about pests

I love my grandparents...I really do but I HATE going to their house.  They have a nice one story four bedroom suburban house with two good sized yards full of mature trees (some which produce fruit.)  The inside is completely remodeled to be energy efficient and their grass is absolutely beautiful.  Their front yard has a new stone retainer with beautiful roses in it.  Yes...it is beautiful indeed.

They complain about this place constantly but that is besides the point.  Their yard STINKS!  Believe it or not, the terrible stench isnt from yard fertilizer either.  It is from multiple bug traps.  The one that smells the most is a wasp trap that hangs on some branches.

I stumbled upon a page (not using StumbleUpon for once) and found this interesting page that told me how pests were the best pest control.  Oh how I wish I bookmarked that page.  I have always been a firm believer in not using chemicals because of their unwanted consequences but man...now knowing that they can cause other pests to flourish?  Why didnt I think about that?


Example...fleas suck especially if we have pets.  How many of us thought about using flea predators to control them?  Ants, ground beetles, and spiders are the top enemy for fleas.  Of course...we often spray for spiders and ants.  And a lot of things we dont mind having around eat spiders and ants (birds, mantis...all those cool things.)


As far as my grandparents go...what controls wasps?  First I must say that we do have native hummingbirds but their numbers are few.  I have a good feeling that they arent responsible for most of the food produced in their garden.  I also must say that these traps are set because both grandparents have an allergy to wasp/bee stings.  A few other truths...they dont draw birds to their yard because they eat their plums and spray for those wonderful things called spiders.

Birds and Spiders are huge wasp predators.

I imagine it doesnt help that the city sprays for mosquitoes every year and it is believed that this spray has limited the population of insect eating birds.

Many people (not earth friendly people) will try to eliminate them all.  Remember...some bugs will flourish (like roaches) if this method takes place.

This doesnt mean I like these guys in my house though.  No...my kitchen window and front door always contain some sort of mint.  Ants hate mint for whatever reason (oh but I LOVE that smell.)  Dont like mint?  There are other ways to repel ants.  As for spiders, I have a thing for citrus based cleaners which spiders hate.  For the record, most insects hate citrus. Citronella is hated by...almost everything I hate (mosquitoes, spiders, flies, fleas....)

So just think about that before you go for chemicals.  Are you really getting rid of the problem or are you just causing more?

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9 Jeremy Blum Arduino Wireless Tutorial MCU Group Mtg August 7

Tonights post is a bit of a preview of Jeremys #9 Arduino video tutorial about wireless, along with a couple related comments and alternatives regarding microcontroller (MCU) wireless tutorials for future use by the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group.

But before I get into the Arduino wireless tutorial, there are two special deal items for people who buy MCU-related electronic components. I found out about these from SparkFun and Jameco emails.

1. SparkFun Retrosparktive:  "SparkFun will be vacating its offices at 6175 Longbow and moving on up to Dry Creek Parkway...As part of the Retrosparktive, each week we are offering up a selection of classic products at “historically low prices” (sorry, couldn’t help myself). We’re calling this first selection the “Bare Necessities” - great things to have around your workspace or office. This selection of items is only on sale from 8/4/2014 at 12:01 a.m. MT until 8/10/14 at 11:59 p.m. MT - so get ‘em while you can! BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! We’re also offering a promo code good for $10 off any orders over $40. Just put the code “RETROSPARK” into the box at checkout to get your discount. This code is good until August 31, 2014."
2. Jameco Free Friday Electronic Components Giveaway:  "Jamecos team of component buyers hunts for special buys and every Friday we will highlight one of these great buys by making a limited supply of one product available for free at www.Jameco.com/Free. Well
   
   post new inventory every Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and it will be available on a first come, first serve basis."

The next Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting is this Thursday, August 7. The main topic of the meeting will be to discuss Jeremy Blums #9 video tutorial, so tonights post takes a look at that tutorial. The topic is wireless communications with Arduino, and the #9 video exercise uses XBee radios. Wikipedias entry on this type of wireless communication equipment says:

"XBee is the brand name from Digi International for a family of form factor compatible radio modules. The first XBee radios were introduced under the MaxStream brand in 2005 and were based on the 802.15.4-2003 standard..."

