from MSP430Flasher into Energias mspdebug directory. Backing up Energias copies of those two files isnt a bad idea, I created a directory called "OEM" and moved the originals into it, then copied the new HIL and MSP430 dlls.


Once you have copied those two files, re-open Energia (if you didnt close it before, close it and re-open it) and run Update Programmer again. Instead of throwing errors it should happily update the remaining piece of firmware. If you feel like being sure, run it again and make sure its happy that time too.

Presto! Your MSP430FR5969 LaunchPad is now ready to use, enjoy!

- Ed Smith

**********

Read More..

Mutli Phase Humboldt MCU Garden Project

As yesterdays Humboldt Laser Harp post indicated, the microcontroller (MCU) music group project is well under way. So now Im thinking about how to get the second group project started in the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group, one involving gardening.

MCU and sensors for potted plant

Several people whove been at Humboldt Makers Group meetings or the MCU group meetings have said theyre interested in MCUs and gardening. And it seems like lots of other people in Humboldt County might have an interest in ways to improve gardening. There are lots of organic gardeners in the area, and agriculture has been part of the Humboldt economy for much of the areas history. So Ive decided to outline a multi-phase approach to a collaborative project focused on MCU gardening. And a significant part of this collaborative project will be identifying and reaching out to Humboldt people who are involved in gardening or agriculture and might be interested in sharing their knowledge and / or participating in this project.

MCU and hydroponics

Two long term goals I have for the MCU gardening is to be involved with a successful hydroponics system and a successful aquaponics system. There are lots of websites and projects on the Internet that tell a person how to do hydroponics or aquaponics, but Im an engineer, and I like to understand what Im doing. Plus I dont have a lot of money to spend on these projects. So my preferred approach to MCU gardening is to start out small, and get more complex after I understand the technology and green thumb art involved with each part of the MCU garden project.

Below are proposed MCU garden project phases. If we get the right people involved with the project and if we can secure funding of some type for the project, we can move very quickly through the phases or work on more than one phase at a time. So if you know people whod like to participate in this project or know of money that can be used for purchasing electronic components and supplies for this, please contact me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com. These are the proposed phases for the Humboldt MCU Garden group project:

MCU and aquaponics (from dzbc.org.cn)

1. Grow one plant indoor in soil.
2. Grow four to eight plants indoor in soil.
3. Grow four types of plants outdoor in soil.
4. Grow one tray of plants indoors in hydroponic system.
5. Grow three types of plants indoors in hydroponic system.
6. Grow one type of plant in aquaponics system.
7. Grow three types of plants in aquaponics system.

Phase 1 of the Humboldt MCU Garden project is simple and low cost and will help us learn the basic principles of MCU gardening. Phases 2 through 7 can easily be redefined as we get more people involved in the project and we learn more about what we dont know about MCU gardening.

The first draft design of the Humboldt MCU Garden project includes:

1. One type of plant.

   

   LEDs and lettuce

1. Lettuce is my first choice, partly because of whats being done with optimized lettuce mcu gardening in Japan and other places (see my blog post "LED Lettuce, The HydroTower And LED Humboldt Hydroponics.") We might be able to find useful data about optimum growing conditions for lettuce (light wavelengths, relative humidity, nutrients, temperature, etc.).
2. If other people who want to participate in the Humboldt MCU Garden project prefer to grow something other than lettuce and have information about good growing conditions for that plant, Im willing to switch from lettuce.
2. Growing container.
1. The type of growing container probably wont be too critical for Phase 1. Mainly something large enough to hold the soil and drainage system that will provide good growing conditions for the plant.
2. A five gallon plastic bucket is one option, especially if we can find a free one.
3. We need to figure out where the container with the plant and MCU Garden system will be kept. It seems like Phase 1 should mostly be indoors because that means we dont need to have a rain-proof system. But having a Phase 1 container thats easily movable would be nice so we can roll or carry the container outside on nice days.
3. Growing condition sensors
1. Light sensor -- very important so we get good photosynthesis (and good respiration?).

