All part of growing up

I blog now about as much as I see friends.

*sigh*

I miss people, not that Im solitary or anything...like a rabid cat. I feel terrible for a desperate cry for attention. Im feeling socialization, and even a bit overcrowded at times. But at the same time so alone.

so let me know whats up guys. Im curious...like this deer

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8 Jeremy Blum Video SPI Serial Peripheral Interface Bus

The topic of this Thursdays Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting is the #8 Jeremy Blum Arduino video tutorial, which covers SPI, the Serial Peripheral Interface data bus.

Jeremys SPI diagram

Wikipedia says this about SPI:

"...SPI bus is a synchronous serial data link...that operates in full duplex mode. It is used for short distance, single master communication, for example in embedded systems, sensors, and SD cards. Devices communicate in master/slave mode where the master device initiates the data frame. Multiple slave devices are allowed with individual slave select lines. Sometimes SPI is called a four-wire serial bus, contrasting with three-, two-, and one-wire serial buses. SPI is often referred to as SSI (Synchronous Serial Interface)."

During the #8 video exercise, you will build a program using SPI, doing things like including the SPI library, setting the slave select pins, and sending information on the SPI bus with the SPI.transfer command. Going through this exercise doesnt make you an SPI expert, but it does help you learn a few basic aspects of SPI. For a more thorough background on this topic, take the time to go through the SparkFun tutorial on SPI.

AD5204BN10 digital potentiometer

In addition to SPI, the #8 video also introduces digital potentiometers. The digipot used in the #8 video is an AD5204BN10, which appears to be discontinued, obsolete or just very rare, so most people doing the exercise in this video will have to use an alternative digital potentiometer. I spent ten or fifteen minutes on Digi-Key trying to find an alternative component that was equivalent to the AD5204BN10 but finally decided Ill just wait to discuss that at the meeting on Thursday.

In the meantime, I did a bit of research on digital potentiometers so Id understand a little more about how they work and when to use them. Analog Devices has a tutorial on digipots, and since they made the one that Jeremy uses in the video, I decided the AD tutorial was a good place to start. Nine pages later I decided I was wrong. The AD tutorial was written for an electrical engineer, not a novice electronics person. Electronic Design (ED) had a much better newbie introduction to digipots. ED said:

Breadboard setup for #8 video exercise

"Digital potentiometers are integrated circuits that implement a resistive ladder and a digital means of addressing a particular tap on the ladder that corresponds to the wiper position of a mechanical potentiometer. They’re used to calibrate system tolerances or dynamically control system parameters. Some of them have no on-chip memory. Others incorporate nonvolatile memory for saving the wiper position...What advantages do digital potentiometers have over mechanical pots? Obviously, digital pots can be operated in a closed control loop, and they don’t require physical access for adjustment. In addition, they offer higher resolution than mechanical pots, along with better reliability and stability, faster adjustment, better dynamic control, and a smaller footprint."

Jeremys use for the digital potentiometer in the #8 video exercise is to vary the input voltage to LEDs to change their brightness. I dont know if thats a typical application for a digital potentiometer, but its a good way to learn about this component.

If youre interested in microcontrollers, please come to the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting this Thursday, July 24, from 6 to 8 PM at 1385 8th Street, Arcata, California, USA. Bring your questions and your enthusiasm -- we look forward to seeing you there!

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Dear World

Hi there blogger community. Its been a while. A looong while.

In a nutshell, nothing has been going on. Work that eats at my soul. Pictures of everyone else getting together. Well that blows.

Lets see, gas going up to $4? Well eff so much for getting a car.

Although in greater news, DMV WEDNESDAY!!!

Maybe I should start blogging again. =]

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Uri Oliver Vaughn

Seriously I had nothing better to call this blog so I gave it an actual name. I just Googled cool names and randomly picked three.

Anyway, this blog is about yesterday and this morning up until now.

So yesterday was the hardest day ever...in a long time. I had trouble getting out of bed. Just didnt really have a drive. I havent been very me-ish lately...so I hope everyone forgives me for that.

I tried to make coffee but the coffee maker had odd smoke coming out of it. OK well I was warming up old coffee from like last week to use in conditioner (which adds shine) but my coffee maker looked like it was going to blow up.

Four hours after I attempted to get out of bed, I finally got to my bus stop to go to school where I was going to finally finish my English work due. Some lady asked for the time so I told her. Big whoop right? Well then she decided to tell me her life story. Her name is Teresa and shes an alcoholic. She went to jail for drinking and just got out on parole but started drinking again.

