Spectacle Motion Kit Hookup Guide a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t631

Introduction

The Spectacle Motion Kit contains all the parts you’ll need to make a button-controlled motion project.

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Suggested Reading

Before proceeding, you should read through the Spectacle User’s Guide. It will give you the basics you’ll need to know about how Spectacle works to follow the rest of this tutorial.

Spectacle Button Board

The Spectacle Button Board allows you to add input from buttons or switches to your Spectacle projects. It has a total of 9 signal inputs, eight of which can come from external buttons and one button directly on the board.

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tl;dr

1. Buttons or switches can be connected to the board by pushing wires into the “poke home” type connectors on the board.
2. Up to nine signals are available.
3. Button signals can be either momentary or continuous.

Meet the Spectacle Button Board

Designed to bring simple signals from the world into your Spectacle projects, the Spectacle Button Board provides input for any of your Spectacle projects.

It has two 1/8" (3.5mm) jacks for connecting to other boards in a Spectacle system. Note that the Spectacle data jacks are directional: the one marked “In” should be plugged into the “upstream” board (i.e., closer to the Director Board than this one) and the one marked “Out” connects to the next downstream board.

There are 8 “poke home” connectors on the Button Board. Each one can be connected to one (or more) buttons. To add a connection, simply push the stripped end of a wire into the hole on the connector. The connector will automatically grab on and hold the wire in place. If you need to remove the wire later, an small object (bobby pin, ballpoint pen, etc.) can be used to depress the release button, allowing the wire to be extracted without damage.

There is an input button on the button board itself which can be used to provide an input signal if no other buttons are available. It functions like any other normal button that might be attached. Be certain you’re pressing the button labeled ‘8’ and not the one labeled ‘Reset’! Pressing the reset button will reset your button board, probably causing your entire system to stop working properly until you reset your Director Board!

Spectacle Motion Board

The Spectacle Motion Board makes it easy to add movement to your Spectacle projects. It can control up to 5 servo motors, either of standard or continuous rotation type.

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tl;dr

1. The USB Micro B port on the servo board is only for providing power to the attached motors.
2. A single servo, or a couple of small servos, can be powered over the Spectacle control cable.
3. Servo motors can be of the standard or continuous rotation type.

Meet the Spectacle Motion Board

Designed to make it easy to add simple motions to your Spectacle projects, the Spectacle Motion Board integrates with the rest of the Spectacle ecosystem to allow you to control motion effects relatively effortlessly.

It has two 1/8" (3.5mm) jacks for Spectacle control signals. Pay attention to the directionality of the jacks! The one labeled “In” should be plugged into a board that is closer to the Director Board than the Motion Board is, or into the director board itself.

The Motion Board supports up to 5 servo motors. The servo motors can be either standard motion or continuous rotation servos. There’s a note on the board (“O/W/Y”) for the color which should be on the top row of the header: orange, white, or yellow. Most servo motors will have one wire which is one of these colors, and that wire should line up with this note.

The Motion Board has a Micro B USB connector to allow it to be directly powered by an external power supply. The relatively slender cables the Spectacle data travels over are not adequate for the large amount of current drawn by larger servo motors or by multiple motors.

The Configuration Utility

Spectacle Button Board

For the Button board, there are five options: three which produce a momentary pulse type output and two that produce a continuous switch type output.

Action on press

Trigger an action when a button is first pressed, regardless of how long it is subsequently held down.

• “When button number … is pressed” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “trigger channel number …” - A single, momentary pulse will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for starting a sound, initiating a motion, or setting the color of a light strip, but not for continuous sound playback or for turning on a light strip effect, for instance.

Action on release

Trigger an action when a button is released, regardless of how long it has been held down prior to being released.

• “When button number … is released” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “trigger channel number …” - A single, momentary pulse will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for starting a sound, initiating a motion, or setting the color of a light strip, but not for continuous sound playback or for turning on a light strip effect, for instance.

Action on press or release

Trigger an action when a button is pressed, then trigger the same action again when the button is released.

• “When button number … is either pressed or released” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “trigger channel number …” - A single, momentary pulse will be sent out on this channel both at the time the button is pressed and at the time it is released. It is suitable for starting a sound, initiating a motion, or setting the color of a light strip, but not for continuous sound playback or for turning on a light strip effect, for instance.

Action while holding

Trigger an event as soon as a button is pressed, then continue to trigger that event as long as the button is held down.

• “While button number … is pressed” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “activate channel number …” - A continuous will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for triggering and repeating a sound, or for turning on and keeping on (at least, while the button is held) a lighting effect.

Latch On/Latch Off

This action is like a latching power switch. One press turns the signal on, another later press turns the signal off.

• “While button number … is pressed” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “activate channel number … until button is pressed again” - A continuous will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for triggering and repeating a sound, or for turning on and keeping on a lighting effect.

Spectacle Motion Board

There are four actions associated with the motion board. Three of them are suitable for a momentary trigger and one for a continuous signal.

Sweep to Position

This action moves the motor between two positions, one motion on each trigger event.

• “listen to channel number …” - This is the channel which triggers the action.
• “control servo number …” - The servo to be controlled, numbered from 0-4.
• “wait … seconds and move to” - Delay before motion for the first position.
  • slider control - Choose the position for the first motion. The servo starts at 90° and can be rotated to 0° in one direction or to 180° in the other direction. This is equivalent to starting at 12 o'clock and turning to either 9 o'clock or 3 o'clock.
• “wait … seconds and move to” - Delay before motion for the second position.
  • slider control - Choose the position for the second motion. The servo starts at 90° and can be rotated to 0° in one direction or to 180° in the other direction. This is equivalent to starting at 12 o'clock and turning to either 9 o'clock or 3 o'clock.

Sweep and Return

This action waits for a moment, moves the servo to a position, then waits for a moment at the new position, then moves back to the first position.

• “listen to channel number …” - Which channel controls this action.
• “control servo number …” - The servo to be controlled, numbered from 0-4.
• “wait … seconds and move to” - Delay before motion for the first position.
  • slider control - Choose the position for the first motion. The servo starts at 90° and can be rotated to 0° in one direction or to 180° in the other direction. This is equivalent to starting at 12 o'clock and turning to either 9 o'clock or 3 o'clock.
• “wait … seconds and move to” - Delay before motion for the second position.
  • slider control - Choose the position for the second motion. The servo starts at 90° and can be rotated to 0° in one direction or to 180° in the other direction. This is equivalent to starting at 12 o'clock and turning to either 9 o'clock or 3 o'clock.

