Arduinos and Motors Part 3

Tonights post is a chance to formulate some thoughts for tomorrows meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group, where well be talking about Arduinos and motors, and maybe motors with MCUs in general.

Tomorrows meeting will be reviewing issues related to Jeremy Blums Arduino Basics #5 video tutorial. I didnt progress on my first MCU-controlled motor exercise from video #5 yet. Didnt have a chance today to figure out whether either of the two standard DC motors I have are suitable for use with the transistors I have available. That will likely get figured out either at the meeting tomorrow or sometime this weekend.

So here are a list of questions about MCU-controlled motors for tomorrows meeting, if theres time to get to them. If theres not time, Ill research the answers on my own. If you have other questions, let me know, and Ill try to make sure they get brought up at the meeting.

1. When do you use a motor shield instead of just a transistor?
2. Has anyone in the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group ever built a motor shield?
3. What are the features of a motor shield for projects people in the group have done?
4. What are some of the applications for Arduino-controlled motors?

The main applications I know of that Id work on for Arduino-controlled motors are 3D printers, robots and moving Halloween props. Im hoping the others at tomorrows meeting have a few more ideas, especially smaller and less expensive projects where I can get some experience on practical applications for the motors without having to spend too much time or money on the project. Maybe I can find open source plans for a micro quad copter that uses an MCU and doesnt cost too much for the components.

Tomorrow night, June 12, is the third meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group. Well be meeting from 6 to 8 PM at 1385 8th Street in Arcata, California, USA. People interested in microcontrollers or Arduinos are invited to join us -- the event is free, you dont have to know how to program microcontrollers, and theres no need to be a member of anything to participate.

So if you live in Arcata, Eureka, McKinleyville, Fortuna, Trinidad, Blue Lake or any of the other fine parts of the Humboldt region, you should consider participating in a new activity in the area -- the Humboldt Microcontrollers community.

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Electronic Components Start 3 Video Tutorial

Yesterday I ordered the rest of electronic components to be able to do the first five Jeremy Blum Arduino Basics video tutorials (I hope), and the multimeter and soldering iron arrived from Adafruit. Today the sensor package from SparkFun arrived, and tonight I started the #3 Blum video tutorial.

Ive got most of the components needed for the Blum video tutorials, but I didnt have everything needed for the #3 video. I just watched the video and reviewed the electronics formulas that Jeremy explained and did the parts of the exercises that I could. As soon as the final order of components arrive, Ill be able to complete the #3 video.

After I finish the first five video tutorials, Im going to review all the exercises to make sure I understand all the component breadboard circuits I hooked up and all the programs I wrote. Up to this point, I understand some of what Ive done, but other parts of the exercises have just been copying exactly what Jeremy does in the videos, rather than understanding and being able to do it without any instructions. Ill update the wiki with the component information Im figuring out, with links to helpful resources and with the beginning programming concepts that are used in the exercises.

Speaking of the wiki, I found out that Wikispaces no longer gives unlimited accounts on their free wikis. You can now only have 5 accounts on a wiki unless you pay. Ed graciously offered to host the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group wiki on his server, so after he gets it set up, well start moving content over to his wiki. Well be using MediaWiki because thats the easiest one to get rolling on his server, and its a pretty familiar format because most people are familiar with Wikipedia, which uses MediaWiki.

Tomorrow night, May 29, is the second meeting of the Humboldt Microcontrollers Group. Well be meeting from 6 to 8 PM at 1385 8th Street in Arcata, California, USA. People interested in microcontrollers or Arduinos are invited to join us -- the event is free, you dont have to know how to program microcontrollers, and theres no need to be a member of anything to participate.

Well meet first with everyone to discuss stuff everyone should hear or be involved in. Then well split into two groups -- the beginners who are interested in learning about microcontrollers, and the people with previous microcontroller experience who want to do MCU projects and learn or share microcontroller tricks that not everyone knows.

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at 6 PM!

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The ponic system 3 months in!

Collard green BIIG

Tomato and pepper seedlings

It has now been 3 months that the ponic system has been build. In these first 3 months I have lost a few plants, but also harvested a few parsley leaves. This all time the system has run on compost tea and ammonia. The plants seem fine, but a few are not as green as one would expect, but it is indoor, in the middle of the winter, with some artificial lighting that may not be sufficient.

During the start up of the system, the pH decreased once nitrification was efficient, but the pH increased after that, since there was no source of additional ammonia. I therefore started to add some ammonia, which keeps the pH around 7 as it is alkaline. A few weeks ago I increase the amount of ammonia I add so in the last week, I didnt add any as ammonia was building up in the water. In consequence, the pH has dropped a bit.

I have started to measure leaf length and leaf number, and overall, leaf number has increased in each plant, leaf length has increased a bit, but has stopped for some. I suppose it reached its optimal length.

I guess things are "growing forward" and the 2 collard greens are getting quite sizable (at least bigger than I expected).

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3 Blum Video Tutorial And Time Management

Tonight I worked on the #3 Jeremy Blum Basics of Arduino video tutorial -- again -- and still didnt finish it. I did learn some things, but didnt stay focused enough to finish the video.

One thing Ive learned while doing these Arduino video tutorials is that maybe I need to learn about time management and setting priorities more than I need to learn about microcontrollers! Theres no way doing these first three videos should have taken me this many nights...

Im enjoying the #3 video review of electrical formulas and concepts. Part of the problem is that Im an engineer, and it seems like I should already know lots (most?) of the stuff Jeremy is explaining in this video. So I end up reading background materials and watching videos to learn more about different aspects of what Jeremy is explaining.

Tonight it was LEDs. I didnt have anything on the MCU wiki yet about LEDs. So I pulled up the SparkFun LED tutorial, read a bit in that, hooked up an LED with the Arduino and breadboard and gave it power, then read the Wikipedia entry on LEDs. I also looked a bit at the ElectronicsTutorials entry on LEDs and the Digi-Key / Atmel "LED Driver Basics" video. If any of you know of an online info resource you think is particularly helpful for beginners (or for people experienced with MCUs), please send me a link to that. Ill add it to the wiki.

Between the above (relevant) diversions and a few other non-MCU things I needed to do this evening, I didnt get anywhere close to finishing the #3 Blum video.

Tomorrow, maybe...

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