So Im stuck talking to an alcoholic till my next bus comes. FML?

I made the mistake of telling her how I understand that getting into rehab is hard (after all I know someone that tried but didnt get in till she ended up in the hospital) and then Teresa went on and on and on blabbling drunken words...when finally my bus came. WIN

What got to me is it took her to relapse before she saw she needed help. For those of you that didnt know where my original screen name (sober drunkenness but spelled differently) came from, its from that. It was originally drunken sober but apparently at the time someone had that ID on Yahoo. Anyway it came from people like Teresa. People that become intoxicated but finally figure out what they need to do all along. Its almost like theyre blinded while sober and fail to see things how they are but see what a mess they have become once they are intoxicated again (which usually helps them stop) and thus, having drank themselves sober.

so now ya know.

Anyway while on the bus, Thim calls and says we besta hit up the library for some junk.

Just as a not-so-side note, I figured out our problem.

So we were on our way to Arcade library (which I thought was Del Paso) to drop off books. That was cleared up and I now know that one as Arcade (or Arden Arcade) library.

Now Thim called Hagginwood, Del Paso, but is for sure not Del Paso. Hagginwood (also known as North Sacramento) is on Del Paso Ave but Del Paso library is on Grand Ave. Its the whole Sacramento being theoretically correct.

ANYWAYS

Thim, Alyssa, and I went to Hagginwood library (on Del Paso Ave) to go to an anti valentines day party (or something like that) lol. It wasnt big. It pretty much consisted of me, Thim, Alyssa, a gal that worked there, and a guy named Daniel. We played brawl and did Bingo where everyone won but Alyssa which was lame on her part. Then we had a piñata that was shaped like a heart. I was oldest so I struck first...however I hit it hard enough to destroy it in one hit. LAME.

Then I went home where I ate a crap load of junk food. Man I really need to cut back. But, I was hungry and it was the first thing I saw unfortunately.

And so now it brings us to Friday (today yay I guess maybe) and me being at grandmas. Well I was sleepy and wanted a blanket but when I went to open the door, the knob just kept turning. WTF I was locked in!!! I tried a number of things. Finally I found an old safety pin which had a mickey mouse head (most of the ink used to create the head rubbed off from it being from the 90s...yup) and opened it up to help prop the door opened

FREEDOM

but now Im not even tired anymore...how lame.

And my newest addition which JUST happened, the discovery of the most ironic computer name since windows.

Freedom.

From the website, Freedom is an application that disables networking on an Apple computer for up to eight hours at a time. Freedom will free you from the distractions of the internet, allowing you time to code, write, or create.

...what...

as far as the windows bit...I meant their whole saying "windows, life without walls" but how can you have windows without walls? I mean without walls you just have glass.

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Like Arduino Like Python Check Out Micro Python

My knowledge about electronics and microcontrollers (MCUs) leaves a lot to be desired. My knowledge about computer programming, and Python in particular, leaves even more to be desired. However, if you like MCUs and Python, you might want to take a look at Micro Python, as Im doing tonight.

Micro Python pinout (from Kickstarter)

A Design News article from July 17 that I saw gives a brief overview of Micro Python. One of points of interest for me on this board is that the MCU is from STMicroelectronics. The only other blog post Ive written about an STM board is the June 22 one about the $50 Lab-in-a-box. That board also had an STM32F4 MCU.

"The Micro Python board is based on the STM32F405 Microcontroller. It comes ready for Python programming...running 168MHz, with 1MiB Flash and 192KiB...The Micro Python board has a built-in interface for USB and functions much like a storage device. Programmers can write their Python scripts directly onto the battery-operated board and once stored, the Micro Python board will function entirely independent of a PC...the micro Python board comes pre-loaded with a micro SD slot, four LEDs, a clock that functions in real time, accelerometer, switch, and 30 I/O pins, including USARTS, SPIs, 12C buses, DAC and AC pins, and four powered servo ports...it functions right out of the box, as its pre-installed with Micro Python...What’s really unique about this board isn’t the board itself, but the program upon which it’s based...Python can write functions, execute string processes, write classes, create lists and dictionaries, read and write files, create a generation

Packing Micro Python for shipment (from Kickstarter)

system, execute closures, design list comprehensions, and deal with execution handling. The Micro Python software is a leaner, cleaner version of Python intended for the microcontroller, but it actually works for PCs, too...Micro Python software is already available to the public through the MIT open-source license..."