Wagging Effect

This action behaves much like sweep and return, but runs continuously until turned off by receipt of another signal pulse on the designated channel.

• “listen to channel number …” - Which channel controls this action.
• “control servo number …” - The servo to be controlled, numbered from 0-4.
• “wait … seconds and move to” - Delay before motion for the first position.
  • slider control - Choose the position for the first motion. The servo starts at 90° and can be rotated to 0° in one direction or to 180° in the other direction. This is equivalent to starting at 12 o'clock and turning to either 9 o'clock or 3 o'clock.
• “wait … seconds and move to” - Delay before motion for the second position.
  • slider control - Choose the position for the second motion. The servo starts at 90° and can be rotated to 0° in one direction or to 180° in the other direction. This is equivalent to starting at 12 o'clock and turning to either 9 o'clock or 3 o'clock.

Go to Position

Move the servo motor from where ever it currently is to this new location after some delay.

• “listen to channel number …” - Which channel controls this action.
• “control servo number …” - The servo to be controlled, numbered from 0-4.
• “wait … seconds and move to” - Delay before motion for the first position.
  • slider control - Choose the position for the first motion. The servo starts at 90° and can be rotated to 0° in one direction or to 180° in the other direction. This is equivalent to starting at 12 o'clock and turning to either 9 o'clock or 3 o'clock.

Example Project

Let’s use the Spectacle Motion Board Kit to make a project! We’re going to hook up the Button Board and the Motion Board to make a simple project where the motor moves from one position to another and then back when the button on the Button Board is pressed.

Connect the boards

All of the hardware you need for this tutorial is included in the kit.

First, plug one end of one of the TRRS cables into the “Direct” jack on the Director Board.

Next, take the other TRRS cable and plug it into the “Program” jack on the Director Board.

Take the other end of this cable and plug it into the audio jack of the phone, tablet, or computer that you’ll be using to program the system.

Then take the other end of that TRRS cable and plug it into the “In” jack on the Button Board.

Grab another of the TRRS cables and plug it into the “Out” jack on the Button Board.

Plug the other end of that cable into the “In” jack on your Motion Board.

Now, plug the servo connector onto the Motion Board.

Finally, plug the Micro B end of the power adapter into the Director board, and the other end into the wall. You should see one solid light and one blinking light on the Motion Board and the Button board. On the Director Board, you’ll see one solid light and one light which blinks one time, then pauses, then repeats. This shows that power is present and the boards are up and running.

Setting up the board configuration

When you first open the Spectacle app webpage, this is what you’ll see. Your project name will differ from mine, as Spectacle assigns a random name to each project.

To continue, we must tell the project which boards we wish to use. Start by clicking the “Add a Board” button at the bottom of the page.

This will bring up a list of the available boards. We’re going to add our Button Board first of all, so click anywhere in the “Button” box to add it.

Now repeat these two steps, but add a Motion Board this time instead of another Button Board.

You’ll now have a screen that looks like this. To continue, we need to add some actions to the boards that tell the Spectacle system what we want the boards to do.

To add actions, click on the clapboard icons as highlighted above. We’re going to do the Button Board first.

You’ll then see a list of actions assigned to the board which will, of course, be empty. To add an action, click the “Add an Action” button at the bottom of the page as highlighted below.

Here we see the available actions for the Button Board. We’re going to select the first one, “Action on Press”. Click that entry to select it.

This is the “Trigger on Press” action options screen. I’ve already entered the data in the fields: button 8 to channel 0. Button 8 is the Button Board’s built-in button. Now click the “Go Back” button at the bottom of the page to go back to the main page, so we can add an action to the Motion Board.

Back at the main page, you can see that the action we just added to the Button Board shows up listed under that board in the boards list. Click on the Motion Board clapboard icon to bring up the action list for it.

Here is the list of possible actions for the Motion Board. We’re going to add a “Sweep and Return” action.

I’ve put the settings we want into the “Sweep and Return” page settings. Click “Go Back” to save the changes and return to the main board list.

Congratulations! You’ve finished the configuration step of the process. Now it’s time to move on to loading the project onto your Director Board.

Uploading

Now that you’ve created your Spectacle program it’s time to upload it to the Director Board. If you followed the instructions above, your uploading device is connected to the board and ready to go, so all you need to do is touch the “Install Script” button at the bottom of the page. That will bring up the page seen below.

Make sure the volume on your device is turned all the way up, and that no other audio source (music, video, etc) is playing in the background. Then press and hold the “RST” button on the Director Board, press and hold the “PROG” button, then release the “RST” button.

This will put the Director Board into program mode. You’ll see the light on the board blink three times, pause, then repeat. This is your visual indicator that the board is in program mode. Once you’ve established that the board is in program mode, you can begin programming by touching the “Install” button on the Spectacle app screen. The button will gray out during the programming process, which should only last for a few seconds. Once programming is done, you’ll see the light on the Director Board blink 10 times, pause, then repeat. That’s your cue that the program was uploaded successfully.

Press the “RST” button again to reset the system and begin the program!

If you have any troubles, visit the troubleshooting page for help resolving your issues.

Further reading

For general Spectacle information, please check out the user guide:

For more Spectacle fun, check out the additional tutorials below:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

Spectacle Example: Super Mario Bros. Diorama a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t638

Introduction

Spectacle is designed to make complicated electronics projects simple, so you can focus on what you do best: making cool things!

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to make an animated diorama (with sound effects!) using Spectacle.

Techniques of note

We created the tiles for the diorama using this project from Thingiverse. We 3D printed the tiles, then painted them accordingly.

The layout was designed in Inkscape, then etched into the wood with a laser cutter. The laser cutter was also used to cut out the slots that the moving pieces ride up and down in. Of course, this step is optional. The tiles could easily be placed by hand, and the cuts could be made with a hobby knife or similar woodworking tool.

