Everything Robotics…….and then some

I’ve been playing around with the Arduino Diecimila and the ATMEGA168 over the last couple of weeks to better familiarise myself with the AVR ATMega168 MCU, I’ve been using PICs on and off the last few years, but the decision was made to use the ATMEGA as the MCU of choice for the Strobit Triggr project, mainly due to the open source tool chains available, and the simply programmer required.

In short I’m glad I’ve made the switch and I must say I’m loving the learning experience.  I’ve moved from the Arduino software development platform as I found it very limiting and am now using the open source avr-gcc (win-avr) and Eclipse, using the AVR plugin and CDT plugin as my development platform of choice, I’m comfortable with eclipse as my editor as I’ve been using this for my Java development for the last 5 or so years.

As a task I set for myself to learn the onboard peripherals,  I’ve created a Weather Shield for the Arduino, so far it has the RFM12B RF module, DS1307 RTC, HH10D Humidity Sensor, a HP03D, combined barometric pressure and temperature sensor, and soon to have a light sensor and Dallas 1-Wire interface for talking to the Dallas Weather Station that I’ve had lying around in a box for the last 10 years, (yes one of the original ones released by Dallas in 1998, I’ve been waiting to move in my house for a long time),  I’ll post the weather shield design up on a separate topic later, but suffice to say, I’ve enjoyed playing with the SPI, I2C, ICP, UART and onboard timers.

I was surprised when I looked at my blog today how long ago my last post was, nearly a month ago…bugger where has the time gone - it’s nearly christmas again LOL!  Way overdue for an update I think.

Well I can tell you where the time has gone, mainly sourcing component suppliers and getting prices in for the Triggr boards, not to mention a redesign.

Have had a delay also with the design, which really was a lawyer thing.  After speaking with a few people and my laywer about some issues initially raised on the forums about the existing patent held by the Pocket Wizard People, I’ve decided to make some fairly significant changes to the design, All the functionality is still there and its still expandable, actually probably more expandable than it was before.  I just needed to make it a non-dedicated remote camera trigger, in fact it’s not really a trigger at all, confused? well all will be revealed

In short these changes have been made but I need to finish the new PCB, which I’m hoping to finish this week, and then get some prototypes underway, hopefully I will get a 3-D model of it in it’s current form on this site as soon as I work out how to use Eagle 3D.

Most of the prices are in although I’ve not calculated the price based on the new design, it is still looking good, the biggest killer so far is freight.   When you can get resistors at $0.0016 each in reel of 4000, it doesn’t work out to be that expensive, however at freight of AUD$45+  it all starts adding up when you are needing different reels of capacitors resistors from different suppliers etc.  So…..at the moment in between finalizing the new Atmega Board design and my real day job, I’m sourcing a turnkey supplier and assembly so that I only need to pay freight once.

As a side note looks like best price breaks start at 1000 units for most things so I need to make sure I do my numbers correctly so I don’t end up with alot of expensive paperweights that I can’t get rid off LOL.