uart.net » 8-bit

Arduino Nano

ned — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:02:13 +0000

I just got back from a trip to the east coast to find my new Arduino Nano waiting for me. So far I haven’t done much with it besides a simple LED flashing sketch just to check that the board wasn’t DOA and interfaces with the Arduino software properly. This board is super cool. It’s so small and yet packs a very complete feature set. My only problem with it so far is the solder joints. On my board at least (Nano v2.3) most of the joints look cold/rough. And a bunch on the backside look like they still have flux residue on them. It looks like a whitish crud (could also be oxidation caused by acidic flux) that is found around edges, and underneath some of the SMD components (capacitors and resistors). I wonder if anyone else has seen this on their board?

I may try and clean it up with some isopropyl alcohol later. Included here are a few photos, but they don’t really show the crud or the cold joints very well. Anyways, the board works fine, but I think Gravitech (or whoever they use to fab the boards) should do a better job getting the board clean for the next batch.

On a side note, I recently made a true random number generator, and just finished characterizing its output (its nice and random, if a bit slow). I’ll post the details when I can.

Quick Bling

ned — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:37:23 +0000

So two Saturdays ago I tried to make a some simple LED “bling” as fast as I could (from scratch). All told it took about 4hrs from start to finish (including firmware and soldering). The result is 3 LEDs (red, green and yellow) controlled by a PIC12F675 and running from a 3V lithium coin cell (CR1620). The LEDs brightness follows a sine wave with a period of ~ 1 second, and with each LED offset from the other by 1/3 of a period. As a result the LEDs seem to chase each other, only with a much nicer effect then your normal on/off chase. Here as one fades out, another is fading in, and the third is at nearly full brightness.

The whole board runs for about 24hrs w/o issue. If I disabled the brown-out detector, I think it would run for more like 48hrs, though the last 12 might not be that great. With the brown-out detector enabled, the LEDs start to flicker. This is because the voltage drops under load, so the detector trips, reseting the PIC. This causes the load to become less, so the voltage rises, the brown-out detector release the PIC from reset and then the whole processes repeats.

The back of the board is covered in static-free bubble wrap. I have been starting to cover my boards in the bubble wrap every since I put a board down on a pair of metal pliers and shorted a bunch of traces, frying the board. I just use the static-free bubble wrap that parts I order come with. Its also a nice way to reuse the material (instead of recycling it).

You can download the source code for the firmware (also contains a compiled binary). It’s written for HI-TIDE and PICC-lite, both by HI-TECH.

Front of Bling Board

Back of Bling Board

Paper and Glue Microcontrollers

ned — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:57:14 +0000

Last night I made a simple LED PWM circuit using the conductive glue from the other day. It uses the super cheap and robust PIC12F675 to do two channels of software pulse width modulation (PWM). The PIC runs at 4MHz and uses Timer0 for the PWM and Timer1 to move in new “frames”. The “video” is stored in EEPROM. You can download the source code as well as HI-TIDE PICC project files and compiled binaries: Paper Circuit 2 Source (1930). Below you will find some pictures of the circuit through out the construction process, as well as some video of its final operation at 3.0V with no wires and at 4.5V with wires added.