The development of Micro Python board was completed with funding from a Kickstarter campaign that was successfully funded on December 13, 2013. The campaign generated more than six times the initial funding goal of £15,000 set by its founder, Damien George, an Australian theoretical physicist at the University of Cambridge. In Damiens latest update on the Kickstarter site (June 21), he says they just finished sending out the last of the kits and boards to his Kickstarter supporters. The picture above looks like he had a pretty crowded apartment or house when they were packing everything up for shipment! An interesting Kickstarter side-note is that another campaign on there, SliceCase, leveraged the popularity of Micro Python by offering a case for that board as one of the SliceCase rewards. The SliceCase campaign only asked for £1000 and got 9X the original ask.

Micro Python SliceCase

The SliceCase / Micro Python synergy brings up a revenue opportunity that takes advantage short term trends. In my recent post about Spark.io, two principles I mentioned for the Humboldt tech, innovator, maker and entrepreneur (TIME) community to leverage are (1) focus on emerging technologies and trends (e.g. Python language and the maker movement) and (2) use Kickstarter and similar sites to launch products and gain visibility. In this instance, SliceCase no doubt benefited from the buzz that Micro Python had generated. It would be fun to launch a Humboldt Crowdfunding Entrepreneurs Meetup group, where half the purpose is to take an abundance economy approach (a rising tide floats all boats rather than I want my piece of the pie) to Kickstarter and Indiegogo and people in the Meetup group would help each other become more successful at crowdfunding campaigns. The other half of the groups purpose would be to monitor crowdfunding projects on Kickstarter, Indiegogo and elsewhere, and to quickly and efficiently build crowdfunding campaigns that leverage publicity and successful funding of other crowdfunding campaigns.

The Micro Python is open source. Heres the GitHub project site to check out if thats of interest to you. I was glad I took a look at the GitHub site because it showed me that at least one GitHub site has a wiki component. I know less about GitHub than I do about microcontrollers and Python (sensing a theme here??), but I have several reasons to learn how to use GitHub effectively. One of those reasons is because the Humboldt Laser Harp (HLH) project code repository is being put on GitHub. I like wikis for aggregating and organizing technical information, and Im looking forward to giving the wiki component of GitHub sites a look to see if has benefits for the HLH project.

In addition to finding out about wikis on GitHub, tonights blog post also made me aware of a tech acronym that I either havent seen before (which is hard to believe) or just dont remember. That acronym is MiB. And it doesnt mean "Men in Black." What it does stand for is mebibyte, where mebi is a binary prefix which means 2 to the 20th power. It is apparently used as a more accurate alternative to megabyte (MB). The Wikipedia entry for mebibyte says:

She turned me into a newt!

"1 mebibyte is 1048576bytes...The unit has been accepted for use by all major standards organizations, appears increasingly in scholarly literature and is part of the International System of Quantities. Many Linux distributions use the unit, but the unit has not been widely accepted in the computer industry or popular media."

Micro Python has enough visibility that it was written up in Wired in December 2013, and in June 2014 there was a blurb about it in InfoWorld. With Python currently being "the most popular language for teaching introductory computer science courses at top-ranked U.S. departments," and with a relatively active community on GitHub with 31 contributors, 2544 commits and 1082 stars, the Micro Python project stands a decent chance of building critical mass and being around for a few years. Lastly, if youre interested in learning more about the creator of Micro Python, theres a Hack A Day interview with him from November 2013.

If you want to play with a Micro Python board, you can sign up on the projects website, although I didnt see any estimated shipping date for people who werent Kickstarter supporters.

**********

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Electronic Light Orchestra The Humboldt Laser Harp Project Launches! Part 1

Yay! The Humboldt Laser Harp microcontroller (MCU) project officially launched today. This Part 1 post about the project will give a short introduction, then Ill cover some more of the details in tomorrows post.

Ever since the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group was started back in May of this year, Ive wanted to have a couple people from the Group get together and collaborate on an MCU project. It didnt matter too much what it was, I just wanted to get the example and tradition of people coming up with a project, designing the hardware and software, figuring out how to get the components and other resources need to build the project, then debugging the first version and making iterative improvements until we had a pretty cool or interesting result.

Laser harp designed for crowd interaction

As Ive written this blog and during the biweekly Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meetings, Ive been suggesting various topics to try and get a couple people interested in one of them to the point where a project group (even just two people) would form. What I was sort of doing was throwing MCU projects against the kitchen cupboards or wall(?) like spaghetti to see if theyd stick. And one finally stuck -- at least to the point where three of us met today to determine if we wanted to actually start working together on an MCU project. And the answer to that question was, "Yes."

