Stirling Blue - TNT Ignition - Blog 13

20 Jul 2018

This blog wraps up work on the Type-N-Text (TNT) devices. It has come right down to the wire with only hours left in the challenge and I really wanted to get these devices working. I miscalculated the amount of effort the project would take pretty badly so everything would have had to go perfectly in the last 2 week to complete everything I wanted to achieve. But of course things weren't going to go perfectly and they definitely didn't. After completing the micro:bit-to-PSoC communication in the last blog, it should have been a simple matter of whipping up a little radio program. However the IDE was unable to load the radio library. It turns out I had to upgrade to the latest IDE to have radio support. The latest editor version does have radio support, but it totally broke my existing code, refusing to configure the micro:bit pins the way they were designed to work - and were working fine in the old IDE. This was a major setback with just one day left in the challenge, but I decided to put my head down and just focus on getting the TNT working. I had to go back to the drawing board, develop new schematics, tear the devices apart, rewire them, reprogram the micro:bits to reflect all the changes and then debug some nasty ping-pong run-on issues. So here it is about 5am on the final day and still trying to get the blog published.

At least the effort paid off in a working system as you can see in this video:

There is nothing like having to redesign, teardown, rebuild and reprogram a 3 month project in one evening I may sound a little tired in the video....

I don't really have time to publish all the material I have on Stirling engines and further work with the PSoC6, but I will try to make a wrap-up blog.

Top Comments

dougw over 6 years ago in reply to dougw

The window tint came in and it works great:
Improving the micro:bit LED display
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dougw over 6 years ago in reply to dougw

I ordered some window tint film, but it hasn't come in yet.
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dougw over 6 years ago in reply to aspork42

Linking is a good idea, I used square guides in the bezel and square flanges under the key caps to maintain alignment, but the tolerances need to be spot on.
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aspork42 over 6 years ago

Glad you found a use for that old floppy disk
Great case! For buttons, i try to link the together inside the case to keep them all lined up; so it is one big piece instead of many.
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genebren over 6 years ago

Good to see the BT link working between the two devices. You really got a lot crammed into the that micro:bit. Oh the joys of working in a resource limited environment (and the disconnects in you tools did not help you at all)!
Gene
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