#freeduino

I bought a Freeduino board months back wanting to create an automated overhead tank filling system. However, I could not find a cheap and easy switch in my city, hence eventually the project went into the back of my shelf, until today morning. Woke up early and went to wash my face, realized the tank was empty. Now I didn't want to start the pump at 4am and wake others up — I remembered the project is waiting to be assembled.

Went through the components I had lying around and came up with an idea…

I could put this together in some time, so I started…

Used small hacksaw to reduce noise, cut myself two long planks and two one inch by one inch square bits. Had a push button switch, drilled two holes in one plank and fixed the switch with some hot glue…

. Next, cut the actuating lever into shape… Drilled holes for hinge First hot-glued the bits, then secured them with two small nails each. Used a copper wire as guide to align everything properly while working on it. . And… it was ready.

Now all I had to do was solder wires and put the contraption upside down handing over the overhead tank… The nylon string ensures that the float rises up in the correct direction ;-)

Put a multimeter to line testing mode, wired up and checked by starting the pump… it worked!

При первом подключении девайса, в системе появляется новое устройство FT232R USB UART, система драйвер найти не смогла.

После непродолжительных поисков в интернете был найден сайт с необходимым драйвером (подошел от windows 7).

После его установки в системе появилось устройство USB Serial Port с которым можно дальше работать.

Bi-colour LEDs are actually two LEDs, which are wired in an inverse parallel setup, and combined into one package with 2 leads.

Figure 1: A bi-colour LED. 

This means that whichever way you connect the bi-colour package to the supply, one PN junction will be forward-biased and emitting light, while the other remains off. To control both colours from an Arduino, we wire up the two package terminals between digital pins 10 and 11 of the board (as opposed to how you would connect an ordinary LED - between the ground pin and an output pin). Use a series 270 ohm resistance with the bi-colour LED; it doesn't matter which side it goes on.

It's obvious that if a 1 is given on one pin and a 0 on the other, one of the colours will light up, and if the signals were to be reversed, the second colour would toggle on. The code is built so that it can fade one colour while the other brightens, before reversing direction.

In my LED, the two colours available were red and green, so you can see them fading smoothly into each other in the video. The difference between the elements of the weight[] array essentially fixes how many steps the brightness of each colour is varied in. The transientDelay value fixes how quickly the two colours get exchanged.

Code available after the break.

Code: 

Here's a dead-simple serial servo control code for Arduino and compatible boards!

If you send the numerals 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 to the board, it will rotate the connected servo on pin 9 to various positions. Most servos swing 0-180 degrees over the corresponding argument range 700-2300 for the servoObject.writeMicroseconds() function.

Also, please note that you can no longer use analogWrite() PWM functions on pins 9 and 10 if you're using the Servo.h library (except on the Arduino Mega).

Code available after the break.

Comments are placed below the lines they refer to.

Code: 

/* Servo Experiment Arunkumar M January 18, 2011 Send 0-4 via serial to turn the servo. */ #include <Servo.h> Servo svServo; /* Creates a Servo object named svServo*/ char receivedCommand = 'x'; int armaturePositionMatrix[] = {700, 1200, 1500, 2000, 2300}; /* Declares an array holding various armature positions. If your servo starts grinding when you try 0 or 4, change this array to hold values in the range 1000 - 2000. */ void setup() {     Serial.begin(9600);     svServo.attach(9);     svServo.writeMicroseconds(armaturePositionMatrix[0]);     /* Attaches the servo to pin 9 and sets the servo at position 0. */ } void loop() {     if(Serial.available())     {         receivedCommand = Serial.read();         /* If any data is available in the serial interface buffer, it's read into receivedCommand. Reading the buffer automatically empties it of the read character. */         switch(receivedCommand)         {             /* This switch-case construct will evaluate the received character and write the corresponding position to the servo. */ 

I've just ordered a Freeduino 1.16 USB board based on the Atmega 328!

Waiting for it to arrive...

It should be here within a week!

Update!

For those not in the know, a Freeduino is an Arduino-compatible microcontroller board! Check the website links at the end of the post!

Update!

The Freeduino 1.16 USB board from Bhasha Technologies is here! I had ordered several relimate connectors and am now happily controlling servo motors from my PC!

Note: This is mainly because I find all my breadboards and LEDs are missing in action and so can't do anything other than fiddling with servo motors! Hopefully, I'll be able to lay my grubby paws on some LEDs and breadboards and sundry electronic component-thingamajigs soon! Arr!

Arduino website.

Freeduino website.