The XBee brand has a wide range of models, with 2.4 GHz and 900Hz options, and the XBee-PRO 900HP is listed as having a 28 mile range. Having an Arduino communicate wirelessly 20+ miles away without cellular or Internet service seems like it could be handy for some things.

XBee is a brand name, and generally speaking, follows the ZigBee protocol for wireless personal area networks (WPAN). However, not all XBee technology is compatible with everything in the Zigbee world. For different views of what XBee is and how compatible it is, see the Digi International page about this, the SparkFun XBee Buying Guide or the StackExchange thread on the topic, which says:

"ZigBee / ZigBee Pro are mesh communication protocols that sits on top of IEEE 802.15.4 PHY. XBee / XBee Pro are product names for radio communications modules made by Digi. The modules can be loaded with various firmwares to support ZigBee / ZigBee Pro / DigiMesh and come in several frequency bands. DigiMesh is an alternative to ZigBee that changes a few things, and adds some features to make it generally better to work with. But, you sacrifice compatibility with ZigBee devices. For example DigiMesh allows routers to sleep, has lower overhead, has 1 node type vs zigbees 3 leading to a more robust mesh, can run at higher data rates, etc."

Boards for the #9 video tutorial

The moral of the story for MCU beginners like me is, if you want to do wireless communications with MCUs, use all the same brand and model of wireless radios. No need to try and figure out if your circuit doesnt work because the two or more radios arent compatible -- youll have enough fun just figuring out if the circuit is hooked up incorrectly or if your code has errors or poor design.

The exercise in Jeremys #9 video uses these boards -- two Arduino Unos, two XBee transceiver modules, two XBee shields, and a SparkFun USB to XBee adapter. In addition, youll need a stepper motor, a mini-B USB cable and a few other parts you probably have from other Arduino projects or tutorial exercises. Jeremy shows how to program the Xbee units ID numbers and how to hook up the Arduinos and other components. Then he walks the video viewer through the steps to write the program which allow the potentiometer connected to one Arduino to wirelessly control the position of the stepper motor which is connected to the other Arduino.

#9 exercise wired to breadboard

Excluding the two Arduinos and the miscellaneous parts you probably have, you can spend over $100 just on parts for the exercise in the #9 video. Ed Smith didnt have all the parts lying around to do this exercise and figured out an alternative exercise with a couple radios and other parts he did have around. He said hell explain on August 7th what he put together for an MCU wireless exercise.

The Humboldt Microcontrollers Group should consider discussing cost-effective options for a useful training session on MCU wireless technology.There are lots of options, but a couple starter ideas are:

1. Have people work in groups of two or three to do essentially the same exercise Jeremy demonstrates. The people can buy different parts that they want to keep after the exercise, or one person can buy all the parts and keep them when the training is finished.
2. Do essentially the same exercise as the #9 video, but identify less expensive components than the Arduino and XBee parts specd by Jeremy.
3. Use one wireless radio instead of two and find or write a tutorial involving one radio.

Others in the MCU group will know or think of additional options for MCU wireless training sessions. A couple specific training sessions I found in a quick search were:

CC3000

1. Wireless Gardening with Arduino + CC3000 WiFi Modules by Adafruit. I like this one because of the Humboldt MCU Garden project. The garden project would make the investment seem more useful than it would for a generic training exercise. Heres the CC3000 module from Adafruit, and heres a post about the CC3000 by ladyada.
2. SparkFun has two MCU wireless tutorials; Arduino Wireless Communication via the Electric Imp and Wireless Arduino Programming with Electric Imp.
3. Arduino Wireless SD Shield Tutorial from Instructables is one of the many Arduino Wi-Fi tutorials.

CC3200 LaunchPad

We could also find or develop a training session around one of the newer MCUs with built-in WiFi, such as the SimpleLink products from Texas Instruments (e.g. the CC3200 LaunchPad) or one of the other MCU manufacturers MCU with integrated Wi-Fi. Identifying some of those other integrated wireless / Wi-Fi components will likely be the subject of future research and blog posts.

