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Suggest a project for me

awinning

Hi,

 

I've really enjoyed being on element14, and it has reawakened my desire to actually play around with electronics. I think the main spur has been reading about the Arduino like boards coming onto the market now. At the moment we have three Multicomp Arduino clone boards here, the Amicus board, which is an Arduino clone with a PIC controller here, and mbed. I think personally I'd like to try the PIC programming, but if anyone thinks the AVR or mbed is easier to get into, I'm open to convincing.

 

About me,

I graduated in 1996 with a BSc in Electronic Systems. Since then I have worked in a number of publications writing about electronics, but not practising. My favourite subjects were digital design and C programming. Currently I'm working on this, which hopefully you are all familiar with.

 

About the project,

I'm looking for something to ease me back into electronics. I want to use either one of the Arduino clone boards or an mbed. I'd hopefully be designing a shield/board for the chosen dev kit using EAGLE Freemium. The project should be fairly cheap and at an intermediate level, I'd like to stretch myself a bit while learning (and hopefully you are all going to help me through image).

 

Any and all suggestions welcome!

  • in reply to JohnDSiviter
    Nice one John. Definitely up for something like that
  • in reply to awinning

    So it is definitely going to be a PIC32 project, got the starter board and the book, and the expension board is on its way. Any last suggestions?

     

    After a bit of thought. I would love to do Pong, but I think that's a wee bit far at the moment...Mike's tent proximity alarm is probably my favourite, mainly because I can implement it in stages and its not a single jump too far

  • in reply to awinning

    I like the idea of using a replacement Nokia LCD module but wonder if one could be easily pulled from an old phone?  It might be possible to use Intel's 8051 controller, the Nokia display, and a  bit of memory to build a roadside sign for a model railroad.  Now with a bit better display and more powerful controller... Hmm, try a Drive in Movie theatre in HO scale with a real movie running.
    On the couch you would then have your own portable battery powered drive-in theater and maybe the kids would swap a bed for it?

  • in reply to Former Member
    That would be hilarious, a mini drive-in theatre! The mini advertising sign sounds quite interesting
  • in reply to Former Member
    I'm sure you can use one pulled from the right sort of old phone, but check the prices on Ebay first, they go for peanuts with free p&p. I have seen them used as small monitors in scale model dioramas.
  • in reply to Zad

    I just bought a Nokia 1100screen on eBay for £4.99 inc VAT + p&p. It arrived the next day. I haven't had a chance to play yet, but it looks as if it ouht to be easy to drive.

     

    It's a monochrome display, so perfect for B&W film shows image

  • in reply to romilly

    Ah the days before colour!

     

    I think I have decided. I'm going to take Mike's suggestion and tailor it. I'm thinking of using an accelerometer to set off an alarm if an angle changes. In the future I would like to add a way of contacting a mobile device. You guys thisnk this sounds feasible? Any additional functionalty that could be added?

     

    Plan is to use it in a motorcycle/scooter. Switch the alarm on when bike is resting on the stand, the accelerometer will measure the angle, and if it changes more than a few degrees, firstly activate an alarm, and hopefully later I can find a way to make it set off my mobile.

  • in reply to awinning

    That sounds entirely workable, and useful too.

     

    Once you get to thinking about a cellphone link, you'll probably consider the Telit modules (stocked by Farnell). Some combine GSM with GPRS; maybe you could get tracking information as well as a call to your mobile.

  • in reply to romilly
    Sounds great Romilly. I never thought of GPS, but I know one of our members uses it regularly. It's another thing that can be added later. Yeah, I think this is the project for me
  • in reply to awinning

    Most phones can be used by embedded micros to send text messages. Those phones which allow you to communicate via an RS232 serial port basically present a standard "AT command" modem interface. This means that with a micro and a voltage level converter (the ubiquitous MAX232) you just send a series of characters out of the serial port and the phone does all the difficult stuff. If the phone doesn't have any interface like that, you can hack into the keypad and use something like the CD4066 switches to fake key presses. It is slower but it still works.

     

    Similarly, many GPS units can be driven down a serial port. You just give it an initial set of info, and the module spits out a set of data every second (or less if programmed). It isn't difficult to process this data into a more human readable form. Loads of info is obtainable around the net for both of these, it purely depends on which phone / gps you go for.