Prior Reading

This tutorial assumes a basic familiarity with the Spectacle system. If you haven’t yet, read the following tutorials for all the basic information you’ll need to know to get this project going:

Animating the Diorama

To animate the diorama, we 3D printed a longer arm for the servo motor. The length of the arm must be approximately equal to the linear distance the moving component is expected to cover.

We then attached a piece of 0.020" (0.5mm) music wire to the end of the arm. The wire must be affixed in such a way that it can rotate freely as the arm moves. We passed it through a hole in the arm and bent it to a shape that will be retained by the hole.

The other end of the wire was affixed to the slide mechanism to which the tiles were glued. In that case, a small loop is printed on the back of the slide mechanism and the wire is again bent into a shape that will be retained by that loop. The wire is rigid enough to push the tiles into a new position, but flexible enough to bend when the stop is hit.

Adding Sound

We elected to keep the sound simple for this project, using the delaying mechanism of the Audio Board to trigger the sounds at the appropriate time rather than trying to trigger the sound by having Mario hit another switch.

Finding sound effects is left as an exercise for the reader, to prevent possible copyright or trademark issues. A quick web search will turn up sound effects for most projects, however.

Spectacle Project

The Spectacle project for this setup is very simple. It consists of a Button Board, a Motion Board, and an Audio Board. We’ll just give you the pages of the project here, rather than walk you step-by-step through making a Spectacle project. Below, find the main page of the app, with all the boards in place. Remember that the order the boards are connected in must match the order they appear in the app list in.

Here are the settings for the Button Board. Note that, although we’re triggering four separate actions, we only need to have a signal on one channel.

Here we see the Motion Board settings. You’ll note that there’s a slight delay between receipt of the triggering signal and activation of the first motion. That accounts for the brief delay between triggering the Sound Board and the sound actually playing. The sliders are opposite because the position of the motors is mirrored on the inside of the project.

Finally, here are the settings for the two sound events on the Sound Board. By layering them like this, we create the illusion of triggering the second sound when Mario hits the block without having to put a switch on that block.

Note that these are timing values for my system and you’ll probably have to change them if you do your own. I figured these out by playing around with it a bit.

Further reading

For general Spectacle information, please check out the user guide:

For more Spectacle fun, check out the additional tutorials below:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

Spectacle Light and Sound Kit Hookup Guide a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t621

Introduction

The Spectacle Light and Sound Kit allows you to add button-activated sound and light effects to your projects with ease.

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Suggested Reading

Before proceeding, you should read through the Spectacle User’s Guide. It will give you the basics you’ll need to know about how Spectacle works to follow the rest of this tutorial.

Spectacle Audio Board

The Spectacle Audio Board allows you to add sound to your Spectacle projects. It accepts a microSD card with sounds in .ogg format (more on this later), and has a 1/8" (3.5mm) audio jack to connect to external amplifiers.

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tl;dr (essentials)

1. Audio files for Spectacle should be formatted as .ogg files.
2. Audio files should have names 00.ogg, 01.ogg, 02.ogg, etc.
3. The audio jack on the Audio Board produces output suitable for amplification only. It is not suited to headphones or unpowered speakers.

Meet the Spectacle Audio Board

Designed to be a low-cost and easy to use method of adding sound to projects, the Spectacle Audio Board integrates with the rest of the Spectacle ecosystem to provide sound effects on demand.

It has three 1/8" (3.5mm) jacks: two for Spectacle control signals and one for the audio output. Be certain you are plugging cables into the right jacks! Plugging an audio device into one of the Spectacle jacks could cause damage to the audio device. Note that the Spectacle data jacks are directional: the one marked “In” should be plugged into the “upstream” board (i.e., closer to the Director Board than this one) and the one marked “Out” connects to the next downstream board. The “Out” jack is not for audio signals.

The audio output is designed for amplified devices only. This means that any attempt to use the Spectacle Audio Board with headphones or unamplified speakers will fail to produce audible output. SparkFun sells a small, amplified, rechargeable speaker which is specifically intended for use with the Spectacle Audio Board.

The Spectacle Audio Board uses a microSD card to store the audio files to be played. The files should be stored as .ogg Vorbis encoded files. This free audio file format can be played and created on any type of computer. Later in the tutorial we’ll show you how to convert from MP3, WAV, or other file formats to the .ogg format.

The files must be named by number, which is how they will be referred to from within the configuration application. Filename examples are 00.ogg, 01.ogg, 02.ogg, and so forth.

Spectacle Button Board

The Spectacle Button Board allows you to add input from buttons or switches to your Spectacle projects. It has a total of 9 signal inputs, eight of which can come from external buttons and one button directly on the board.

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tl;dr

1. Buttons or switches can be connected to the board by pushing wires into the “poke home” type connectors on the board.
2. Up to nine signals are available.
3. Button signals can be either momentary or continuous.

Meet the Spectacle Button Board

Designed to bring simple signals from the world into your Spectacle projects, the Spectacle Button Board provides input for any of your Spectacle projects.

It has two 1/8" (3.5mm) jacks for connecting to other boards in a Spectacle system. Note that the Spectacle data jacks are directional: the one marked “In” should be plugged into the “upstream” board (i.e., closer to the Director Board than this one) and the one marked “Out” connects to the next downstream board.

There are 8 “poke home” connectors on the Button Board. Each one can be connected to one (or more) buttons. To add a connection, simply push the stripped end of a wire into the hole on the connector. The connector will automatically grab on and hold the wire in place. If you need to remove the wire later, an small object (bobby pin, ballpoint pen, etc.) can be used to depress the release button, allowing the wire to be extracted without damage.

There is an input button on the button board itself which can be used to provide an input signal if no other buttons are available. It functions like any other normal button that might be attached. Be certain you’re pressing the button labeled ‘8’ and not the one labeled ‘Reset’! Pressing the reset button will reset your button board, probably causing your entire system to stop working properly until you reset your Director Board!

Spectacle Light Board

The Spectacle Light Board allows you to add some fairly complex lighting effects to your Spectacle projects. It has connections for up to three strands of addressable LEDs and a connector for external power.

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tl;dr

1. If more than approximately 10 pixels will be on at once, we recommend powering the Light Board through the onboard micro-B USB port.
2. For smaller numbers of pixels, it is possible to power them directly over the Spectacle control cable.
3. Most of the LED effects want a continuous type signal, such as the Button board “Latch On/Latch Off” function.
4. Only WS2812 (NeoPixel) type addressable LED strips will work with the Spectacle Light Board.