   

   One type of light sensor (from Adafruit)

2. Soil moisture sensor -- very important because too dry means dead plant and too wet means dead plant.
3. Temperature sensor -- important for growth, especially during Humboldt winters. Temperature will be less critical for plants like lettuce, but very critical for plants like tomatoes.
4. Relative humidity sensor (RH) -- RH wont be critical for lettuce growth in Phase 1, but it will be critical as the projects future phases try to minimize water usage and as we try to grow RH-sensitive plants like redwood trees.
4. LEDs for indoor gardening
1. RGB LEDs will let us adjust the light if we want
2. Red and Blue LEDs appear to be used for optimum lettuce growth.
3. Research and / or people who know plant growth lighting and LEDs are required.
5. MCU to gather and record sensor data
1. Which MCU we use for the Humboldt MCU Garden project depends partly on who wants to be involved with the project.
1. If we can get a sponsor for the Humboldt MCU Garden project, such as an MCU manufacturer or distributor, Ill use whichever MCU they manufacture or distribute!
2. If no MCU manufacturer or distributor sponsor can be recruited, the MCU will be determined by whoever takes the lead on programming for the project.
1. If Ed takes the lead, well probably use a Texas Instruments MCU.
2. If Josiah takes the lead, or if Im filling that role, it will likely be an Arduino or Arduino-compatible.
3. If someone other than Josiah, Ed or me volunteers to lead the garden-variety programming for this project, that person can choose the MCU type.
6. Type of soil
1. Determining what type of soil to use will require research or a project member who has good experience with growing plants indoors in containers.
2. The type of soil will likely affect other gardening aspects such as what nutrients we need to add and the soil moisture measurement.
7. Fertilizer and trace nutrients to add
1. Fertilizer and trace nutrients is another topic that will require research or a project member experienced in the art.
2. Might want to evaluate whether pH or some other batch or continuous sensor (pH? nutrient analysis?) should be used to track nutrient levels.
8. Data gathering and analysis
1. There are no specific requirements for data gathering and analysis for Phase 1 since its such a simple system. However, part of the purpose of Phase 1 is to learn how to effectively monitor growing conditions, so it makes sense to establish good gardening data practices (GGDP) for those growing conditions and different types of sensors.
   
2. As part of my goal to get Humboldt people more involved in the Internet of Things (IoT), it would be good to use services like open data bases and IFTTT (If This Then That).
3. One gardening data goal is to use that data to automatically track, alarm and interpret the data generated by the sensors. It would be nice to generate online graphs and have alarms sent out by IFTTT when growing conditions reach or approach setpoints where action needs to be taken.

The above outline give you an idea of what I think Phase 1 of the Humboldt MCU Garden group project should look like. Next steps for me to get this project rolling are (1) talk to and try to recruit a couple people whove expressed an interest in MCU gardening, (2) promote the project to other people in the Humboldt Makers and MCU group and try to recruit some of them, (3) develop a one-page MCU project proposal that I can use to pitch to potential sponsors, and (4) continue to do research for Phase 1 topics like sensors, nutrients and soil types.

If you are interested in this project or know someone who might be, please email me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com or come to an MCU group meeting or Humboldt Makers meeting in the near future.

**********

Read More..

Wireless Communication For Microcontrollers August 7 MCU Group Meeting

Traditionally, microcontrollers (MCUs) didnt need wireless communications because they did all their interactions in a limited space. If they interacted with something a few inches or a few feet away, wires connected the interacting devices. However, in 2014 some MCU applications require wireless communication, and this post takes an initial look at the wonderful world of wireless for MCUs.

Breadboard setup for #9 video wireless communication

This posts overview of MCU wireless looks at Jeremy Blums #9 Arduino video tutorial, the wireless exercise Ed Smith developed as his alternative to using the BOM components (bill of materials) and code in Jeremys #9 video exercise, and a few recent developments and web resources for MCU wireless communication. In addition to presenting an updated look at MCU wireless, researching and writing this post is a step toward locating or developing a training exercise for Arduino wireless communication that is more up to date than Jeremys #9 video, which was published in Febrary 2011.

Two of the primary driving forces behind MCU wireless communications are the internet and the increasing power of mobile or miniature computing devices. As the increasingly ubiquitous smartphone and the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) create a sharp increase in the production volume and tech innovation in MCU wireless components, the number of wireless technology solutions continues to rise and the cost to do wireless communications continues to drop. If you search online for MCU wireless projects, tutorials or components, check the dates on your search results. Information from five or even two years ago may be totally outdated.

First up -- points of discussion about Jeremys #9 video at tonights Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting.

Most of the participants in tonights meeting had watched all or part of the #9 video. But no one had done the exact wireless exercise that Jeremy demonstrated and explained. The primary reason no one duplicated his exercise was that the components in Jeremys exercise cost too much to buy for learning about wireless. If you already had a couple spare Arduino Unos and the XBee components sitting around idle, then Jeremys exercise would be reasonable, but it didnt make sense to anyone at the meeting to buy all the components just to do the #9 video exercise. The main value of the #9 video seemed to be that it focused everyones attention on MCU wireless communication, and even if we didnt follow Jeremys exercise exactly, a couple people in the group did develop somewhat analogous wireless systems. And there was a lot of good discussion about the various wireless options and components, probably more than if everyone had used Jeremys components.

