Building a mini GPS with Atmel, Adafruit & Arduino

Oscar Liang recent debuted GARLOW, which he describes as a mini GPS watch based on the Atmel-powered Arduino Nano (ATmega328 MCU).

“Garlow stands for GPS Arduino Rechargeable Logger OLED Watch. It does what the name suggests: Accurate time, positioning related information are received from GPS satellites, [which] can be logged on SD card and shown on a OLED display,” Oscar wrote in a recent blog post.

“It can be carried as a watch or simply left at the back seat of your car as a GPS data logger. The whole system is built on the backbone of an Arduino Nano board, with a LiPo power module which enables USB battery recharge.”

Aside from the Atmel-based Arduino Nano (Uno was used for prototype), key GARLOW specs include:

• Adafruit’s GPS Module
• Mini SD card module
• 0.96′ mono color OLED display
• Power cell – LiPo charger/booster
• 600mAh 1S LiPo battery
• Jumper wires

“Wiring is easy and soldering is minimum. I used jumper wires so each component can be disconnected for future projects,” he explained.

“I built the case using Plastic Styrene sheet (my favorite DIY material). Everything is then glued together using hot glue, and some nylon screws and nuts.”

According to Oscar, the GPS clock draws a total current of 40mA at standby mode (OLED turned off, SD card modue turned off, only GPS working and 80mA normal operation (all on).

Current consumption is broken down as follows:

• Arduino Nano – 20mA
• GPS Modue – 20mA
• OLED Display – 15mA
• SD Card Module – 25mA

“So with a fully charged battery (600mA) it can run 13 hours on standby mode (with 10% left), and 6.5 hours on normal operation,” he added.

“[Plus], the GPS positioning accuracy is about +/- 3 meters. [The] update rate is very good which is 10Hz. It also works indoor but needs to be close to the windows.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out GARLOW’s official blog page here.

Tannin is a DIY MIDI controller

Last week, Bits & Pieces got up close and personal with the Atmegatron, an 8-bit mono synth powered by Atmel’s ATmega328P microcontroller (MCU).

Today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at the Tannin, a DIY MIDI controller built around the Atmel-based Arduino Nano (ATmega328). 

Deisgned by Shantea, the system is equipped with 16 potentiometers, 19 buttons and four LEDs controller.

“It fully supports MIDI Note On/Off and CC messages, including the MIDI In (I’m using that feature in Traktor to control LEDs and set modifiers). It even features experimental MIDI Clock In support,” Shantea explained in a recent HackADay Project post.

“I’ve set it in a way that LEDs blink in sync with that clock, but there’s more work to be done to make it work fully. The buttons also have built-in feature of long press, that is, if you press button for half second (that can easily be defined) it will send another MIDI Note On on another channel (2, regular presses are sent on channel 1). The pots as well send MIDI Note On/Off messages, 6 per pot, depending on their position, with CC messages, of course.”

On the software side, Shantea used The Hairless MIDI to Serial Bridge, routing the messages via virtual MIDI cable software (loopBe30).

“When you match your virtual port in hairless-midi software, the once-serial messages from Arduino will become MIDI messages routed over virtual MIDI cable,” he said. “After that you can easily map your controller to any software which supports MIDI learn.”

In terms of hardware specifics, Tannin’s faceplate is manufactured out of a special plastic board 1.5mm thick (glued to 3mm plexiglas) and houses three PCBs designed in Eagle.

“Two for two groups of potentiometers to get really stable values (I used to connect the pots with wires which often resulted in gibberish values), and they both use ground planes on both sides,” Shantea added. “[Meanwhile], the main PCB [is fitted with the Atmel-based] Arduino, with connectors for two PCBs for pots. Each pot PCB has 4051 chip on it to read potentiometers. Buttons and LEDs [are] connected in a matrix with shared columns.”

Interested in learning more? You can check out HackADay’s introductory blog post here and the project’s official HackADay page here.

This robot is a self-balancing teaching tool

Sean Hodgins recently debuted the PiddyBot, a mini balancing robot designed to teach the basics of PID controls.

Key project components include potentiometers, an Atmel-based Arduino Nano (ATmega328), custom PCB, two geared motors, dual motor driver board (Sparkfun), wheel set, 6 DOF IMU (Sparkfun), 3D printed body (Thingiverse), 2x battery connectors, 2x lithium batteries, M2 screws for motor mounting, female jumper cables and headers.

“First I figured out how small I could make the PCB and still have everything fit. I actually made the PCB a long time ago and it was one of the first I made, so I probably could have made it smaller; I’m happy with the size now,” Hodgins explained in a recent blog post.

“I designed it to have the Arduino just basically fit right into the center of it, that way all the connections are good and secure and it just makes it easier. The size of the board determined the size of the body – I made it so the PCB was basically the only thing requiring any assembly.”

On the software side, Hodgins says the code is in “no way finished,” although it does allow for basic PID tuning.

“It is pretty rough, if there are any questions at all, don’t hesitate to ask! There is a little extra feature in the code, it actually has a sort of positioning return system even without encoders,” he added.

“It basically takes the amount of time the motors are tuning in each direction and the speed and figures out how far away it is from its first position.”

Interested in learning more about the PiddyBot? You can check out the project’s official page here and download the PiddyBot Arduino code here.