Meet the Spectacle Light Board

Designed to make it easy to add relatively complex lighting effects to your Spectacle projects, the Spectacle Light Board integrates with the rest of the Spectacle ecosystem to allow you to control lighting effects relatively effortlessly.

It has two 1/8" (3.5mm) jacks for Spectacle control signals. Pay attention to the directionality of the jacks! The one labeled “In” should be plugged into a board that is closer to the Director Board than the Light Board is, or into the Director Board itself.

The Light Board supports up to three strands of addressable LEDs. Each strand can have up to 60 individual pixels. Not all types of addressable LEDs are compatible with the Spectacle Light Board. If you have questions about whether or not a particular type of LED strip is compatible with the Light Board, contact SparkFun technical support.

The Light Board has a Micro B USB connector to allow it to be directly powered by an external power supply. The relatively slender cables the Spectacle data travels over are not adequate for the large amount of current drawn by more than a few pixels.

The Configuration Utility

Spectacle Audio Board

The Spectacle Audio Board only supports one action: Play Sound. As you can see above, there are a number of settings associated with this action.

• “listen to channel number __” - This is the channel number which triggers the audio to start playing. As long as this channel’s value is above the threshold level (see below), the sound will repeat playing at a rate determined by the two time intervals specified lower down.
• “wait __ seconds and play” - This is the first delay in the system. You can sequence events however you see fit by delaying when a sound plays.
• “file number __” - This is where you tell the board which file to play. Remember, when copying the audio files to the microSD card, they should be named as 00.ogg, 01.ogg, 02.ogg, etc. The number in this field corresponds to the number in the name of the audio file. If there is no audio file with the corresponding number, no sound will play.
• “do not allow another sound to interrupt until __ seconds” - The number in this field should correspond to the length of the audio file. If this value is less than the length of the sound file, another trigger sent to the audio board will interrupt the sound before it finishes. If it is longer than the sound, there will be a period of silence after playback before another playback can be initiated.
• “activation threshold” - As it says in the app, most of the time you don’t need to adjust this. Adjusting the slider can set the angle at which the Spectacle Accelerometer Board triggers a sound, or the frequency with which a Random Trigger Virtual Board causes a sound to play.

Spectacle Button Board

For the Button board, there are five options: three which produce a momentary pulse type output and two that produce a continuous switch type output.

Action on press

Trigger an action when a button is first pressed, regardless of how long it is subsequently held down.

• “When button number __ is pressed” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “trigger channel number __” - A single, momentary pulse will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for starting a sound, initiating a motion, or setting the color of a light strip. This feature is not intended for continuous sound playback or for turning on a light strip effect.

Action on release

Trigger an action when a button is released, regardless of how long it has been held down prior to being released.

• “When button number __ is released” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “trigger channel number __” - A single, momentary pulse will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for starting a sound, initiating a motion, or setting the color of a light strip, but not for continuous sound playback or for turning on a light strip effect, for instance.

Action on press or release

Trigger an action when a button is pressed, then trigger the same action again when the button is released.

• “When button number __ is either pressed or released” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “trigger channel number __” - A single, momentary pulse will be sent out on this channel both at the time the button is pressed and at the time it is released. It is suitable for starting a sound, initiating a motion, or setting the color of a light strip, but not for continuous sound playback or for turning on a light strip effect, for instance.

Action while holding

Trigger an event as soon as a button is pressed, then continue to trigger that event as long as the button is held down.

• “While button number __ is pressed” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “activate channel number __” - A continuous will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for triggering and repeating a sound, or for turning on and keeping on (at least, while the button is held) a lighting effect.

Latch On/Latch Off

This action is like a latching power switch. One press turns the signal on, another later press turns the signal off.

• “While button number __ is pressed” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “activate channel number __ until button is pressed again” - A continuous will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for triggering and repeating a sound, or for turning on and keeping on a lighting effect.

Spectacle Light Board

The Light Board supports 9 different actions. Most of them want a continuous-type signal input, although a couple of them can be used with momentary input signals. We’ll cover the difference under each action. Each action will have a field for the number of pixels the lightstrip that action is being applied to has, and we won’t mention it again.

Rainbow Effect

The rainbow effect displays a rainbow of colors across the strip, changing the color of each pixel indvidually to make it appear as though the rainbow is scrolling along the lightstrip.

• “While channel number __ is active” - The rainbow effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “rainbow scroll lightstrip number __” - Select which lightstrip you wish the rainbow effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• scroll speed slider - controls how fast the pattern moves as it scrolls past.

Theater chase

Theater chase mode behaves like a marquee light border. The lights will march along making it appear as though the lightstrip is moving in steps.

• “While channel number __ is active” - The theater chase effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “theater chase lightstrip number __” - Select which lightstrip you wish the theater chase effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• chase speed slider - controls how fast the pattern moves as it scrolls past.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights.

Scanning effect

Scanning mode sees a small group of lights bouncing back and forth along the length of the lightstrip, reminiscent of Cylons from Battlestar Galactica.

• “While channel number __ is active” - The scanning effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “scan lightstrip number __” - Select which lightstrip you wish the scanning effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• scan speed slider - controls how fast the pattern moves as it scrolls past.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights.

Twinkle effect

Causes individual lights on the selected strip to perform a twinkling action.

• “While channel number __ is active” - The twinkle effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “twinkle lightstrip number __” - Select which lightstrip you wish the twinkle effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights.
• speed slider - controls how fast the twinkles are moves as it scrolls past.
• magic slider - controls how magical the twinkles are. Play with it!

Lightning effect

Causes the entire strip to strobe in a manner that looks a lot like a lightning flash.

• “While channel number __ is active” - The lightning effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “lightning on lightstrip number __” - Select which lightstrip you wish the lightning effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights.
• speed slider - controls how often the lightning strike occur moves as it scrolls past.
• fury slider - controls how furious the lightning is. Play with it!

Flame effect

Causes the entire strip to crackle like a fire.

• “While channel number __ is active” - The flame effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “make fire on lightstrip number __” - Select which lightstrip you wish the flame effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights. Experiment with different colors!