In addition to discussing MCU wireless on Thursday, the MCU group will likely talk about upgrades to the Humboldt Laser Harp (HLH). After its debut performance in Eureka on August 2, weve got several improvements in mind. Im hopeful the HLH will make an appearance at the MCU group meeting on Thursday so everyone at the meeting can play with it and get excited about improving it, about making additional laser harps, and about designing and building other electronic music-light instruments which will help create the Humboldt Electronic Light Orchestra.

If you havent watched the #9 video, check it out. If you dont have time to watch it between now and Thursday but are interested in MCU wireless, come to the MCU group meeting anyway. Were looking forward to seeing you from 6 to 8 PM on Thursday, August 7, at 1385 8th Street, Arcata, CA.

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My OWN ethical group

I met a guy on Myspace many years ago that was a diehard PETA member and vegan. What made us great friends is that we had some of the same ideals (calling vegetarians that ate fish or poultry hypocrites and so on.) I supported his cause till he started saying really really stupid things. He told me that hed never eat eggs because of the potential it had to be a life. Depending on what ethical animal group you are in, you will either hear that or the truth.

Chicken eggs are similar to a human period.

That is what my mom told me. Of course I saw nothing wrong with this at all. So what? It is just a waste product then. The more into nature I got, the more I realized that these eggs (unless specified as fertilized) lost their potential as soon as they exited the body...like a period. Nothing can make them more than what they are now. You cannot fertilize a chicken egg out of the body just like you cannot fertilize a human egg outside of the body.

Then this guy started posting about how everything from leather to wool was cruel. At this time, I had heard about a lady that used old hair from her dogs coat to make her own coat. This was theoretically a fur coat...just with waste material. I decided to ask him if this kind of fur coat was bad. He said yes because it encourages the death of animals simply for pelts and the same goes for faux fur.

...

Then I decided to ask a question that would determine if I thought he was truly crazy or not...I asked him how he felt about people eating placenta. This of course has no potential to be a life ever but is meat and a waste product (of course after the delivery of life.) He said meat is still meat and he is against eating ALL meat because it causes pain or is a potential life. I had broken his logic clearly. A placenta comes about because someone is going through with life (the life is still coming into existence) and it is a part that was never alive or dead...but just falls out (AKA waste.) He tried to convince me that nobody ate that part anyway. Yes indeed they do and it is very common in certain parts of the world. A good answer would have simply been "because it looks/is nasty" or "because I just dont like meat."

When I was looking for info to better the environment to help protect animals, PETA wasnt there (although they have some vegan recipes to help me with better health in general.) I turned to Care2 which is very similar but it is mostly petitions, not an actual group which one can really be affiliated with. Id like to start my own group...Care2s little sister but PETA and HSUSs cousin (btw HSUS and PETA do the same thing...just HSUS has a teeny more shelter help...with a lot of stress on teeny.) I want to form a group where protests arent harsh but we learn to respect one another...vegan or omnivore. There are some things that I have only learned by taking nutrition classes...that otherwise proved difficult to find such as the fact that organic grass fed beef has a better omega 3 to omega 6 ratio making it extremely better for you.

I want to form a group were vegans arent bombarded with abuse pictures and told how nasty meat is. They are vegan...they know this. However I want a site with truths (PETA supports vegetarianism for all animals including cats. Felines by nature are designated carnivores and a vegetarian diet easily leads to death. Dogs are, in short, carnivores but can be vegetarian if given a crap ton of supplements but if youre going to do that, might as well just feed em rice with these supplements. A healthy lifestyle can be achieved with no pills or extra powders. Im not against being vegan or vegetarian but for the love of God dont force it on anyone else including your furkin!)

The world sucks when youre an omnivore. Most of your info is limited. With my group, Id like to protest against meat sources, not meat (Tyson chicken, for example.)

By the way...how can we Coexist as a world if we cant even coexist as a nation? Just saying....

But...Im just a dreamer I guess. Maybe someday.

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Humboldt Makers Group At Eureka Craft Fair

The Humboldt Makers Group had a tech demo and information table today at the Humboldt Makers Street Fair, an arts and craft fair in Eureka, California.

