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blinkm

Got a RGB led: blinkm. These are cool. The kids liked them. Can’t imagine buying more than one because of the price.

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Lynxmotion pan-tilt head

Tonight’s project was to assembled the Lynx motion pan-tilt head. This is much more robust feeling than the dagu (mini servo version). I cut some acrylic to mount a Sharp IR detector and a pololu 3DOF
compass.

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Quality time with the Byvac BV4213

I found BV4213 on ebay back in early January. The 4WD dfrobot chasis has four discrete motors. All the commonly available Arduino motor shields only support two channels. The BV4213 is a solution to this. Each board is about 2.5cm square; it provides full PWM and directional motor control to two motors per board. You communicate with it using I2C. Using two of these boards, I have discrete control over all four motors and free up four pins on the primary Arudino (now a Mega…so it does not matter that much.)

A few days ago I finally got the test command on the BV4213 to return a test signal. It’s alive! Today I started writing direction and PWM commands to it. I have not yet figured out the behavior of PWM when you change its value. It seems to lag a bit. I’ll post some code when I get it cleaned up.

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Tap acrylic

Learning to tap acrylic. Had a major set back when I found out my Harbor Freight tap kit was only metric. Metric screws are much more expensive. I also learned that the local hardware store carries Irwin brand drill bits the exact size for pilot holes.

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The Argent APRS shield assembled

I got the Argent APRS shield for Arduino assembled. Assembly went very quickly. I stopped by the HRO to get a CT-44 so I can test this with a Yaesu VX-2R. So far I can query the shield with a status command ‘S’ and blink and LED. More to come soon.

argent APRS shield

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A few things while on vacation

I’ve got a four day weekend. Shaking out some new hardware including:

  • Arduino Mega board
  • Figuring out how to use xbee shield
  • Took delivery of an Argent APRS shield
  • ByVac BV4213 I2C motor controller
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2WD dfrobot

Build log: tonight I soldered in 10nf disc caps on every motor: four in the 4WD dfrobot and two in the 2WD version.

I also assembled a Sharp IR distance sensor on an EXI servo from HobbyPartz.com. The EXI is maybe 1mm too wide to fit in the 2WD dfrobot hole. I think this may be because of the powder coating.