Nordic RF module

Second topic -- Ed Smiths MCU wireless communications components, circuitry and code.

Ed put together a low-cost wireless exercise using a couple Nordic RF transceivers he had available. The parts used in Eds setup include Texas Instruments Tiva-C launchpad 296-35760-ND, Texas Instruments MSP430G2553 Launchpad 296-27570-ND, Nordic 2.4 GHz RF transceiver NRF24L01+, Pin header 952-2247-ND, Pin socket header S7031-ND, perfboard, jumper wires, solderless breadboard, TFT LCD 2.2" 240x320 and an accelerometer. The breadboarded circuit for the MSP430 and accelerometer is shown in the picture below on the right. Eds hardware sent 3-axis information from the accelerometer from the MSP430 to the Tiva-C board and displayed it on the small LCD screen. The code was written using Energia, which is designed

MSP430 with Nordic RF 

"bring the Wiring and Arduino framework to the Texas Instruments MSP430 based LaunchPad". Ed will be writing up a separate blog post about his setup and the Nordic transceivers, including code and pictures, so look for that to show up on this blog soon.

An alternative to the wireless components Jeremy used in the #9 video and the components Ed used is the JeeNode. Nick got two JeeNodes for about $22 each with 915 MHz radios and worked with MCU wireless using those boards. According to Digital Smarties, the UK fulfillment transaction processors for the boards, the JeeNode is,

"a compact wireless board with an Atmel 8-bit RISC microprocessor. JeeNodes are compatible with the Arduino platform and can be programmed under Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux using sketches created with the Arduino IDE. Each JeeNode has 4

identical “ports” for attaching analog and digital I/O logic, I2C devices, and more. The JeeLib library makes it easy to interface to these ports. The JeeNode Kit contains all the parts needed to build a JeeNode v6 – including an ATmega328p processor and an RFM12B radio module."

Modern Device does much of the manufacturing for JeeLabs and is the US distributor for JeeNodes. The JeeLabs website describes the board this way:

"The JeeNode is a wireless micro-controller board designed for a variety of Physical Computing tasks. From measuring and reporting temperature, humidity, and other environmental data to tracking and controlling energy consumption around the house. It was inspired by the Arduino Duemilanove and Uno boards, and by the “Real Bare Bones Board” (RBBB) from Modern Device."

The JeeNode component bill of materials (BOM) for learning MCU wireless would only be slightly more expensive than the Nordic RF components. Ed said for various prototypes or applications, the JeeNode would be more capable than the Nordic systems, and would be well worth the few extra dollars.

Third subject -- Worthwhile web resources for newbies to understand MCU wireless.

I havent done an exhaustive search for web resources on MCU wireless, so please send me links to sites you feel are good on this topic, especially if you think theyre better for a particular aspect of wireless compared to the sites Ive listed. If youre new to wireless communications, you might want to read through the Wikipedia entry for Wireless Networks. If you are already have a good background on wireless networks, consider looking through the SparkFun Wireless Buying Guide. The SparkFun guide is where I read about Nordic RF modules yesterday for the first time ever. Then I found out what Ed used for his wireless exercise, and it turned out to be Nordic transceivers (or Nordic clones). The wireless section of your favorite MCU vendors website is another good place to learn about wireless, especially as it applies to the MCUs you use and understand. Atmel, Texas Instruments and Microchip main pages for wireless are listed below.

• http://www.atmel.com/products/wireless/
• http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/wireless_connectivity/overview.page
• http://www.microchip.com/pagehandler/en-us/products/wireless/home.html

If you go through the above resources and want to know more, search for your topics of interest and youll find lots of relevant websites to sift through for more specific info thats relevant to you.

Fourth issue -- Developing an inexpensive MCU wireless educational exercise for the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group.

We decided tonight that Eds setup is about as inexpensive as youre going to be able to do a two-MCU, two-transceiver wireless exercise. Another wireless learning exercise we will probably research is one with a single MCU and a Wi-Fi system to directly connect the MCU to the Internet. Figuring that one out will wait for another day.