The arts and craft street fair was organized by Origin Design Lab from Eureka, and it was the 4th annual fair for them. Several blocks of 2nd Street in the Old Town section of Eureka hosted arts and crafts booths and a variety of local musicians. The Humboldt Makers Group had a table there to raise the visibility of the group in the local community and to encourage participation in the Humboldt Makers monthly meetings from 6 to 8 PM at 1385 8th Street in Arcata. We also had the brand new Humboldt Laser Harp (HLH) on the table to amaze and entertain passersby.

Although most of the public walking around to the different booths and tables appeared to be tourists or shoppers looking at the arts and crafts for sale, rather than makers, it was worthwhile for us to have a table at the event. We did talk with a few people who seemed interested enough in the maker group to come to future monthly meetings. These interested people ranged from young students who wanted to learn about electronics but didnt have much money or drivers license to people who took a smartphone picture of the Humboldt Makers Group sign and said they wanted to come to meetings to people who seemed interested in the makers but didnt appear committed to getting involved with the group.

Having these people stop by the table to talk with us simply reinforced what Ive found to be true in many places. Every maker event and tech unconference Ive participated in over the past ten years has involved talking with people at the event who say they just heard about the event (which was of high interest to them) the day before, or they ask how long weve been around and why its so hard to find out about us, or they tell me they were sure there were no other people like them (a maker or a tech enthusiast) in the area because they sure didnt know of any. Im firmly convinced that a combination of three things can greatly strengthen and expand the community of makers or tech enthusiasts in an area.

1. Establishing regular in-person events for either the maker community or the tech enthusiast community.
2. Organizing and facilitating event activities which are of interest to the people who show up and participate in the event.
3. Extensively promoting, communicating and marketing the events and the groups behind the events so that as many potentially-interested people as possible find out about them. A big part of this involves personal invitations to people to participate in an event.

Maker Faire -- Bay Area, CA

No one I talked to at todays event knew what the maker movement is and only a couple had heard of the Maker Faire in the Bay area. This was partly because people at todays event were there for an arts and craft street fair. But the lack of awareness also shows a need for more promotion and education about makers and Maker Faire. A dedicated core group of people can greatly raise the visibility in Humboldt County of the maker movement, but we one or two new people in the group who are good at marketing and promotion, and we need sponsors that enable us to effectively promote the Humboldt Makers Group.

First public display of Humboldt Laser Harp

The HLH demo went fairly well, especially considering that physical construction of the harp was started last week, and it first became playable yesterday. Having an outdoor, midday venue to demo it also presented challenges, especially in terms of the changing sunlight affecting the light sensors and their correct calibration. Concerns about burning out the dollar store lasers used in the HLH caused us to periodically power down the lasers to try and make them last longer. Powering down the lasers creates an interesting phenomenon. Within ~ two minutes of powering down the lasers, someone would come to our table and ask "Whats the Humboldt Laser Harp?" Which, of course, meant we had to power them back up! It was worth it though, because it was fun to watch them play the harp and be amazed at how it works. A robust and versatile harp will be an excellent promotional tool for the Humboldt Makers Group and should be displayed to the general public as much as possible. 

Ed Smith and I thought of quite a few improvements wed like to make on the Grip-Strut version of the HLH. Ed is much more familiar with both the hardware and software of the HLH than am I, so Ill let him explain to Nick and others what will be most effective at improving the HLH. However, below is my understanding of HLH stuff we should figure out and work on.

1. Reduce ambient light reaching the light sensors.
2. Improve alignment of lasers.
3. Modify software so the twelve lasers can all be calibrated to have the same sensitivity or span or whatever the correct term is.
4. Find better quality, but still reasonable cost, lasers to replace the dollar store lasers.
5. Make a dark enclosure for the HLH to reduce daylight hitting light sensors and to make laser beams (more) visible outdoors during daytime demos.
6. Equip the HLH with LEDs that are influenced by the music or breaking of the laser beams.
7. Add hardware and software that gives improved musical capabilities to the HLH.
8. Consider building two small laser harps for display with the HLH so three people can experiment with laser beam music at the same time during public demos.

Well probably have the HLH at next weeks Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting on Thursday. So if you want to see it in action (and hear it in action), or if you want to contribute in some way to the HLH group project, consider participating in this Thursdays meeting.

