Category: sketches

Fritzing for designing electronics

Posted on by ow3n

I just discovered Fritzing; an application for designing electronic projects and laying-out PCBs. The software is dependable, has a useful website with tutorials and project examples, and they are even starting a fabrication service in Dec 2010. Fritzing was started in August 2007 by the Interaction Design Lab at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Germany.

When you launch the software you begin with a breadboard. Then you drag components from a large list on the right, choosing options for the parts. Adjusting rotation, color, and placement is all fairly intuitive. While I found working with “2.5D” perspective is a little awkward at first, you get used to it. For output, you can select between Breadboard, Schematic, and PCB views on the bottom right.

Here’s a design to accompany a previous sketch, Fading an LED with PWM and a Potentiometer

Schematic for You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore

Posted on by ow3n

“Open sourcing” the schematic for the electronic components for You Never Close Your Eyes Anymore.

Picture 5

Products:

RBBB boards (Arduino clone)
custom-designed circuits
– female headers
– TIP31 transistor
– 6-wire Unipolar Stepper motor (48 step Nippon Electric Pulse Motor)
– ULN2803A Darlington Array
– hook-up wire
– various resistors
– LEDs
used camera lenses
aluminum “flat bar”
hose clamps
rubber wine corks
various mounting hardware

Fading an LED with PWM and a Potentiometer

Posted on by ow3n

Using a potentiometer and PWM on an Arduino to fade an LED.

  1.  
  2. /* POT to LED test -> by Owen Mundy March 11, 2010
  3.    from: http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Labs/AnalogIn
  4. —————————————————————*/
  5.  
  6. int potPin = 0;    // Analog input pin that the potentiometer is attached to
  7. int potValue = 0;  // value read from the pot
  8. int led = 9;      // PWM pin that the LED is on.  n.b. PWM 0 is on digital pin 9
  9.  
  10. void setup() {
  11.   // initialize serial communications at 9600 bps:
  12.   Serial.begin(9600);
  13.   // declare the led pin as an output:
  14.   pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
  15. }
  16.  
  17. void loop() {
  18.   potValue = analogRead(potPin); // read the pot value
  19.   analogWrite(led, potValue/4);  // PWM the LED with the pot value (divided by 4 to fit in a byte)
  20.   Serial.println("hello");      // print the pot value back to the debugger pane
  21.   delay(10);                     // wait 10 milliseconds before the next loop
  22. }
  23.  

Here is the schematic for the above project.

Using PWM and a potentiometer to fade an LED and drive a stepper motor, powered by a Boarduino RBBB.

  1.  
  2. /*
  3.   Owen Mundy
  4.  July 29, 2009
  5.  
  6.  p. 262 of Physical Computing
  7.  Using BBB to run stepper motor by manually moving steppers
  8.  
  9.  */
  10.  
  11. int pin1 = 3;                 // PWM
  12. int pin2 = 5;                 // PWM
  13. int pin3 = 6;                 // PWM
  14. int pin4 = 9;                 // PWM
  15. int ledpin = 13;              // LED
  16. int led = false;              // LED monitor
  17. int motor_time_lapse = 80;
  18.  
  19. int potPin = 0;      // Analog input pin that the potentiometer is attached to
  20. int potValue = 0;    // value read from the pot
  21. int ledPotPin = 11;  // PWM pin that the LED is on.  n.b. PWM 0 is on digital pin 9
  22.  
  23.  
  24. void setup()
  25. {
  26.   pinMode(pin1, OUTPUT);      // sets the pin as output
  27.   pinMode(pin2, OUTPUT);      // sets the pin as output
  28.   pinMode(pin3, OUTPUT);      // sets the pin as output
  29.   pinMode(pin4, OUTPUT);      // sets the pin as output
  30.   pinMode(ledpin, OUTPUT);    // sets the pin as output
  31.  
  32.   // initialize serial communications at 9600 bps:
  33.   Serial.begin(9600);
  34.   // declare the led pin as an output:
  35.   pinMode(ledPotPin, OUTPUT);
  36. }
  37.  
  38. void loop()
  39. {
  40.   potValue = analogRead(potPin); // read the pot value
  41.   analogWrite(ledPotPin, potValue/4);  // PWM the LED with the pot value (divided by 4 to fit in a byte)
  42.   Serial.println(potValue);
  43.  
  44.   digitalWrite(pin1, HIGH);   // on
  45.   digitalWrite(pin2, LOW);    // off
  46.   digitalWrite(pin3, HIGH);   // on
  47.   digitalWrite(pin4, LOW);    // off
  48.   delay(motor_time_lapse);    // wait
  49.  
  50.  
  51.   digitalWrite(pin1, LOW);    // off
  52.   digitalWrite(pin2, HIGH);   // on
  53.   digitalWrite(pin3, HIGH);   // on
  54.   digitalWrite(pin4, LOW);    // off
  55.   delay(motor_time_lapse);    // wait
  56.  
  57.   digitalWrite(pin1, LOW);    // off
  58.   digitalWrite(pin2, HIGH);   // on
  59.   digitalWrite(pin3, LOW);    // off
  60.   digitalWrite(pin4, HIGH);   // on
  61.   delay(motor_time_lapse);    // wait
  62.  
  63.  
  64.   digitalWrite(pin1, HIGH);   // on
  65.   digitalWrite(pin2, LOW);    // off
  66.   digitalWrite(pin3, LOW);    // off
  67.   digitalWrite(pin4, HIGH);   // on
  68.   delay(motor_time_lapse);    // wait
  69.  
  70.   blink();
  71. }
  72.  
  73. void blink()
  74. {
  75.   if (led == false)
  76.   {
  77.     led = true;
  78.     digitalWrite(ledpin, HIGH); // on  
  79.   }
  80.   else
  81.   {
  82.     led = false;
  83.     digitalWrite(ledpin, LOW); // on  
  84.   }
  85. }
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