Video: A phenakistoscope with an Arduino twist

The phenakistoscope (also spelled phenakistiscope or phenakitiscope) can probably best be described as an early animation device that relied on the persistence of vision principle to create an illusion of motion.

According to Wikipedia, the phenakistoscope used a spinning disc vertically attached to a handle. Arrayed around the disc’s center was a series of drawings showing phases of the animation, with a series of equally spaced radial slits cut around it. 

The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc’s reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from blurring together. Meaning, the user would see a rapid succession of images that appeared to be a single moving picture.

Recently, the Barcelona-based Playmodes crew decided to kick off a modern-day DIY electronic remake of the stalwart ‘scope.

The team obtained a recycled stepper motor from an old printer as the motion source and attached a CD clip to rotate discs with phenakistoscope patterns at a stable velocity.

“By synchronizing the strobe frequency of a white led stripe with the motor rotation, we accomplish the image-in-motion effect on the eye,” the team explained on the project’s official page. “We used an [Atmel-based] Arduino Nano (ATmega328) for the overall control of the pots, the motor [and] LEDs.”

Interested in learning more about the Arduino-powered DIY phenakistoscope? You can check out the project’s official page here and download the full code here.

Designing an Atmel-Arduino RFID car starter

A Maker by the name of Pierre recently decided to celebrate the purchase of his first car by designing a DIY RFID electric starter.

According to the HackADay crew, an Atmel-based Arduino Nano (ATmega328) is tasked with controlling two relays which turn the car on and off.

“Instead of adding a button for ‘push to start,’ Pierre opted for a 13.56MHz RFID module,” explained HackADay’s James Hobson. “Now when he passes his RFID badge across the dash, the car turns on — if it’s held there for over a second, the car starts. Another pass and it will turn off.”

Pierre’s ultimate goal is to move the circuit closer to the wheel and use an NFC ring to start the vehicle.

Interested in learning more about starting a car with RFID tech? You may want to check out HackAday’s archived story about a Maker named Jair2K4 who actually implanted an RFID chip into his hand.

DIY thermal imaging with the Arduino Nano

Many of us have undoubtedly coveted thermal imaging cameras at least once, especially after watching a sci-fi movie or two.

As HackADay’s Brian Benchoff notes, thermal imaging cameras can be an invaluable and practical tool if you are trying to figure just where your latest electronics project will explode/implode next, or attempting to locate a near invisible (and annoying) crack in a glass window.

Fortunately, a Maker by the name of Kaptein QK recently came up with an inexpensive and relatively easy method of making your own thermal imaging camera.

“Kaptein based his camera off of a non-contact IR temperature gun. This device is useful for spot checking temperatures, but can’t produce an IR image like it’s $1000 cousins,” explained Benchoff.

“By taking the thermopile out of this temperature gun, adding an op-amp, an A/D converter, and connecting it to an Arduino Nano (ATmega328) with pan and tilt servos, Kaptein was able to slowly scan the thermopile over a scene and generate an image.”

Although Kaptein’s DIY camera works quite well at this stage, the Maker will likely make additional improvements to the platform in the future.

“[For example], getting rid of the servos and moving to mirrors would hopefully speed everything up, [while] replacing the 8-bit grayscale display with colors would give a vastly improved dynamic range,” Benchoff added.

Interested in learning more about building a DIY thermal imaging with an Atmel-based Arduino Nano? You can check out Kaptein’s forum post here for additional details.

Tron cosplay with an Arduino

Swap_File has created a slick Tron suit costume that wouldn’t be out of place at Flynn’s, The Grid or the End of Line Club.

According to Swap_File, the motorcycle helmet is equipped with a 20×4 RGB backlight negative screen, along with a serial backpack from a 16×2 and a microphone. And the disc? Made of black and frosted laser-cut acrylic.

“Neodymium magnets hold it to the holster on my back, which is bolted through my leather jacket and through a backpack. I left the bottom two magnets out of the holster to aid in removal,” Swap_File explained in an Adafruit forum post. “The disc contains an [Atmel-powered] Arduino Nano, Wixel, ADXL345 accelerometer, TCS230 color sensor, 1450mAh 3S Turnigy LiPo, 16 outward facing LPD8806 RGB LEDs and a 5v switching regulator.”

Meanwhile, the Tron jacket boasts 80 LPD8806 LEDs mounted onto checkout store pricing strip – all sticking to the leather with 3M 969 adhesive transfer tape. Audio from the helmet runs through two op amps and a msgeq7, with the analog sections operating on their own 3.3v regulator to reduce noise.

User input? Via the Disc, another Wixel and Wireless Wii Nunchuk. As an added bonus, the jacket can be neatly paired with a smarphone via a JY-MCU-HC-06 Bluetooth Radio.

“A Python script on my phone allows incoming text messages to change the helmet display and my colors. It also replies with a status message with basic statistics,” said Swap_File. “Stats are saved to EEPROM once a minute, snapshotted to RAM and written to EEPROM.”

And last, but certainly not least, the suit itself boasts 6 motion based effect modes, two EQ based effect modes and a fully on mode, with 8 output modes and 7 levels of max brightness supported by the open source cosplay.

Pretty cool, eh? You can read more about Swap_File’s open source Tron cosplay here with code, schematic and DXF files available here.