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Wireless Communication For Microcontrollers August 7 MCU Group Meeting

Traditionally, microcontrollers (MCUs) didnt need wireless communications because they did all their interactions in a limited space. If they interacted with something a few inches or a few feet away, wires connected the interacting devices. However, in 2014 some MCU applications require wireless communication, and this post takes an initial look at the wonderful world of wireless for MCUs.

Breadboard setup for #9 video wireless communication

This posts overview of MCU wireless looks at Jeremy Blums #9 Arduino video tutorial, the wireless exercise Ed Smith developed as his alternative to using the BOM components (bill of materials) and code in Jeremys #9 video exercise, and a few recent developments and web resources for MCU wireless communication. In addition to presenting an updated look at MCU wireless, researching and writing this post is a step toward locating or developing a training exercise for Arduino wireless communication that is more up to date than Jeremys #9 video, which was published in Febrary 2011.

Two of the primary driving forces behind MCU wireless communications are the internet and the increasing power of mobile or miniature computing devices. As the increasingly ubiquitous smartphone and the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) create a sharp increase in the production volume and tech innovation in MCU wireless components, the number of wireless technology solutions continues to rise and the cost to do wireless communications continues to drop. If you search online for MCU wireless projects, tutorials or components, check the dates on your search results. Information from five or even two years ago may be totally outdated.

First up -- points of discussion about Jeremys #9 video at tonights Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting.

Most of the participants in tonights meeting had watched all or part of the #9 video. But no one had done the exact wireless exercise that Jeremy demonstrated and explained. The primary reason no one duplicated his exercise was that the components in Jeremys exercise cost too much to buy for learning about wireless. If you already had a couple spare Arduino Unos and the XBee components sitting around idle, then Jeremys exercise would be reasonable, but it didnt make sense to anyone at the meeting to buy all the components just to do the #9 video exercise. The main value of the #9 video seemed to be that it focused everyones attention on MCU wireless communication, and even if we didnt follow Jeremys exercise exactly, a couple people in the group did develop somewhat analogous wireless systems. And there was a lot of good discussion about the various wireless options and components, probably more than if everyone had used Jeremys components.

Nordic RF module

Second topic -- Ed Smiths MCU wireless communications components, circuitry and code.

Ed put together a low-cost wireless exercise using a couple Nordic RF transceivers he had available. The parts used in Eds setup include Texas Instruments Tiva-C launchpad 296-35760-ND, Texas Instruments MSP430G2553 Launchpad 296-27570-ND, Nordic 2.4 GHz RF transceiver NRF24L01+, Pin header 952-2247-ND, Pin socket header S7031-ND, perfboard, jumper wires, solderless breadboard, TFT LCD 2.2" 240x320 and an accelerometer. The breadboarded circuit for the MSP430 and accelerometer is shown in the picture below on the right. Eds hardware sent 3-axis information from the accelerometer from the MSP430 to the Tiva-C board and displayed it on the small LCD screen. The code was written using Energia, which is designed

MSP430 with Nordic RF 

"bring the Wiring and Arduino framework to the Texas Instruments MSP430 based LaunchPad". Ed will be writing up a separate blog post about his setup and the Nordic transceivers, including code and pictures, so look for that to show up on this blog soon.

An alternative to the wireless components Jeremy used in the #9 video and the components Ed used is the JeeNode. Nick got two JeeNodes for about $22 each with 915 MHz radios and worked with MCU wireless using those boards. According to Digital Smarties, the UK fulfillment transaction processors for the boards, the JeeNode is,

"a compact wireless board with an Atmel 8-bit RISC microprocessor. JeeNodes are compatible with the Arduino platform and can be programmed under Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux using sketches created with the Arduino IDE. Each JeeNode has 4

identical “ports” for attaching analog and digital I/O logic, I2C devices, and more. The JeeLib library makes it easy to interface to these ports. The JeeNode Kit contains all the parts needed to build a JeeNode v6 – including an ATmega328p processor and an RFM12B radio module."

