Soft-Bricking A Device

Well I somehow "bricked" one of my boards today.  I believe I must have removed the device from USB during a program write.  Sometimes the programming time varies a little bit and I might not have scrutinized the programming messages in the log window well enough.  Anyway, at some point, the device would no longer boot correctly.  It would immediately throw the Windows USB error message when it was plugged in.

To fix the board I had to reset the fuses on the Attiny85 chip.  So I removed the chip and simply plugged it into my permanent High-Voltage fuse setter and got my RST (Reset) functionality back on physical pin 1.  From there I could use my BBB (Arduino clone)-Acting-As-An-ISP-Programmer to re-program the micronuleus bootloader and reset the fuses.  Put the chip back and the board is back to new.

I will continue testing... it's fun and I am having a good time working on the hardware and the software.

Today's Awesome Shots...

Working On The POV

Persistence-Of-Vision is a neat visual trick that micro-controllers can easily perform.  I have been working on a few sketches to use the POV shield and here are some of the results.

It's actually a bit difficult catching the affect on camera.  Most shots would fail, so these are the few that did work.

Last Thoughts For The Day

Well after a short bout with vertigo, I felt good enough to finish the three POV boards and the last two RGB Button boards.  I now have a set of five consisting of...

• Base Board
• Comm Board
• POV Board
• RGB Button Board

I am waiting on two shipments for possible other boards I will make.  One is a small piezo buzzer and the other is a Light Dependent Resistor (LDR).  The piezo will need a single pin as will the LDR.  So I think I will combine the two and throw in a couple of buttons and maybe an LED (or two).

I also need to make another order from Tayda Electronics.  Since I have all but abandoned the use of pass-through headers, I have run out of the straight pin headers.

I just thought I should somehow post an update to the RGB Light Painter sketch I posted earlier.  Then I realized there was probably not a way to do it with just this blog.  So I will look at some open source code hosting options for the sketches I write.  So look for more info on this soon.

RGB Light Painting Sketch

I think I have a first version of the RGB Light Painter sketch ready to go.  Even though I only have three "modes" implemented, I thought it was complete enough to cut a version.  So here it is..

In Production Again

I took some time today to visit my local Fry's Electronics and picked up some more copper clad boards.  I had run out and could not make anymore micro-controller boards.  So I had used up on 4"x6" board and one 6"x6" board.  That's about 15+25=40 some odd boards I had cut out, etched, drilled and populated.

Now I have given two sets of boards to friends for beta testing, and I have about five almost complete.

The light painter sketch for the RGB Button board is coming along nicely.  I have three modes working and still have room to grow.

Tomorrow I should get two more RGB Button shields done as well as three more POV boards.  I need to work on the POV app so that the message is customizable as well as a method for reliably using it!

Finally, the current price breakdown for the materials is here and the documentation is here.

Let's Start Using Titles

Alas, my last day of vacation is upon me and I lament the impending return to "work".  But life goes on and I must return to my livelihood.

Before that though, I wanted to put more up about my project.  First a little animated GIF to show of the main board.

I generated this through the updated 3D viewer from http://sourceforge.net/projects/kicad-3d/ and then created the GIF on this site https://imgflip.com/images-to-gif.  I really am enjoying using KiCAD to layout schematics and PCBs.

Anyway, the main board forms the "base" of the micro-controller and has three main sections...

1. Micro-controller chip
2. Power Supply circuit
3. Female expansion headers

The micro-controller chip in my design is the popular Atmel Attiny85.  It is a small 8-pin chip that is actually quite powerful for it's small size.  

• 6 Digital I/O pins
• 4 Analog Inputs
• 3 Analog Outputs
• 8K Program Space
• 512 Byte SRAM
• 512 Byte EEPROM

The main reason I chose this was because it can behave somewhat like a "mini Arduino" which means it can leverage the huge community surrounding the larger device.  The idea is not new.  Digistump's DigiSpark and Adafruit's Trinket are based on the same chip.

Here is my latest obsession. 

It's a tiny micro-controller board that I designed and built to maybe give as gifts to my geekier of friends.  I actually did not do that much, other than copy and build upon the work of others.  I have to be honest about that because it is a great environment these days to be an enthusiast of any kind.  The Internet has brought this about.  An environment of sharing and learning together. 

So what is a micro-controller?  It's basically a tiny computer that is used mainly in embedded applications such as appliances and small machines.  Instead of mainly handling information like a normal computer, a micro-controller mostly deals with turning things on and off, displaying status information and other simple tasks.

Well, that was my introduction to my little project.  More information to come.