Current Obsession

I have had a new diversion to occupy my time... quadcopters.  Yes, I have been bitten by the drone bug,  

I'll explain more later... but for now, I want to document my latest outing with my Hubsan X4 H107C quadcopter,

It's an inexpensive, Ready-To-Fly quad that I picked up from my local Fry's Electronics.  I actually upgraded the camera module from the SD version to the "HD" version when the original camera began to have problems.  Anyway, here is some test footage from yesterday.

I'll have more information, pictures and videos of all of my latest projects.  I just need to set aside the time to do it!

Ready To Build Again

Well, after a little break from DIY electronics, I am starting to pick up where I left off.

I have a whole new bag of supplies from Tayda and am ready to to continue work on my TPCBoard.  The last version of this board is number 6 and it looks like this...

The main difference is the FTDI connector on the right edge.  The point of this addition was to allow the use of an FTDI adapter to program and communicate with the board. With this addition, I have a cheap, shield compatible Arduino clone that can be built at home for less than five dollars.  Of course I have to build it...

Which should be my next post!

Slightly Revised TPCBoard

After the physical build of my TPCBoard, I noticed a couple of changes that needed to be made.  They are slight, but I think they are nice...

I am out of the latching DPDT switches as well as LM7805 voltage regulators. So I will have to make an order pretty soon!.

I will try to upload this project files to my Github space later today.

Weekend Update

As the weekend draws to a close, I guess I should show some of my work to the world...

TCP Board

The "Trinket Pro Clone" board is this silly idea I had to take the basic Trinket Pro and blow it back up to Arduino size.  What does that give us? It gives us another avenue to pursue akin to the Metaboard project... a somewhat-compatible Arduino clone that can be built at home for a few dollars.

What the Trinket Pro's bootloader gives us is another way to program the device via USB without the need for an USB-to-TTL Serial chip.  This method does not require a jumper to enable the programming mode.  In previous Trinket-fashion, the reset button is pressed to put the device into programming mode for 10 seconds.  The red LED on pin 13 will pulse to indicate that the device is ready to program... as a USBtinyISP.

Well enough talking... here are the pics and diagrams...

I decided to layout the board based on some basic changes to the schematic to match that of the Trinket Pro.  I did not even breadboard it to see if it would work.  Luckily, after a few false starts, I now have a Trinket Pro clone... with a standard R3 Shield layout.

I have included my DPDT latched switch to toggle the two pins used for RX/TX between the USB and the shield header sockets.  I have kept this on the right side, extending beyond the normal edge.  Otherwise, with no jumper to mess with... there was no reason not to switch back to the "left-sided Arduino".  Besides, the room was needed by the ICSP pin header... which I found was actually used on some shields.

R3 Compatible Shield Adapter Shield

As I had noted earlier, some of my testing shield would not work, because the Fiverino had no ICSP connector on the right side.

So instead of immediately re-designing the Fiverino, I decided to build a simple shield that would make the Fiverino "compatible".  Here is the result...

Which is a simple board in itself... but very useful...

Here you can see me using the SD Card Shield with the Fiverino... success!

I'm Back

Well I know it has been a while, but I guess I should give some update news.  This will be kind of unorganized but oh well... 

Fiverino News

• I have two built boards of version 16 and have been using those for testing various shield and other projects

• I need to upload the KiCAD files for version 13 to my Github account
• The board itself works for me rather well.
• The data line switch works nicely to free up pins D2 and D4 for normal use.
• This allow me to use both the Relay Shield and the LCD Keypad Shield
• I found I could use my USB-BUB FTDI Breakout to communicate with the Fiverino via
• Pins 1 & 2 (Hardware UART ie. normal Serial)
• Any 2 pins (via SoftwareSerial)
• 
  

Shield Testing

Relay Shield
This is the Seeedstudio Relay Shield v2.0 that I picked up from Radio Shack.

This shield made me realize that the ICSP header was actually part of the standard footprint and that I had a problem fitting it on the the Fiverino.  Here was the problem...

Fortunately I the Relay Shield did not actually USE the header... so I simply removed the passthrough header after some wrangling with a soldering iron and some solder wick.  Unfortunately this would not always work.  My two lastest shields.... an SD Card Shield and a TFT Touchscreen Shield appear to USE the ICSP Header.

SD Card Shield

TFT Touchscreen Shield

These two shield do not work with the Fiverino because of the use of the ICSP connector. So I will have to go back to work.

If you remember, Version 13 did include an ICSP header... but it was in the wrong place.  Version 16 almost has enough room for the header... but then there is the wiring to think about.  Which brings me to my next topic.


Adafruit Trinket Pro

This great little board is basically the Trinket sized up to the full ATMega328  processor like a full Arduino.  What is of interest to me is the double-sized bootloader that supports normal serial programmiing via an FTDI interface (cable/board) as well as programming directly through as V-USB interface!   Yes this is the same as the Metaboard/Fiverino!

The only significant differences I could see was

1.  Different PIN assignments for the USB data lines
2. A double-sized bootloader

So what am I thinking?

Well if I use the Trinket Pro bootloader, I can get rid of the programming jumper.  That is one less reason to put all the logic on the right side of the Fiverino.  Could we move it back?

MISC News

I also went ahead and put together a simple RTC (Real-Time Clock) module for use with my boards.

It has made me think I would like to design a Fiverino-board compatible Data Logging Shield.  It would probably be better to wait until I just make the Fiverino closer to true R3 compatibility.

Labor Day Entry

It has been a while since my last post.  I guess I have been busy with other things, mostly stuff that I care not write about.

Here are some things I do want to talk about... 

Fiverino
(The Five-Dollar Arduino)

I have built a new version of my Metaboard Redux (Version 16) that has a few minor changes.

The most obvious change is the removal of the ICSP connector.  After some consideration it seemed superfluous for the purpose of the board.  What was added was Revision R3 compatibility of the shield headers.  This makes the Fiverino compatible with the latest shields.