Modern Device does much of the manufacturing for JeeLabs and is the US distributor for JeeNodes. The JeeLabs website describes the board this way:

"The JeeNode is a wireless micro-controller board designed for a variety of Physical Computing tasks. From measuring and reporting temperature, humidity, and other environmental data to tracking and controlling energy consumption around the house. It was inspired by the Arduino Duemilanove and Uno boards, and by the “Real Bare Bones Board” (RBBB) from Modern Device."

The JeeNode component bill of materials (BOM) for learning MCU wireless would only be slightly more expensive than the Nordic RF components. Ed said for various prototypes or applications, the JeeNode would be more capable than the Nordic systems, and would be well worth the few extra dollars.

Third subject -- Worthwhile web resources for newbies to understand MCU wireless.

I havent done an exhaustive search for web resources on MCU wireless, so please send me links to sites you feel are good on this topic, especially if you think theyre better for a particular aspect of wireless compared to the sites Ive listed. If youre new to wireless communications, you might want to read through the Wikipedia entry for Wireless Networks. If you are already have a good background on wireless networks, consider looking through the SparkFun Wireless Buying Guide. The SparkFun guide is where I read about Nordic RF modules yesterday for the first time ever. Then I found out what Ed used for his wireless exercise, and it turned out to be Nordic transceivers (or Nordic clones). The wireless section of your favorite MCU vendors website is another good place to learn about wireless, especially as it applies to the MCUs you use and understand. Atmel, Texas Instruments and Microchip main pages for wireless are listed below.

• http://www.atmel.com/products/wireless/
• http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/wireless_connectivity/overview.page
• http://www.microchip.com/pagehandler/en-us/products/wireless/home.html

If you go through the above resources and want to know more, search for your topics of interest and youll find lots of relevant websites to sift through for more specific info thats relevant to you.

Fourth issue -- Developing an inexpensive MCU wireless educational exercise for the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group.

We decided tonight that Eds setup is about as inexpensive as youre going to be able to do a two-MCU, two-transceiver wireless exercise. Another wireless learning exercise we will probably research is one with a single MCU and a Wi-Fi system to directly connect the MCU to the Internet. Figuring that one out will wait for another day.

Along with our discussions about MCU wireless, tonights Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting covered a multitude of topics, including but not limited to freezing hard drives to recover data from them, buying vacuum tubes, flying quadcopters that have a mind of their own, the unpredictable adventures of buying electronic components from Chinese eBay sellers, good power supplies and power supplies to stay far away from, how to load Arch Linux on a Chromebook, repairing welders, upgrades to automated doors on chicken coops, the Humboldt Laser Harp, and what the topic of the next MCU group meeting should be. If you have suggestions for MCU meeting topics, please contact me at arcatabob (at) gmail [dott] com or contact Nick A.

If you are interested or experienced in MCU wireless, it would be great to connect with you -- email me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com. Hope to see you at the next Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting on Thursday, August 21.

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Solar Energy And Arduino Solar Charge Controller

Theres an intriguing microcontroller (MCU) project in an August 8 article on Design News titled "Gadget Freak Case #260: Arduino Solar Charge Controller." I havet read a lot about solar energy and Arduinos, or any other MCUs, so I took a closer look at the article.

Residential active solar energy system (from Wikipedia CC)

Many Humboldt County people seem interested in solar energy, although the often-foggy or cloudy climate of Arcata, Eureka, and other coastal communities isnt as well suited to solar energy collection as the climate of New Mexico or Arizona cities. However, it is still good to be experienced with technologies used outside the North Coast, and there are plenty parts of Humboldt County not immersed in marine fog banks or redwood forest mists. For this reason it would be useful for participants in the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group to know the basics of active solar energy systems and to have experience with the electronic components and operation of those systems. The topic of the Design News article above isnt an inexpensive basic active solar energy system, but I think Ill do some research regarding different types of inexpensive systems for a future group project.

