[Upcycle it Design Challenge] Embedded Web SDR client on Analog Radio Receiver #7: Hardware is ready!

Meet with Edison Hardware for the second time

It took a little bit more than I expected to get the components from Sparkfun to go on with the project.

Eventually they arrived yesterday afternoon, so I started work right away.

Meanwhile I had prepared the first version of the program that I had previously written for the Arduino, re-writing it in node.js to suit my needs.

I was expecting for the boards to visualize the actual size of the display and how the menu would look on such a small display. When I opened the package, everyone in the house made the comment that the display was tiny. So I had to see with my eyes.

I put all the pieces on the table. The two boards, the Edison core and the necessary screws to mount everything together, Good thing that I order the screws that helped to turn all the components into a firm project.

I only had to solder a two pin male header on the display board for the power, which I did first.

Then I put the pieces together as you can see in the next pictures and applied power from a 5 volt wall-wart.

As there was no software loaded for the display, the only thing that I could notice was a blue led that went on on the base board.

I opened PuTTY on my computer and easily logged on my new Edison system, Obelix.localhost. From the site https://www.npmjs.com/package/edison-oled I got the instructions on how to install the OLED display under node.js .

So I run:

$ npm install edison-oled

and the display was installed again without a problem out of the box.

I looked at the sub-dir that was created “edison-oled” under root@obelix:~/node_modules# and I found the following files:

root@obelix:~/node_modules/edison-oled# ls
README.md edison_node.hpp index.js oled sparklibs.h
binding.gyp edison_node_addon.cpp makefile oled_pong.cpp spi
build gpio node_modules package.json tests

I then did

root@obelix:~/node_modules/edison-oled# cd tests
root@obelix:~/node_modules/edison-oled/tests# node test-oled-screen.js

and yes the screen demo was working as it should be, together with the joystick and buttons control.

All right. The hardware was ready.

Next test.

root@obelix:~/node_modules/edison-oled/tests# node test11.js

and here is the result.

This was test one anyway. It was working as it was meant to be, on screen level again.

I had used a simple font for the display that allowed me to have on the 64 x 48 matrix 5 lines of ten characters each of the same font. Not exactly what I wanted, but I could start playing now quite easily.

So I stopped at this point to prepare my post and think.

Well everyone was happy because although the screen looked tiny, the display was very bright and everyone in the house could read it.

I started thinking now of the best possible way to produce a practical UI for my WEB SDR client.

One idea that came before sleep. The sign on message could stay on for a few seconds as a greeting message and then go away. I could then keep the next 3 lines on the OLED with Mode, Step, and Band info and make the Frequency line double size, as I had initially envisioned.

Well these are the small details that I have to play with from now on until I come to the desired result that I will present to you next week.

Although a day behind schedule, everything went on as it should have been.

After all I am through with the hardware, just add the USB Soundcard with a small cable.

Goal Number One achieved. It is the smallest footprint I could imagine, slightly larger than an Edison core! It surely can fit in many Radios for Upcycling them, even what we used to call Transistor Radios!

Till the next week.