todbot blog » arduino

listComPorts – Windows command-line tool for USB-to-serial

todbot — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 08:55:21 +0000

Did you know each Arduino has a unique serial number in its USB interface that you can use to distinguish one Arduino from another? If you deal with multiple Arduinos, knowing exactly which one is plugged into your computer can be a real time-saver. But actually getting at this serial number and mapping it to COM ports can be challenging.

For Windows computers, here’s “listComPorts”, implemented both in GCC C code and in VBScript, both available from my usbSearch github repository.

It gives the COM port number, the manufacturer name, the USB Vendor ID and Product ID (VID & PID) and [...]

BlinkM Cylon mkII

todbot — Mon, 30 May 2011 06:32:04 +0000

For Maker Faire this year I made a second version of my BlinkM Cylon: BlinkM Cylon mkII. This is not a very cost-effective way of getting a Cylon effect. It however is a good way of showing how to wire up multiple BlinkMs with a long cable, using our new WireM cabling kit for BlinkM. And unlike normal Cylon circuits, this has full RGB color effects and gradual fading.

Here’s a quick video showing it in action.

BlinkM Cylon mkII consists of: - 13 BlinkMs (one for each of the tribes of Kobol) - one WireM cabling kit for BlinkM, consisting [...]

BlinkM Smart LED as the Smallest Arduino

todbot — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:17:29 +0000

Did you know you can run Arduino programs on tiny BlinkM Smart LEDs? It might make BlinkM the smallest Arduino so far. To use a BlinkM as an Arduino, all you need is the free Arduino software, a low-cost AVR programmer, some wire, and a BlinkM.

Here’s a quick video showing how it all works.

BlinkM Capabilities as an Arduino

The BlinkM board doesn’t have nearly the I/O pins and other features of a real Arduino board. But it is very tiny. Here are its capabilities: - 0.4″ square (MinM), or 0.6″ square (BlinkM) - 8MHz clock speed - [...]

WiFi for Arduino with Asus WL-520gu

todbot — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 09:48:42 +0000

I love Arduino but its lack of wireless bugs me. And it sucks that WiFi Shields for the Arduino cost as much a cell phone. I want something cheap. Turns out, small, cheap WiFi routers like the Asus WL-520gu can run the DD-WRT Linux firmware and act as serial-to-network gateway for Arduinos (or most any other USB device). Here’s how to do it.

(Hey, is this a Wifi-controlled BlinkM? I think it is.)

A quick video showing a router acting as a serial-to-network gateway:

This is not that new of a concept, hacking Linux onto a router for some [...]

ReflashBlinkM: Update your BlinkM’s firmware

todbot — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 03:32:45 +0000

All BlinkM-family devices can have their firmware updated. This makes them great for tiny development boards for ATtiny processors. ReflashBlinkM is an application that makes it easy to put back the original firmware or update a BlinkM to the latest firmware.

Previously you needed an AVR ISP programmer like the AVRISPmkII or the USBtinyISP. Thanks to the ArduinoISP sketch that ships with Arduino, if you have already have an Arduino, you can easily reflash your BlinkM with new firmware.

The ReflashBlinkM application is a tool for Mac OS X and Windows that uses ArduinoISP to help you reflash BlinkMs to their default [...]

SoftI2CMaster: Add I2C to any Arduino pins

todbot — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 07:14:01 +0000

Ever wanted to use any pair of pins for I2C on Arduino, not just the dedicated pins on Analog 4 & 5? Me too, so I made a quick little Arduino library called “SoftI2CMaster”, available in the “blinkm-projects” Googlecode repository.

Get it here: SoftI2CMaster.h, SoftI2CMaster.cpp.

It’s still a work in progress, but it can write data pretty successfully and do it over longer cables than normal.

For the VIMBY/Scion Hackerspace Challenge, I created an array of BlinkM MaxM-powered accent lights for the device we made. Because the I2C cable was longer than a few feet, the normal Wire library that [...]

ThingM at Maker Faire 2010

todbot — Sun, 30 May 2010 23:51:08 +0000

My company ThingM had an official presence at Maker Faire this year. We were showing off the BlinkM line, including the new BlinkM MinM and the LinkM USB BlinkM controller. It was a lot of fun. And packed!

(click any photo to go to larger version on Flickr)

We were in the Maker Shed building, right underneath the Arduino banner, so we got lots of awesome questions about Arduino. The most common: “So I just picked up this thing that says ‘works with Arduino’…well, what *is* Arduino?” It was so great to see so many people interested [...]