Solar charge controller schematic from CirKit.com

The solar charge controller that is the topic of this post is located between the solar energy collection device and the energy storage system, usually a battery. The controller regulates both the voltage and the current going to the energy storage system from the energy collection device. The schematic at the right from CirKit.com shows the general concept (although that schematic is not from Gadget Freak project). The Design News article describes the function of the Arduino this way:

"This gadget uses Arduino to control the whole process and takes a voltage reading from the solar panel and the battery to be charged. Then, according to voltage levels on either side, it charges the battery using PWM control signal. Energy flow is driven with MOSFET transistors that ensure low energy loss. The charging controller is equipped with basic filters on both the battery side and the solar panel side. It is also equipped with things like overcurrent, overvoltage, PV panel reverse current, auto load disconnection, and overcharge protection."

Gadget Freak #260: solar charge controller (Design News PDF)

The solar charge controller build instruction PDF is linked to in the article, and seems like a good quality document. It has pictures, circuit drawings, Arduino code, and the type of helpful tips that many project documents do not include. An example of the helpful tips is where the project creator describes how to choose MOSFETs. For people who arent already familiar with MOSFET properties and how theyre used, he says this about drain source voltages for MOSFETs:

"When the MOSFET is turned off, the whole supply voltage will be measurable across it, so this rating should be larger than your supply voltage to provide sufficient protection so that the MOSFET does not fail. The maximum voltage a MOSFET can handle varies with temperature."

He also talks about whether to use an n or p channel MOSFET, continuous drain currents, thermal loss, gate threshold voltage and more. Tips like this are especially useful to people like me who are new to microcontrollers.

In months and years to come, it is my hope that the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group will build many MCU devices and systems. Nicks automated chicken coop door is the first one, as far as I know, and the Humboldt Laser Harp is the second, I think. It would be great if we can develop and put online as much information as possible about these MCU projects, assuming theyre not going to be commercialized so they can earn us millions. Or even thousands. Anyway, part of gathering, organizing and publishing this MCU project information should be a good documentation format. There are many possible formats, but the Gadget Freak build instruction PDF used in the solar charge controller project seems like a good place to start if someone in the MCU group doesnt have a different project information format they prefer.

Gadget Freak (from Design News and Allied Electronics)

This Gadget Freak topic appears to be a regular feature of the Design News website. This solar charge controller is labelled #260. I dont know if that means there are 259 previous Gadget Freaks, but here are links to The Best of Gadget Freak Volume 1 and The Best of Gadget Freak Volume 2. Design News collaborates with Allied Electric, and they invite you to submit your electronics projects for publication. This is just one more way that people in the Humboldt MCU community can participate in the expanding world of microcontrollers and possible earn a few bucks. The Gadget Freak page on Allied Electrics site says:

"Are you a Gadget Freak? Allied Electronics and Design News would like to send you a check for $500 to spend at alliedelec.com or anywhere you please! Submit your design for a gizmo or gadget that any Gadget Freak would appreciate, and you just might win! If your project is selected, you’ll receive a $500 check from Design News and will be featured in an upcoming issue of the magazine with your invention. In addition to the $500 awarded for being selected as a Gadget Freak, all selected gadgets...will be included in the Gadget Freak of the Year contest. Starting in November, the readers of Design News will then vote on the best gadget...The winning gadget will receive an additional $6,000 with two runners-up who will receive $2,000 each."

If youve built solar energy devices or systems with MCUs, it would be great if you came to one of the every other Thursday meetings the MCU group has. The next meeting will be on Thursday, August 24. If you cant make it to the meeting but would be interested in discussing your solar energy device or system, please email me at arcatabob (at) gmail {dott} com

. It would be great to meet you for coffee and a tech discussion, or possibly youd be willing to show the MCU group your MCU in operation!

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Little Bit of Information About LittleBits

So Im pretty sure everyone reading this blog knows what the Internet of Things (IoT) is. Anyone who likes to use or read about microcontrollers (MCUs) has probably read a couple news stories about the IoT or at least about how some microcontroller is being used in the IoT. The topic of tonights blog is littleBits, which are now "an easy and open way to contribute to the Internet of Things without wasting time prototyping devices from scratch."

littleBits circuit with module snapped and wired together

In addition to that preceding description of littleBits, the July 23 Engadget article about these modular electronic marvels says:

