It’s been a while since I did any work on this project, but I pulled out the components the other day and started to look into the Bluetooth connection between the Raspberry Pi and the Feather 32u4 Bluefruit LE board. It turns out to be complex and on the whole not very well explained how to make these devices talk to each other. In the final analysis it’s not actually that hard – but you have to do a…
If you are thinking of buying Adafruit components like the ones I regularly use in my projects and you don’t want to pay for, or wait for shipping from the US then you are in luck! I recently discovered that you can order Adafruit components from Core Electronics in Australia. They claim to stock the entire range of Adafruit components. You can find them here: https://core-electronics.com.au/
As part of The Midnight Clock’s development I am currently learning how to detect the position of a dial using an Arduino. It’s a relatively simple task – namely, monitor the voltage at the middle leg of a potentiometer using an analog input on the Arduino. You can see the official Arduino tutorial here: https://www.arduino.cc/en/tutorial/potentiometer What I discovered was that while the tutorial is correct, the reading from the potentiometer fluctuated (sometimes quite strongly), even when the pot wasn’t being…
I have had some further thoughts about the design for the Midnight Clock and wanted to jot them down. Functionality: Doesn’t turn on at a set time Turns on four hours after its “biphasic” button is pushed Could use two short strips of warm white LED stuck back to back which would allow it to be inserted into an existing lamp like the (decorative) salt lamp that I have Should have a second button that just turns it on and…
I may still be waiting for my 3D printer to arrive, but in the mean time, the components for my HUD were waiting in the mail box today! It included a Rasberry Pi model 3 B, an Adafruit Feather Bluefruit (bluetooth enabled Feather development board) and some headers for the Bluefruit. So now I’m ready to push forward with this project and get the electronics finalised. Once the 3D printer arrives, then I can start working on housings for…
Ok, today has been an interesting day for discoveries. I was thinking about the limitations of having to have a wired connection between the helmet and main unit on the bike and it got me thinking about Bluetooth and wireless options. The first thing I discovered (which I wasn’t aware of) is that basic Bluetooth modules (and slave and master pair) can be readily inserted in place of a serial connection between devices. Unfortunately I don’t think that this…