I2CScanner.pde: Arduino as I2C bus scanner

todbot — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:28:31 +0000

One of the challenges of working with I2C (aka “two-wire” or “TWI” or “Wire”) devices is knowing the I2C address of the device. Older devices have a fixed address, or a “choose one-of-four” approach. But newer I2C devices have fully programmable addresses, leading to cases of not knowing what address a device is at.

Fortunately, there’s a technique one can use to “scan” an I2C bus and determine these addresses. Conceptually it’s very similar to a network “ping”. Below is an Arduino sketch “I2CScanner.pde” that turns an Arduino into an I2C bus scanner.

- I2CScanner.pde — Turn Arduino into [...]

Scary Shifty Servo Eyeballs

todbot — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:18:42 +0000

If you want a slightly different look for your Halloween pumpkin or skull, you can pretty quickly whip something up with a few servos and an Arduino. Here’s a set of Scary Shifty Servo Eyeballs, for instance: It looks around randomly…what’s over there!… wait, what’s that!

As you can probably tell it’s a pretty simple arrangement (click for bigger):

Building It

It consists of the following components: - 2 toy eyeballs or ping pong balls painted like eyeballs - 2 small servos (HXT500 from HobbyKing.com or similar) - 1 standard servo - 1 Arduino with tiny breadboard rubber-banded on top - 2 BlinkMs, one for each [...]

Behold the Crystal Monster

todbot — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:13:38 +0000

The Crystal Monster is an art piece created by Beverly Tang and Tod E. Kurt (me). It’s on display in the Continental Gallery on 4th & Spring St in downtown Los Angeles. The shape and structure of the Crystal Monster are Beverly’s design. I created the lighting and the electronics. It’s made from over 400 sheets of laser-cut acrylic, more that 240 feet of LED tape (>2200 RGB LEDs!), and around 500 steel rods and other steel hardware. It’s approximately 12 feet long and 10 feet wide and hovers 10 feet above your head. It’s [...]

Minimal Arduino with ATmega8

todbot — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:36:37 +0000

Or: A good use for old Arduino boards

Like me, you may have a few old Arduino boards or ATmega8 chips (in the boards) laying around from when you were first playing with Arduino. Those chips can still be really useful as the heart of a tiny “Minimal Arduino” setup.

A normal Arduino board contains support components that make it easy to use. If you want a smaller footprint, you can get one of the many Arduino work-alike boards. But if you want a really small footprint, and reuse your old parts, you can make an Arduino board using [...]

Arduino chip sticker label

todbot — Sun, 24 May 2009 04:53:15 +0000

I’ve been working with a super minimal Arduino setup recently. After seeing Alex’s awesome Arduino/ATmega breadboard header, where he notes there’s no room on the PCB for pin labeling, I wondered if it would be possible to make a small sticker that goes on the ATmega chip, labeling the pin names.

Here’s my first attempt:

And in use:

This was created by printing on a full-page sticker then laser cutting it to shape. I could have also just cut out the sticker with scissors, or used regular printer paper and double-sided tape.

Some files if you want to try this out [...]

Tiny Servos as Continuous Rotation Gearmotors

todbot — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:10:27 +0000

I’ve been exploring various types of gearmotors. DC motors by themselves spin too fast and have low torque. Gearmotors are motors with a gearbox that slows down the high speed of the motor and produces higher torque. Most gearmotors are pretty expensive though. I want a really cheap, almost throw-away, source of gearmotors. It turns out cheap servos can be made into continuous rotation gearmotors.

Modding servos for continuous rotation is not a new hack. You can find many examples of it. You can even buy a nice continuous servo made by Parallax. But [...]

Wiichuck Adapter on TV!

todbot — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:47:07 +0000

Woohoo, my little Wiichuck adpter for experimenting with the Wii nuchuck made it on TV, thanks to my buddy John Park and Make: TV.

See the Makezine blog post with the segment, or watch it here:

Maker Workshop – Personal Flight Recorder on Make: television from make magazine on Vimeo.

Sketching08 talk: Good Hardware APIs et al

todbot — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:11:13 +0000

The Sketching in Hardware ’08 conference was held at RISD in Providence, Rhode Island this year. Both RISD and Providence were very welcoming and I think we had a lot of fun. Once again, Mike pulls off an awesome conference.

For my talk, since I didn’t have one big thing I’ve been working on this last year, I decided to shotgun blast a bunch of different topics out there, arranged roughly on the topics: - Good Hardware APIs – about the evolution of BlinkM’s layout, - USB not on Rails – an update to a previous Sketching talk of mine, [...]