"The magnetic, interconnecting circuit boards that make up LittleBits library of electronic modules make it easy to build all sorts of neat (and noisy) devices with almost no technical knowledge at all...today LittleBits is announcing the Cloud Bit, a new module that, as company CEO and founder Ayah Bdeir puts it, allows builders to "just add internet" to almost anything...More complex modules -- like the Arduino module and todays WiFi-enabled Cloud Bit -- raise the ceiling of complexity for potential LittleBits projects. Its her hope that the product will be used for rapid prototyping of new ideas in addition to being a fun hobby toy. "If you wanted to recreate a Nest or recreate a Sonos or a DropCam, you could. If you wanted to create the next billion dollar idea, you could do that..."

cloudBit

The Wired article announcing the cloudBit has this to say about the new component and about littleBits in general:

"The cloudBit, announced today, is a new component that’ll connect any littleBits creation to the internet, allowing it to be programmed through a simple web interface. There have been other kits like this before, powered by Raspberry Pi and Arduino—but while those remain powerful, flexible, and inter-operable, none of them possess littlBits’s plug-and-play simplicity. So with the addition of the cloudBit, littleBits could become a reasonable, DIY gateway to the Internet of Things...Rigging together motors, sensors, and noisemakers can be painstaking work, requiring lots of soldering and testing equipment to make sure all your circuits are done right. littleBits, instead, is a modular library comprising dozens of neat electronic components that simply snap together in a line, with magnets...To get started, users first sync their cloudBit to the web app. From there, the web app can link to any any web API, including IFTTT (a service that allows you to chain together websites with simple “If this, then that” logic). Users can then use those data streams to turn the cloudBit on or off, or activate any partial state in between. By linking the cloudBit to any number of other bits, users can create whatever chain of mechanical reactions they like...the littleBits ecosystem now has 59 different components, ranging from basic items like motors, a microphone, and a keyboard to a growing body of sensors that detect everything from light to bends to motion to pressure. (There’s also an Arduino component, for more serious hacking.)"

littleBits tagline is "the easiest and most extensive way to learn and prototype with electronics." Maybe its because Im an engineer and not a marketing person, but from my perspective, it seems unlikely for any product to be both the "easiest" and the "most extensive" way to learn and prototype with electronics. My guess is that littleBits is probably a lot closer to the easiest claim of their tagline than the most extensive claim.

littleBits Big Drone Synth 

In spite of their overreaching marketing department, which may be an apt description of the marketing department at pretty much every company, I do feel littleBits does have a strong appeal for non-technical people who want to incorporate technology into unique or interesting products that theyve created in their minds. If an artist, sociologist, psychologist, disaster worker or many other types of people with no desire to figure out how to breadboard an Arduino circuit can fairly quickly learn how to snap together a couple modules that accomplishes something meaningful to them, they will tend to use that product again in the future and start learning how to do more with that product and complementary products.

What this potential appeal for non-technical people says to me is that if littleBits can figure out kits that are useful to a large number of target users and successfully market those kits, it could very likely lead to an active, growing and loyal user community. By removing the Arduino barriers (perceived or real) of learning at least the basics of electronic design and programming basics, littleBits has given itself a much larger potential market. The challenge for littleBits now is figuring out what modules will appeal to and get buzz among non-tech early adopters.

littleBits DIY smartphone-enabled thermostat

I think it would be interesting for the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group to build a product with littleBit modules, then build an MCU-based product that has the same capabilities and features of the littleBit product. We could benchmark the operation of both products, compare the component and build costs for both products and keep track of the actual build time to go from loose components to a properly and reliably operating unit. The main thing stopping us from doing that is the lack of components. If I can identify clear benefits for sponsors, Ill put together a project proposal for doing that comparison and pitch the project to potential sponsors.

One side note of particular interest to me is the IFTTT aspect of littleBits. Ever since I read about if this then that, a couple years ago, Ive wanted to experiment with it. Doing a littleBits project would be a good excuse to set up some IFTTT recipes and figure out how much value the service has for me. Ill have to bring up IFTTT at the next MCU meeting to find out how much, if any, people at the meeting have done with it.

If youre reading this blog post and have used littleBits, please come to the next Humboldt Microcontrollers Group meeting, which will be from 6 to 8 PM on Thursday, August 7, to talk about your experience with them and to demonstrate how to use them.

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