Hey guys. There was another thread about this, but I did not start it. The original poster has not been back for some time, so I am going to start a new one. Tonight I worked on my arduino pack light solution for a few hours. I fixed the waveshield (chip needed resoldered) and it works great now. I have gotten the cyclotron and powercell going. The speed of each is adjustable via a potentiometer(each one has its own). The pack startup sound is there as well as the hum, but unfortunately you cannot hear it in the video that I have shot. Next time I will make it a point to capture that. So without further ado here is the video.
For those of you that were not following the other topic, an arduino is a small and cheap embedded computer. This entire thing has cost me next to nothing so far. The final product should come in at around $100-$120. All of this will be freely available on the internet once it is complete. I will make the board layouts so that you can etch the board yourself, but a simple point to point should also do the job.
it looks good man. i could hear the bass hum a little but yeah it definitely looks good and cant wait to see and hear it all done. keep on the good work man.
Well I got some more done today. I now have a switch that when thrown will cause the thing to “power up”. Before the switch is hit it will just sit there. Once thrown it will play the startup sound and the lights will start going. When you turn the switch to off it will then “power off” playing the shutdown setting the lights back to off and playing the shutdown sound.
Now for the not fun part, bugs. I noticed today that there is a bug. I am not sure if this is because it is on breadboard and the wires are not making good enough contact or what (I have reason to believe this is the issue, more on that later). When the thing is going sometimes the cyclotron light will hiccup and flash before changing. This happens in before it needs to change, meaning it will go 1-2-3-4-1-2.2-3-4 where 2.2 is inside of the cycle. If the cycle is 1 second, the light will flash after .5 second and then proceed as normal.
Now why do I think that this could be because of the breadboard? Well today when working on it I would occasionally have all of the lights come on for a few seconds then go back to normal. That was happening because the wires going to the arduino were not seated tight enough. I replaced those jumper wires and have not had the problem since. Now why do I not change the wires going to the cyclotron light? Well it is a rats nest. If I bump one wire out then I have to spend time figuring out where that wire went. This thing is going to be modular comprised of a number of boards. Once I get the leds for the powercell in I will put them onto a board thus reducing the rats nest a little.
Right now this is how I see this going.
The entire thing will have a board. This board will house the ICs and the connectors. The powercell will have its own board. The resistors for the leds will reside on the board so that you can easily change leds (just replace the entire board) to other types that may need a different resistor. The cyclotron lights will not have their own board. Being that you need to move these around the resistor will just be soldered in the wire, again allowing you to change leds.
The wand will have its own circuit that will probably be connected to the main board via a cat5 cable, actually two. The graph on the wand will be set up the same as the powercell lights on its own board with resistors. The wand lights will be set up the same as the powercell lights. The switches will go on the board for the wand. I found a way to drive multiple switches on one arduino pin, so that is what I will be doing there.
Now since this will be made freely available you can do this however you want, but that is how the pcb file that I provide will be set up.
Just to keep everyone in the loop. I rewrote all of the code today in an attempt to remove the bugs. That did not happen. I then made a post on a forum regarding the errors that I was having only happening when sound was playing. As it turns out there is a problem with the arduino ide for linux (and mac for that matter) in pertaining to the waveshield. Every problem that I was having (cyclotron lights acting up, thing freezing mid cycle, and now a problem with the trigger button) were all caused by the ide. I guess I will have to move to working on this with windows. I just uploaded the code from here (on my linux netbook atm) and it suffered from all of the errors that I was having. Previously I had let this thing run for 30 minutes after the code was uploaded from windows and it worked fine. So I guess I am further along than I had thought.
So anyways, like I said, I have rewritten the bulk of the code. It is now faster, the powercell no longer pauses for a moment when getting to the 6th led (that was only happening at certain speeds) and easier to read/work with/code/maintain/etc. Today the bulk of my time was spent making a switch block. I am pleased with how it turned out. I did it point to point. I ran out of screw terminals, so I am missing one switch (the one at the end of the barrel) but I can easily add that later. This was done point to point of course and actually turned out well enough that I will just use it when the time comes.
Now for the bad news. I said that I would provide files so that you could get the board printed/etch it on your own. Well eagle has once again ■■■■■■ me off so I may not be doing that. I can provide a schematic. If someone would like to kindly take that and make it into something more, then they can once the time comes. Maybe I will give it another shot when I am less ■■■■■■ at it.