Fade effect

The lightstrip will change from one color to another over time, then back to the first.

• “While channel number __ is active” - The fade effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “fade lightstrip number __ back and forth” - Select which lightstrip you wish the fade effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• “from color” color picker - This is the initial color that the lightstrip will power up with.
• “to color” color picker - The other color, which the strip fades to and from periodically.
• “fade speed” slider - Controls how fast the fading action occurs.

Fill

Fills some number of lights on the light strip with a single color. Blanks the other lights to off.

• “listen to channel number __” - A momentary signal on this channel is all that is needed to trigger a fill operation, and the fill will persist until another effect starts.
• “wait for __ seconds” - This delay allows for sequencing effects. Most often you’ll probably set it to 0.
• “clear lightstrip number __” - Select the lightstrip to operate upon.
• “and fill __ pixels” - The number of pixels, from closest to the Light board out, to turn on.

Light pixel

Turns on one light and blanks the rest of the lights to off.

• “listen to channel number __” - A momentary signal on this channel is all that is needed to trigger a light pixel operation, and the lit pixel will persist until another effect starts.
• “wait for __ seconds” - This delay allows for sequencing effects. Most often you’ll probably set it to 0.
• “clear lightstrip number __” - Select the lightstrip to operate upon.
• “and light pixel number __ ” - The number of the pixel, from closest to the Light board out, to turn on.

Converting Sounds to OGG Vorbis Format

The files used by the Spectacle Audio Board must be in OGG Vorbis format. This free, lossy codec has a higher compression ratio than MP3, and, more importantly, can be used without paying a licensing fee to any third part organization.

Download and Install Audacity

We’ll be using the free, open source program “Audacity” to convert from whatever your file’s current format is to OGG Vorbis.

Audacity is available across all three major operating systems, so you shouldn’t have any trouble getting it installed.

When you start Audacity, you’ll see this screen, or one very like it. While at first blush it seems extremely complex, none of this crap is important to us, so don’t panic.

Load a file

Like most programs, “loading a file” just means selecting “Open” from the File menu and choosing which file you wish to convert. Audacity is capable of editing most types of audio files: WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP3, and others.

By default, Audacity shows all files, not just compatible audio files, when you bring up the open dialog. There’s a dropdown menu that allows you to change that so it shows only compatible audio files along the bottom edge of the window.

Once you select which file you wish to edit, a rather alarmist message may pop up warning you about editing files without making a copy of them. Just click “OK”.

You’ll see, then, something like this show up. This is what your audio file looks like, to the computer. Again, don’t panic! Unless you want to edit the sound in some way (which we don’t), none of the settings or pieces of information that have popped up here matter to us.

Convert to OGG

Now that you have the file loaded, you need to convert it to OGG Vorbis format. To do so, open the “File” menu and select the “Export Audio…” menu item about halfway down. A familiar looking save window should pop up.

Right below the “File name:” field you’ll see a drop-down menus labeled “Save as type:”. Select “Ogg Vorbis Files” in that drop down.

A slider will appear at the bottom of the window. The default value of ‘5’ is probably good enough for most purposes. Click “Save” and another window will pop up.

This one allows you to set metadata about the file. You can ignore everything and just click “OK” to skip past this.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully converted a file to OGG Vorbis format. You may now copy that file to the Micro SD card (don’t forget to rename it to a number!) for use with the Spectacle Audio Board.

Extra credit- trimming the fat and making the sound louder

As you can see in my file above, there’s a great deal of room between the extents of the sound and the extents of the window. In the time (horizontal) axis, this manifests as flat lines before and after the content of the sound file. In the “loudness” (vertical) axis, this manifests as space between the top and bottom of the waveform file and the top and bottom of the playback position window.

Let’s eliminate some of that dead time before and after the sound plays. To do so, simply click inside the playback position window and drag, as though you are trying to select a section of text. The part you’ve selected will be highlighted, as above. Now, just hit the “Delete” key on your keyboard, and that section will be removed. Repeat the process at the other end of the sound.

Now, let’s see what we can do about volume. Under the “Edit” menu, look for the “Select” submenu, and choose “All” to select the entire sound. You can also just use the drag-and-highlight method from above.

Now that you’ve got the entire sound selected, click on the “Effect” menu and select the “Amplify…” option.

A new window will pop up with a slider, a couple of text boxes, and one checkbox. The slider will be pre-positioned to amplify the sound as much as possible without “clipping” it. “Clipping” occurs when you try to amplify a sound more than the system you’re playing it through can stand, and it results in a sort of grating buzzing noise during playback.

You have a choice, now: you can either accept the system’s suggested level, or you can click on the “Allow Clipping” check box and increase the amplification more with the slider. I’ve chosen to accept the clipping limitation for the image above; comparing it to the image of the file higher up, you can see how I’ve trimmed the dead time at the ends and increased the amplitude vertically.

Why would you want to allow your sound to clip? Well, first of all, the preset amplification only takes into account the peak value of your sound, so if one small section of the audio is allowed to clip, it may allow the vast majority of the sound to be substantially louder. Secondly, if you’re playback device is of relatively poor quality, or the sound file itself is, allowing clipping may increase volume significantly without making the sound quality too much worse than it already is. Thirdly, volume intensity may be far more important than sound quality, and allowing clipping lets you push the volume as high as you can.

Now that you’ve successfully edited the sound, export it to OGG Vorbis as we covered above.

Example Project

Let’s use the contents of the Spectacle Light and Sound Kit to put together a working project! We’re going to set up a laser gun type setting, where a light comes on and a sound plays when a button is pressed, then the light goes off when the button is released.

Connect the boards

Start by connecting up the boards. All of the required hardware is included with the kit.

First, plug one end of one of the TRRS cables into the “Direct” jack on the Director Board.

Next, take the other TRRS cable and plug it into the “Program” jack on the Director Board.

Take the other end of this cable and plug it into the audio jack of the phone, tablet, or computer that you’ll be using to program the system.

Then take the other end of the first TRRS cable (the one plugged into the “Direct” jack on the Director Board) and plug it into the “In” jack on the Button Board.

Grab another of the TRRS cables and plug it into the “Out” jack on the Button Board.

