code, circuits, & construction

This code reads three sensors and sends them out serially when prompted by another computer. It works with this Processing example. Arduino/Wiring, PicBasic Pro, and BX-24 versions are shown.

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This program takes input from a Sharp GP2D120 infrared ranging sensor and outputs the result in ASCII. The ranging formula comes from an excellent article on Acroname’s site, tweaked a bit to work with my circuit.

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For those applications where you want to sense a person touching an object, but can’t use a switch or a force-sensitive resistor, charge-transfer touch sensors can often be very useful. The one used in this example is made by Quantum, and it’s very simple to use.
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This example assumes you’re using a DC motor that runs on low voltage DC, in the 5-15V range. Connect leads to its terminals, and run if from a benchtop power supply if you have one. Try changing the voltage on it, and seeing what effect it has. Don’t go over the motor’s rated voltage. Connect a switch in series with the motor and use it to turn on the motor.

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This page covers the details of MIDI communication on the BX-24.

To send MIDI out from the BX-24, you use the serial commands. You need to set the baudmode to match MIDI settings. You can’t use COM3 for MIDI, because it can’t reach the required baud rate, so you have to use COM1. Wiring is as follows:

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Most microcontrollers don’t have a random function. Random functions are not truly random, they’re actually a complex mathematical formula that results in a number that “seems” random. That can take up lots of processing time, so it’s usually the first function to go when writing a microprocessor language.

In fact, most of what you do in programming physical computing projects is to figure out how to deal with the world’s natural randomness and make it look smooth. A photoresistor read through an analog-to-digital converter, for example, will never give you a nice steady number, it always fluctuates with tiny changes in lighting that your eye can’t see. Your consciousness is a great leveller for the sensors that are your eyes, ears, skin, nose, and taste buds When you move a photoresistor from one room to another, your readings will be totally different, and all of a sudden, you have to re-calculate what is “average” and what constitutes the lighting change that you want. And that’s just one of many examples. The fact is, data from sensors is filled with the noise of the real world. Plan for it in advance.

Technorati Tags: pcomp, physical computing, programming

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Microcontrollers can take sound in as an analog input, for crude measurements. While 8-bit ones  (the Basic Stamp, BX-24, PIC, Arduino, etc) are not fast enough to read the frequency difference between various sounds, they can read sound levels. A line-level audio signal (which is what a typical CD or MP3 player produces) varies between -1V and 1V, a range of 2V total. If you raise that up so that it varies between, say, 3.5V and 1.5V, you can read it using the analog input on your microcontroller

First, if you have a microphone, you won’t be able to connect it directly. A microphone’s voltage, known as mic level voltage, is only a few millivolts at best. If you put it through a preamp such as a mixer board, or through an amplifier, you get a line level signal, which you can read.

A simple way to do this is to buy a preamplifier kit, something like the Velleman K1803 Universal Mono Preamplifier from Jameco (part no. 117612). For $8.95, it’ll save you some troubleshooting time, and cost about as much as the circuit below. Or you can build your own.

The following circuit uses a Condenser microphone element from Radio Shack (part no. 270-090C) and an amplifier chip also from Radio Shack (LM386 Audio Amplifier). The amplifier raises the microphone’s signal so it’s within line level tolerances, -1V to 1V. To raise that to a 1.5V to 3.5V range, we use a voltage divider (the two 100K resistors). Normally, the voltage between the resistors would be 2.5V (since their resistance is equal). When we add in the line level signal, we get 1.5V to 3.5V.

Note that the 10K variable pot is using all three pins of the potentiometer. The center pin goes to pin 2 of the amplifier, the end pins to the mic and pin 3, respectively. The variable resistor is your volume knob. I used an audio taper pot, since I wanted the curve of the pot to follow the sound’s volume.

Note that the capacitors are polarized electrolytic capacitors, so it matters which way they face.

In the BX-BASIC code, I found my base value (when all was silent) was about 512. So I subtracted that, took the absolute value of the result (so that negative numbers would always read as positive), and got a sound level varying between about 1 and 500. You may need to adjust these values depending on your setup.

dim soundIn as integer

Sub main()
    call delay(0.5)  ' start  program with a half-second delay 

    do
        soundIn = abs(getADC(13)- 512)

        debug.print "soundIn = " ; cStr(soundIn)
    loop

End Sub

Here’s the same code in Wiring/Arduino:

void setup() {
	Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
	// read the audio in on analog 0:
	int soundLevel = analogRead(0) -512;
       Serial.print( "soundIn = ");
	Serial.println(soundLevel, DEC);
}

A stepper motor is a motor controlled by a series of electromagnetic coils. The center shaft has a series of magnets mounted on it, and the coils surrounding the shaft are alternately given current or not, creating magnetic fields which repulse or attract the magnets on the shaft, causing the motor to rotate.

This design allows for very precise control of the motor: by proper pulsing, it can be turned in very accurate steps of set degree increments (for example, two-degree increments, half-degree increments, etc.). They are used in printers, disk drives, and other devices where precise positioning of the motor is necessary.

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