Laser harp with PVC pipe frame

So, Id like to introduce you to the Humboldt Laser Harp (HLH). It is the first MCU electronic musical instrument in the Electronic Light Orchestra of Humboldt County. Maybe we should call it the Humboldt Electronic Light Orchestra (HELO) so people dont get us confused with the band ELO (Electric Light Orchestra). Ill go into more detail about why the light orchestra part of the name will be appropriate when I post Part 2 or Part 3 of this series. Ill also mention other possible MCU musical instruments for the Electronic Light Orchestra, some of which have been in previous posts.

If youre reading this post and are not familiar with laser harps, take a look at my post from June titled, "Microcontrollers And A Humboldt Laser Harp." If you dont want to read that, just look for  laser harp  on Google and on YouTube.

Here are a few of the basic facts of the project:

Makezine laser harp (http://makezine.com/projects/laser-harp/)

• Right now there are three of us on the project: Ed Smith, Nick A, and Bob Waldron.
• As the project develops, Hal W and others might join in on the project.
• Ed is the lead for code and basic project design. For most questions about the project, Ed is the gatekeeper. [July 19 update: the best way to contact Ed about the project is to talk to him in person at one of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meetings. If you cant do that, email him at bobnova (at) humboldtmicro {dott} com.]
• Nick is the lead person for building the harp frame.
• The HLH v.1.0 will reside at Nicks house.
• Im going to sketch up some type of a black mini booth or covering designed to help see the laser beams when the laser harp is not in a darkened room.
• As indicated above, well use GitHub for the code repository and versioning, and for remote project collaboration. We discussed other options, such as DropBox, Google Docs, Texas Instruments Energia, or other services Ed might prefer that Nick and I are also ok with. Ed didnt have a strong preference, and Nick likes GitHub, so thats what we using, at least for now.
• The project will be open source, both software and hardware, to the extent possible. The parts that arent truly open source will be transparent as far as all the code and components being identified. If someone else wants to replicate what weve done, theyll be welcome to do so. (Of course, we might change our tune when someone offers us a lot of money to buy our ideas, laser harps or other MCU electronic musical instruments...)
• Bob will work with Josh Cowles or others to figure out the appropriate open source licenses to put on the pieces of this project that can accurately be called open source.
• Were probably going to have six lasers in version 1.0 of the HLH, but well think about MCU and other hardware capabilities in terms of being able to easily expand the design to a twelve laser harp and put in hooks or code blocks that make it easy to convert the programs from six-laser to a twelve-laser design.
• Nick will put a post about the project on the Humboldt Makers Google Group mailing list, and possibly on online sites that could give the project favorable visibility.

A true laser harp

In tomorrows post, Ill cover some of the other details discussed in todays meeting. If you have questions or comments about the HLH, send them to me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com.

If you know of other people in Humboldt County who have already built a laser harp or who play a laser harp, please share their contact info with me, or at least their name. Wed love to connect and talk laser harp technology with them.

We look forward to a long and illustrious career for the Electronic Light Orchestra of Humboldt!

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The Humboldt Laser Harp Project Part 2

[See Part 1 of the Humboldt Laser Harp project here]

So, Im still glad Im part of the Humboldt Laser Harp (HLH) project. But boy do I feel useless and clueless about whats going on from a technical standpoint...

SparkFun MIDI breakout board

There have been a few emails back and forth today between Ed, Nick and me about the HLH project. Eds getting a lot of the programming concepts figured out, e.g. "...I think Ive solved (assuming that any of this actually talks to a MIDI thing, anyway) the 16 string limit. The 16 MIDI channels are now dynamically assigned to different strings as needed, and released when the string is released. Not sure what would happen if you broke more than 16 beams. Probably the beams >16 simply wouldnt be played. Currently the notes have a hard cut on the end of them rather than a fade...Ill work on that if/when I have a sudden flash of insight. The number of analog input pins are the only limiting factor for the number of strings now. Given external comparators or an external (fast) ADC or analog multiplexer an Arduino could do a ton of strings with more or less this same code..." Nick is doing his part by pulling apart a laser and 3D printing a holder for the laser so we can easily fine tune where the laser is pointing. Hes also going to dig up a USB MIDI input for Ed to use during the design phase of this project.