Plug the other end of that cable into the “In” jack on your Audio Board.

Now plug the speaker into the “Audio Out” jack on the Audio Board.

Insert the micro SD card into the Audio Board.

Plug another of the TRRS cables into the “Out” jack on your Audio Board.

Plug the other end of that cable into the “In” jack on your Light Board.

Connect the light strip adapter cable to the Light Board.

Connect the other end of the adapter cable to the light strip.

Finally, plug the Micro B end of the USB cable into the Director Board and the other end into the power adapter. Plug the power adapter into the wall. You should see one solid light and one blinking light on the Light Board, the Audio Board, and the Button Board. On the Director Board, you’ll see one solid light and one light which blinks one time, then pauses, then repeats. This shows that power is present and the boards are up and running.

Setting up the board configuration

We’re going to assume that you followed the instructions on the previous page about converting sounds to OGG Vorbis format, and that there is a sound on the Micro SD card inserted into the Sound board named “00.ogg”. If this is not the case, take a few minutes to go back to that page and prepare a sound.

When you first open the Spectacle app webpage, this is what you’ll see. Your project name will differ from mine, as Spectacle assigns a random name to each project.

To continue, we must tell the project which boards we wish to use. Start by clicking the “Add a board” button at the bottom of the page.

This will bring up a list of the available boards. We’re going to add our Button Board first of all, so click anywhere in the “Button” box to add it.

Now, repeat this process two more times, adding an Audio Board and a Light Board.

You should now have a list that looks like this, showing all three of the boards we’re going to use in this project. Pay attention to the order of the boards in the list! They must match the order of the boards in hardware! If the order of your boards differs from that in the image above, you can use the up and down carets (in the board name bar) to change the order of the boards.

Now you’ll need to add actions to each board, to tell the Spectacle system what sort of behavior you want. Click on the clapboard icon (highlighted above) for the Button Board to pull up the “Edit actions” frame.

This will pull up a window that looks like the above. I’ve highlighted the “Add an action” button. Click it to pull up a list of actions for the Button Board.

This list will pop up after you click the “Add an action” button. We’re going to add two actions: “Action on Press” and “Action on Release”. Click the “Action on Press” list item, then click “Add an action” again to pull the list back up, then click the “Action on Release” list item to add that action to the list.

Here you can see that we’ve added the two actions we want for our project. Note that, when added, the inputs default to being blank. You need to put a value in every field for the design to be valid.

Here are the settings you’ll want to put into place for this project. You can see that the “Action on Press” is tied to channel 0, and we’re using button 8 (the onboard button) as the input signal. “Action on Release” is tied to channel 1, and also to button 8.

Once you’ve filled in the fields for both actions, click the “Go Back” button to return to your list of boards. This will automatically save the changes you’ve made.

You can see here that the actions we added for the Button Board appear in the main board list, as a reminder of what each board has been configured to do.

Now, add a “Play Sound” action to the Audio Board. It’s the only action the Audio Board supports. Fill in the blanks on the play sound page as shown above.

Back in the main frame, you’ll see that the play sound action has been added to the Audio Board’s section of the list.

Finally, we’ll configure the Light Board. The picture above shows the full list of actions that the Light Board supports. We’re going to use the “Fill Color” option, twice, for our project.

Below are the settings for the first “Fill Color” effect to be added. This turns the pixels on when the button is depressed.

Here are the settings for the second fill effect. This turns the pixels off when the button is released.

You can now click the “Go Back” button to return to the main page.

Congratulations! You’ve completed configuration of your first Spectacle project! Now let’s cover loading the configuration onto your Director Board.

Uploading

Now that you’ve created your Spectacle program it’s time to upload it to the Director Board. If you followed the instructions above, your uploading device is connected to the board and ready to go, so all you need to do is touch the “Install Script” button at the bottom of the page. That will bring up the page seen below.

Make sure the volume on your device is turned all the way up, and that no other audio source (music, video, etc) is playing in the background. Then press and hold the “RST” button on the Director Board, press and hold the “PROG” button, then release the “RST” button.

This will put the Director Board into program mode. You’ll see the light on the board blink three times, pause, then repeat. This is your visual indicator that the board is in program mode. Once you’ve established that the board is in program mode, you can begin programming by touching the “Install” button on the Spectacle app screen. The button will gray out during the programming process, which should only last for a few seconds. Once programming is done, you’ll see the light on the Director Board blink 10 times, pause, then repeat. That’s your cue that the program was uploaded successfully.

Press the “RST” button again to reset the system and begin the program!

If you have any troubles, visit the troubleshooting page for help resolving your issues.

Further Reading

For general Spectacle information, please check out the user guide:

For more Spectacle fun, check out the additional tutorials below:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

micro:bit Breakout Board Hookup Guide a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t655

Introduction

The micro:bit, by itself, offers a vast array of possibilities and potential projects, considering it includes an onboard temperature sensor, accelerometer, compass, LED array, Bluetooth radio, and more. However, when you’re ready to branch out beyond those initial capabilities, like connecting to an SD card for logging, you’ll need to break out some of the pins on the micro:bit’s card edge connector. For that, we’ve got you covered with the micro:bit Breakout Board.

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There’s also a version without headers, if you care to solder your own or use wires instead.

Required Materials

To follow along with this project tutorial, you will need the following materials:

Suggested Reading

If you aren’t familiar with the following concepts, we recommend checking out these tutorials before continuing.

Hardware Overview

The micro:bit Breakout board allows you to utilize all of the pins on the micro:bit and opens up some previously inaccessible communication ports, like I²C and SPI.

Top-down diagram of the micro:bit breakout board

Pins

Most of the micro:bit’s pins can be configured for one or more functions.

Power Pin

The pin listed as 3V3 is output only. When you plug in a USB cable or battery pack, 3-3.3V will be avialable on that pin to use. If you try to apply 3.3V to the pin, the board will not turn on.

LCn Pins

The pins labeled with LCn (e.g. LC1, LC8) refer to pins that are used to control the LED array on the front of the micro:bit. You can use them as GPIO, but you’ll often get weird patterns to show up on the LEDs, or when you write to the LED array, you may see unexpected behavior. If you use them as GPIO, we recommend disabling the LED display.