Along with our discussions about MCU wireless, tonights Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting covered a multitude of topics, including but not limited to freezing hard drives to recover data from them, buying vacuum tubes, flying quadcopters that have a mind of their own, the unpredictable adventures of buying electronic components from Chinese eBay sellers, good power supplies and power supplies to stay far away from, how to load Arch Linux on a Chromebook, repairing welders, upgrades to automated doors on chicken coops, the Humboldt Laser Harp, and what the topic of the next MCU group meeting should be. If you have suggestions for MCU meeting topics, please contact me at arcatabob (at) gmail [dott] com or contact Nick A.

If you are interested or experienced in MCU wireless, it would be great to connect with you -- email me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com. Hope to see you at the next Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting on Thursday, August 21.

**********

Read More..

Solar Energy And Arduino Solar Charge Controller

Theres an intriguing microcontroller (MCU) project in an August 8 article on Design News titled "Gadget Freak Case #260: Arduino Solar Charge Controller." I havet read a lot about solar energy and Arduinos, or any other MCUs, so I took a closer look at the article.

Residential active solar energy system (from Wikipedia CC)

Many Humboldt County people seem interested in solar energy, although the often-foggy or cloudy climate of Arcata, Eureka, and other coastal communities isnt as well suited to solar energy collection as the climate of New Mexico or Arizona cities. However, it is still good to be experienced with technologies used outside the North Coast, and there are plenty parts of Humboldt County not immersed in marine fog banks or redwood forest mists. For this reason it would be useful for participants in the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group to know the basics of active solar energy systems and to have experience with the electronic components and operation of those systems. The topic of the Design News article above isnt an inexpensive basic active solar energy system, but I think Ill do some research regarding different types of inexpensive systems for a future group project.

Solar charge controller schematic from CirKit.com

The solar charge controller that is the topic of this post is located between the solar energy collection device and the energy storage system, usually a battery. The controller regulates both the voltage and the current going to the energy storage system from the energy collection device. The schematic at the right from CirKit.com shows the general concept (although that schematic is not from Gadget Freak project). The Design News article describes the function of the Arduino this way:

"This gadget uses Arduino to control the whole process and takes a voltage reading from the solar panel and the battery to be charged. Then, according to voltage levels on either side, it charges the battery using PWM control signal. Energy flow is driven with MOSFET transistors that ensure low energy loss. The charging controller is equipped with basic filters on both the battery side and the solar panel side. It is also equipped with things like overcurrent, overvoltage, PV panel reverse current, auto load disconnection, and overcharge protection."

Gadget Freak #260: solar charge controller (Design News PDF)

The solar charge controller build instruction PDF is linked to in the article, and seems like a good quality document. It has pictures, circuit drawings, Arduino code, and the type of helpful tips that many project documents do not include. An example of the helpful tips is where the project creator describes how to choose MOSFETs. For people who arent already familiar with MOSFET properties and how theyre used, he says this about drain source voltages for MOSFETs:

"When the MOSFET is turned off, the whole supply voltage will be measurable across it, so this rating should be larger than your supply voltage to provide sufficient protection so that the MOSFET does not fail. The maximum voltage a MOSFET can handle varies with temperature."

He also talks about whether to use an n or p channel MOSFET, continuous drain currents, thermal loss, gate threshold voltage and more. Tips like this are especially useful to people like me who are new to microcontrollers.

In months and years to come, it is my hope that the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group will build many MCU devices and systems. Nicks automated chicken coop door is the first one, as far as I know, and the Humboldt Laser Harp is the second, I think. It would be great if we can develop and put online as much information as possible about these MCU projects, assuming theyre not going to be commercialized so they can earn us millions. Or even thousands. Anyway, part of gathering, organizing and publishing this MCU project information should be a good documentation format. There are many possible formats, but the Gadget Freak build instruction PDF used in the solar charge controller project seems like a good place to start if someone in the MCU group doesnt have a different project information format they prefer.

Gadget Freak (from Design News and Allied Electronics)

This Gadget Freak topic appears to be a regular feature of the Design News website. This solar charge controller is labelled #260. I dont know if that means there are 259 previous Gadget Freaks, but here are links to The Best of Gadget Freak Volume 1 and The Best of Gadget Freak Volume 2. Design News collaborates with Allied Electric, and they invite you to submit your electronics projects for publication. This is just one more way that people in the Humboldt MCU community can participate in the expanding world of microcontrollers and possible earn a few bucks. The Gadget Freak page on Allied Electrics site says:

"Are you a Gadget Freak? Allied Electronics and Design News would like to send you a check for $500 to spend at alliedelec.com or anywhere you please! Submit your design for a gizmo or gadget that any Gadget Freak would appreciate, and you just might win! If your project is selected, you’ll receive a $500 check from Design News and will be featured in an upcoming issue of the magazine with your invention. In addition to the $500 awarded for being selected as a Gadget Freak, all selected gadgets...will be included in the Gadget Freak of the Year contest. Starting in November, the readers of Design News will then vote on the best gadget...The winning gadget will receive an additional $6,000 with two runners-up who will receive $2,000 each."