SDS-50J MIDI connector

Tonight Ed evaluated using a SparkFun MIDI breakout board vs. the SparkFun MIDI shield vs. rolling his own MIDI connection. He decided to roll his own, and at this point, all he needs is a CUI Inc SDS-50J MIDI (DIN 5 pin) connector and a Lite-On Inc 6N137 optocoupler. Hes ordering those from Digi-Key, for a total of $1.78 plus shipping. Heres the optocoupler datasheet link if you want to read up on that.

Me? Im mostly reading the emails about what theyre doing.

6N137 optocoupler

Oh well, The important thing is a laser harp MCU device is being designed, the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group has launched their first group project, and well end up with v.1.0 of what will eventually be an interesting example of what you can do with MCUs.

Returning to the HLH launch meeting we had yesterday, here are a few other points about the project as it currently stands.

• The laser harp will be the framed style rather than the unframed style. See the two pictures below.

  

  Unframed laser harp

• The tentative height of the v.1.0 harp is 36 inches. The laser harp frame will probably be placed on a table when its exhibited in public, and probably on a somewhat lower stand when a laser harpist is sitting in a chair playing it. The width will likely be between 36 and 48 inches, so that its portable, so that an open horizontal hand can easily interrupt just one beam without accidentally breaking an adjacent beam, and so a laser harpist can comfortably reach all the beams.
• Nick will provide computer speakers, a MIDI sequencer and an amplifier.
• The goal of this project is to make a musical instrument, not just an electronic tone generator.
• Yesterdays post referred to the Electronic Light Orchestra. The reason I used the word Light in that descriptive name is because:
• When the laser harp is in a dark environment, the laser beams will be a light source.

  

  Framed laser harp

• Nick has a color organ we will work to integrate into the HLH. The light organ has RGB LEDs that change intensity and color in response to music (audio frequency range) and the settings of the organ.
• If I understood Nick correctly, we may also try out incorporating some background laser light show effects with the HLH.
• One aspect of the laser harp we need inspiration and a bit of technical expertise, or at least some creative thinking, is laser beam presence enhancing. I hope that term is self-explanatory, but the issue we need to address is how to make a low-powered laser beam most noticeable by a person if the laser harp is not in a very dark environment or if the person playing the harp is not looking closely at the laser beam. Some of the enhancing techniques weve discussed are:
• a fog machine, especially some type of fog generator that specifically is generating or concentrating fog in the area where the laser beams are.
• a black booth or mini-pavilion that can be set up to enclose the laser harp and make the laser beams more visible.

  

  Fog machine

• an air pulse generator that would put a concentrated air stream in the same location as the laser beam.
• a water jet that runs in the same area as the laser beam.
• Some other type of haptic signal that the laser harp player would feel when their finger or hand was breaking the laser beam.
• Im going to research laser safety issues to make sure we understand what laser strength or power is acceptable for use with the general public so we dont have anyone get burned by the laser (skin or eyes).

Enough for tonight. More HLH posts will be showing up over the next couple weeks. Maybe Ed or Nick will have something they get so interested in whilst working on their parts of the laser harp that theyll feel compelled to write a blog post or two!

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Part of Your World Mad Glib

Part of Your World (The Little Mermaid) Look at this brownie, isn`t it neat? Wouldn`t you think my collection`s complete? Wouldn`t you think I`m the King The King who has everything? Look at this fries, treasures untold How many wonders can one Weanis hold? fishing around here, you`d think Sure, she`s got everything I`ve got moose and deer a-plenty I`ve got who`s-its and what`s-its galore You castrating thing-a-mabobs? I`ve got 342 But who cares? No moist deal. I bewildered more I wanna be where the molds are I wanna see, wanna see `em rowing walkin` around on those Whaddya call `em? Oh, feet jumping your fins, you don`t get too far Legs are required for sexting, dancin` Strollin` along down the What`s that word again? cell phone Up where dirty pictures strip Up where dirty pictures run Up where dirty pictures stay all day in the sun Wanderin` free, wish I could be Part of that pole What would I give if I could live Outta these stripper thongs? What would I pay to spend a day Warm on the sand? Betcha on new mexico they understand Bet they don`t reprimand their booty juices Bright young women, sick of jousting Ready to stand And ready to know what the flute know Ask `em shiny questions and get some answers What`s a macbook, and why does it What`s the word? walk When`s it my turn? Wouldn`t I drive? drive to explore that backpack up above Out of gay bag, wish dildo could be clean of that rock toilet

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