Hardware Assembly

Attach Headers

If you have the version of the breakout board without headers, solder some breakaway headers to the board. You can also solder wire directly to the breakout.

Build Example Circuit

To begin, let’s light up an RGB LED. Attach the micro:bit to the breakout board, place the breakout board onto a breadboard, and connect an RGB LED through 330 Ω resistors. Use the image below to aid you in wire up the circuit.

Remember, LEDs are polarized parts and can only work properly in one orientation. The longest leg of the LED goes where the black GND wire is in the circuit.

Having a hard time seeing the circuit? Click on the wiring diagram for a closer look.

Example: Cycling Colors on an RGB LED

You can download the code from the emulator, or check out the project’s page here:

Copy the .hex file to your micro:bit drive, and you should see a fancy array of colors appear on your LED!

Resources and Going Further

With the micro:bit breakout board, you can start introducing more sensors, lights, and motors into your project! For more information, check out these resources:

• Micro Bit Breakout Schematic
• Micro Bit Breakout GitHub Repository
• micro:bit Main Site
• Microsoft MakeCode
• MicroPython for micro:bit Editor

Need some inspiration for your next project? Check out some of these related tutorials:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

ACS712 Low Current Sensor Hookup Guide a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t441

Introduction

The ACS712 is a handy little current sensor from Allegro MicroSystems for low to moderate current sensing applications. SparkFun offers two flavors of breakout board, one with just the sensor and another with an on-board amplifier to increase the sensitivity.

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The ACS712 sensor uses a Hall effect sensor to output a voltage relative to the current flowing through the IP+ and IP- pins. The advantage of using a Hall effect sensor is that the circuit being sensed and the circuit reading the sensor are electrically isolated. This means that, although your Arduino is running on 5V, the sensed circuit can be operating at higher DC or AC voltages!

The amplified breakout board is capable of sensing very small currents down to around 10mA and large currents up to 5A! However, since the output is analog, your usable readings will be limited by noise and the resolution of the ADC reading the output. This sensor is not recommended for current sensing lower than 10’s of milliamps.

Required Materials

Depending on the equipment available to you, you will need some of the following items to follow along with this hookup guide:

Suggested Reading

Here are some topics related to this hookup guide you may want to review:

• Voltage, Current, Resistance, and Ohm’s Law
• How to Use a Multimeter
• How to Power a Project
• Series and Parallel Circuits
• Electric Power
• Alternating Current (AC) vs. Direct Current (DC)
• Electromagnetism and Magnets

The Hall Effect and Current Sensors

This section provides a quick recap of electromagnetic concepts that make this current sensor possible. How does this little chip take current from one circuit and produce a proportional output voltage without physically connecting the two circuits?

Faraday’s Law of Induction

In the ACS712, sensing current starts with a phenomena known as Faraday’s Law (of Induction). This phenomena, first discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831, is a foundation of modern radio and electromagnetics. This law describes how an electrical current flowing in a conductor creates a surrounding magnetic field, and how a changing magnetic field can create, or induce, a current in a conductor. This is how antennas pick up radio waves!

This image illustrates the magnetic field created around a conductor with a current flowing through it (Photo courtesy of http://www.tesla-institute.com)

The current pins of the ACS712 are internally connected to a big trace of copper, allowing a lot of electricity to flow through this part of the chip. When current flows through the copper strip, a magnetic field is created around the trace with a strength proportional to the current.

The Hall Effect

The next step in sensing current is based on the Hall effect - a very useful phenomena discovered by Edwin Hall in 1879. In basic terms, the Hall effect produces a voltage difference across a conductor in the presence of a magnetic field. This provides a neat way of sensing nearby magnetic fields and has many applications. Hall effect sensors are used in some car engines to detect where in a rotation cycle the camshaft or crankshaft are, for example.

This animation shows how a magnetic field creates a voltage difference. The blue circles are electrons flowing (Photo courtesy of http://www.explainthatstuff.com/hall-effect-sensors.html

The ACS712 has an internal Hall effect sensor placed next to the aforementioned copper strip. When current flows through this copper strip, a magnetic field is created. This magnetic field is then sensed by the Hall effect sensor and produces a voltage output that is proportional to the input current!

This shows how the current sensor looks internally (Photo courtesy of Allegro Micro)

This method of sensing allows the sensing circuit to be electrically isolated from the sensed circuit. Practically, this means that since the circuits aren’t physically connected, you can use a low-power Arduino to measure the current going through a high power device, even one that uses AC power!

Hardware Overview

This section will explore the various segments of the breakout.

ACS712 Breakout Details:

• Analog output with bandwidth adjustable to 80kHz.
• The bandwidth on the ACS712 Low Current Sensor Breakout with filter has been set to 34kHz to reduce noise when using at high gains. The full 80KHz bandwidth that the sensor is capable of can be recovered by removing C1. See schematic for more details.
• Measures DC and AC currents from around 10mA up to 5A
• Adjustable sensitivity with on-board amplifier, gain from 4.27 to 47 V/V
• The version without the op-amp has a base sensitivity of 185mV/A
• Full electrical isolation of measured and sensed circuits

Below is a list of all the pins broken out on the ACS712 and their function.

To measure a current using this device, the current must flow through the IP+ terminal and out the IP- terminal (it will work in the other direction, but the measurement will be negative). IE: These terminals must be in series with the circuit the measured current is flowing through. Note that both IP+ and both IP- terminals are connected to each other, you can use either (or both) of them.

This amplified version of the breakout board has two potentiometers on it: Vref and Gain

The Vref potentiometer sets the baseline voltage output. In other words, it adjusts the voltage seen at Vo when there is no current flowing through the sensor (0 mA). This allows the sensor to output negative current readings as well as positive.

Vref potentiometer, highlighted

The gain potentiometer sets the sensitivity of the device. For example, if the gain is set high, then a smaller current will cause the voltage output to increase more, giving you higher sensitivity and allowing you to sense smaller currents.

Gain potentiometer, highlighted

However there are a couple caveats:

1. With higher gain you will see more noise (spikes) on the output, so smaller currents will be harder to measure accurately.
2. If you are trying to measure larger currents with a high gain setting, your output will saturate or clip and reach the maximum 5V or 0V.

With that in mind, to get meaningful data from the current sensor, you must configure the Vref and gain potentiometers properly.