Tomorrow I intend to get all of these switches working. I have some pretty cool ideas for how they will work. if my damn leds would ever come in I could get something more permanent set up and reduce this rat’s nest that I am afraid to touch. Hopefully a video will follow tomorrow.
I just ordered one from Maker SHED (well a nano version) and am using it my PKE. I will be coming back more and more here to check up on it. However if you want to check out my thread on using the arduino in a PKE, here it is:
i can offer some help on this. how many leds do you need for the pke? there is an ic that will run 8 extra and you can daisy chain them. as far as servo, check adafruit for their server shield.
Well not much coding has been getting done lately. I have been laying down the circuit point to point style. My powercell LEDs came in so I got them on a board with the resistors. Next step is to solder the ribbon onto there that will go to the main board. I have started the main board now too. I have soldered 4 ICs on there (two go on the gun daughter board). The ICs are all connected as far as power and ground go, now I just need to solder the wires to the sockets for the leds. This is very tedious. I may work on it some tomorrow. I am not looking forward to soldering over 100 points, but it will be worth it once it is done. There will still be a rats nest, but it will work. Honestly it isnt that bad. It is an extremely simple circuit to have to solder so point to point is definitely possible, and I am proving that right now. It would be easier to have a printed pcb, but that isnt necessary.
Once all of this is soldered the next order of business is to code the powercell correctly. I had it going up, down instead of just up, up. This was mainly just to see how the graph on the wand would function. Overall I am pleased with this. I will not be around this weekend so I would like to get it the main board soldering done tomorrow. Pictures to come eventually.
I keep thinking with all the low cost electronic devices available there has to be a cheap solution to rotating cyclotron lights, and the power supply lights.
You can see cheapo toy guns for $5 with lights and sounds.. something should be able to be cobbled together for under $40 I’d think.
Well the arduino board itself is like $36 for the normal one. Then a 9v battery, 4 red LEDs with resistors ($10), and thats it. So that’s close to $40.
Then if you want to do the power cell you just need another bunch of LEDs and resistors and a few shift registers ($1 each) and thats it.
The shields are nice but you can save a lot of money by cobbling together a few small (cheaper) parts.
I wish I had thought about the arduino when I did my pack. Would have made so many things easier, more modular, and more programmable (and probably the same price).
I’d love to have a powerup switch on our guns that activated lighting and sounds, and a a trigger for sound and lights on our guns, but the tech work, and price point are just way out of my interest to reach.
I am trying to do this for as cheap as possible. give me some time and i will have something to show. something about soldering over 100 points for the next step isnt appealing… soldering didnt go so well. i think i am going to remove the ics and see what i can do as far as some other method. this just isnt working and this cheap ass breadboard from radioshack isnt helping…
I hope you are using sockets for the ICs. It’s safer and much easier to work with.
I also did my entire project with wire wrap. It is much easier to undo and redo yet is pretty permenant (especially if you dab solder on all wraps at the end).
Why use sockets? I dont see a reason to really, And what makes wirewrap sockets so easy to work with? I have no experience with that sort of thing. Maybe I will order them. I was just going to use a breakout board for the ics.
Well since ICs are sensitive to heat and static, it’s much easier to solder to a socket and then snap the IC into the socket.
I have a wire wrap gun so if you don’t have one of those, it a lot of turning a tool. However with wirewrap you just use the tool to attach the wire (you need wire wrap wire) to a socket (wire wrap socket) or LED lead.
I just found it faster to do and undo connections. And to make it more sturdy I dab solder on when I have buzzed everything out and smoke tested it.
I just now saw that you are using a breadboard. I didn’t prototype(just went from diagram to wire wrap) but I think the same still goes. I found it easier to wire wrap. Well that and I just typed this All out on my iPhone so it would hurt to now erase all that.
Well i worked on it some tonight. I really like this breadboard that I am using this time. It is going well though, hopefully I will have the powercell stuff done tomorrow, I still have a ton of points to solder…
Well for those of you following this, here is an update. the powercell part of the circuit is soldered on and working fine. My next challenge is the cyclotron lights. Unfortunately I am waiting on some parts to come in the mail to finish up the main board and get it to what I consider complete. Using this new breadboard I am having a very easy time and making great progress. I have the main board all laid out now, I just need to add the wire and solder the points. I hope to have the cyclotron lights done tonight then I can start working on the thrower. It is all going smoothly now and I am only limited by time and shipping time. I have still yet to get the leds for the graph on the wand. Starting to get a little ■■■■■■ about that.
You’ve done a good job with that.