If youve built solar energy devices or systems with MCUs, it would be great if you came to one of the every other Thursday meetings the MCU group has. The next meeting will be on Thursday, August 24. If you cant make it to the meeting but would be interested in discussing your solar energy device or system, please email me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com

. It would be great to meet you for coffee and a tech discussion, or possibly youd be willing to show the MCU group your MCU in operation!

**********

Read More..

Humboldt MCU Opportunity Tech Companies Recruiting IoT Developers

One of my goals for this blog is to identify ways for Humboldt microcontroller (MCU) users to earn money and to try to highlight those money-making opportunities for people who are interested in them. It will help Humboldt people and the regional economy if we can increase the number of Humboldt MCU-related paid projects and jobs.

IoT concept graphic (from comsoc.org)

Wired.com had a short July 25 article, "Tech Giants Begin Recruiting for the Next Big Platform Wars", which talked about a technology-economy trend that Humboldt MCU people should be aware of and should look at as an opportunity for projects or jobs. The article says that the Internet of Things (IoT) is going to be a huge revenue opportunity for MCU developers, the next big platform. The killer app for the IoT hasnt come over the horizon yet, and there is no clear leader among companies competing to cash in on the billions of dollars expected to be spent on embedded computing systems and other IoT products and services. Even though no company has a firmly established lead, those organizations who want to have a chance in this race are hiring technical people, including MCU developers, to create and improve their organizations products. As Wired puts it:

Microcontroller (from ti.com)

"The Internet of Things is still young, but it’s real. There are already dozens of internet-connected devices available, ranging from home-automation tools to wearable fitness trackers. And it’s about to start growing at an even faster pace. According a new survey...17 percent of the world’s software developers are already working on Internet of Things projects. Another 23 percent are planning to start an IoT project within the next six months. The most popular devices? Security and surveillance products, connected cars, environmental sensors and smart lights and other office automation tools. The world’s largest tech companies are already in fierce competition to attract developers to their respective connected device platforms. After all, the winners of these new platform wars will define the future of computing."

Two previous technology-economy trend platforms early stages that employed a lot of developers were when businesses started having websites on the Internet and when the iPhone catalyzed a huge market for smartphone apps. New sustainable trends have a tipping point where the trend actually becomes an important economic factor and creates a significant amount of ongoing sales and reliable employment. The IoT appears to be approaching that tipping point, and the Wired article is saying the trend is sustainable and there will be a large number of steady employment opportunities for IoT developers. The Barrons.com article "Silicon Labs Tuned In for Upside" phrased it this way:

"...we dont think IoT for Silicon Labs will turn out to be an overextended hype cycle. Connected/smart-home adoption has parallels to smartphones in 2008, where developers created unanticipated high-value applications on a platform to drive rapid adoption. From that perspective, 50 billion IoT devices by 2020 does not seem unreasonable."

Other recent articles about MCUs, embedded computing and the IoT have also talked about MCU-developer opportunities in the upcoming months and years. So the question at this point is, how can Humboldt developers get involved with the IoT platform to make money? Ill talk more about this topic in some of the future posts on this blog. But for now, Humboldt MCU developers and users might consider doing some or all of the following activities.

1. Learn a lot about the IoT and microcontrollers and keep up-to-date on these two topics.
2. Learn more about the IoT and MCUs by designing and building unique projects and document them online.
3. Use the internet to document and promote your IoT and MCU knowledge and skill.
4. Teach a class about Arduinos, MCUs or the IoT.
5. Build and promote interesting MCU / IoT products and sell them online.
6. Identify and reach out to knowledgeable and interesting people who are relatively well-connected in the IoT and MCU communities.
7. Use craigslist and other online developer job boards to look for MCU / IoT job or project opportunities and to advertise your availability for MCU / IoT projects and employment.

All the above activities can be done without participating in any of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meetings or collaborative MCU projects.

But the above money-making activities can also be done with people who are active in the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group. In my experience, its often more fun and more interesting to work on projects or activities with other people who have complementary or similar knowledge and interests. If youre interested in discussing any of the above IoT money making opportunities, come to the next MCU meeting. Or email me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com.

**********

Read More..