Calibration and Example Code

An example sketch for Arduino is included below to help you get started with the ACS712. It will help you set the potentiometers and perform calculations to convert raw ADC readings into the actual current in mA.

To properly calibrate the ACS712 breakout board, you should first consider what type and range of currents you will want to measure.

Choosing the Range

If you are going to be dealing mainly with DC, positive currents, you can adjust Vref to the lower end of its range. If you are trying to measure AC currents, you will want to keep Vref about in the middle at 2.5V. This lets your output swing equally in the positive and negative directions.

The gain setting will depend on the range of currents you want to measure. If you want to measure a current between 100mA and 500mA, you will want to set the gain so the sensitivity is something like 250mV/100mA (you will learn how to do this in the following steps).

Setting Vref

To get started, copy and upload the sketch below to your Arduino. You can also find the latest files in the GitHub repository.

language:c
/*  SparkFun ACS712 Demo
    Created by George Beckstein for SparkFun
    4/30/2017

    Uses an Arduino to set up the ACS712 Current Sensor
    See the product page at: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8883

    Parts you may need:
    - 100 Ohm, 1/2W or greater resistor OR two 220 Ohm 1/4 resistors in parallel
    - ACS712 Breakout with on-board amplifier

    Optional equipment:
    - Oscilloscope
    - Multimeter (or two)
    - A power supply with current limiting/constant current would be handy to calibrate the device without using resistors
*/

const int analogInPin = A0;

// Number of samples to average the reading over
// Change this to make the reading smoother... but beware of buffer overflows!
const int avgSamples = 10;

int sensorValue = 0;

float sensitivity = 100.0 / 500.0; //100mA per 500mV = 0.2
float Vref = 2500; // Output voltage with no current: ~ 2500mV or 2.5V

void setup() {
  // initialize serial communications at 9600 bps:
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
  // read the analog in value:
  for (int i = 0; i < avgSamples; i++)
  {
    sensorValue += analogRead(analogInPin);

    // wait 2 milliseconds before the next loop
    // for the analog-to-digital converter to settle
    // after the last reading:
    delay(2);

  }

  sensorValue = sensorValue / avgSamples;

  // The on-board ADC is 10-bits -> 2^10 = 1024 -> 5V / 1024 ~= 4.88mV
  // The voltage is in millivolts
  float voltage = 4.88 * sensorValue;

  // This will calculate the actual current (in mA)
  // Using the Vref and sensitivity settings you configure
  float current = (voltage - Vref) * sensitivity;

  // This is the raw sensor value, not very useful without some calculations
  //Serial.print(sensorValue);

  /*************************************************************************************
   * Step 1.)
   * Uncomment and run the following code to set up the baseline voltage
   * (the voltage with 0 current flowing through the device).
   * Make sure no current is flowing through the IP+ and IP- terminals during this part!
   *
   * The output units are in millivolts. Use the Arduino IDE's Tools->Serial Plotter
   * To see a plot of the output. Adjust the Vref potentiometer to set the reference
   * voltage. This allows the sensor to output positive and negative currents!
   *************************************************************************************/

  Serial.print(voltage);
  //Serial.print("mV");

  /*************************************************************************************
   * Step 2.)
   * Keep running the same code as above to set up the sensitivity
   * (how many millivolts are output per Amp of current.
   *
   * This time, use a known load current (measure this with a multimeter)
   * to give a constant output voltage. Adjust the sensitivity by turning the
   * gain potentiometer.
   *
   * The sensitivity will be (Vreading - Vref)/(known current).
   *************************************************************************************/

    /*************************************************************************************
   * Step 3.)
   * Comment out the code used for the last two parts and uncomment the following code.
   * When you have performed the calibration steps above, make sure to change the
   * global variables "sensitivity" and "Vref" to what you have set up.
   *
   * This next line of code will print out the calculated current from these parameters.
   * The output is in mA
   *************************************************************************************/

  //Serial.print(current);
  //Serial.print("mA");


  // -- DO NOT UNCOMMENT BELOW THIS LINE --
  Serial.print("\n");

  // Reset the sensor value for the next reading
  sensorValue = 0;
}

This sketch reads the voltage on pin A0 and prints it to the serial terminal. In later steps you will learn how to get actual current readings with this sketch.

To set up Vref, the sensor should have no current flowing through it! For this part, you only need to connect the ACS712’s GND pin to Ground, Vo pin to pin A0 on the SparkFun RedBoard (or equivalent), and 5V to the 5V pin on the RedBoard. If you have one available, it may be useful to also read the output voltage using a multimeter. See the Fritzing diagram below for more information:

Having a hard time seeing the circuit? Click on the wiring diagram for a closer look.

If you aren’t using a multimeter to set Vref, open up the Arduino IDE’s serial plotter by clicking Tools->Serial Plotter. This will show the voltage reading from the Arduino in real time. The units are in millivolts.

Turn the Vref potentiometer clockwise to increase Vref and counter-clockwise to decrease. Make small adjustments, as the adjustment is very sensitive!

In the Serial Plotter, you should see something like this:

Using the RedBoard and Arduino, you can plot the output voltage as you adjust Vref

Tune Vref to about where you want it, for example 2500mV.

Setting Gain and Sensitivity

To set the gain, you need to pass a known current through the sensor and tune the gain pot to achieve the sensitivity your application needs.

For example, if you want to measure between 100mA and 500mA, you should shoot for a sensitivity of around 250mV/100mA. To do this, you can pass 100mA through the sensor, and adjust the gain pot until the output voltage is 250mV above your set Vref.

For those of you who have a benchtop power supply with a current limiter/constant current (CC) mode, getting this 100mA current is easy. In this case, you can simply connect the positive terminal of the power supply to the IP+ pin and the negative terminal of the power supply to the IP- pin. Make sure your current limit is set to something reasonable (NOT above 5A), and turn the power on. Adjust the output to a constant 100mA current for use in adjusting the gain. Make sure your benchtop power supply won’t be damaged by shorting the outputs, read your supply’s user manual for more information

If you don’t have a power supply, all you need are some resistors (like in this nifty resistor kit, or these power resistors for more power dissipation). To make a fixed, known current, just use Ohm’s Law!

If you want a 100mA current from a 5V source you need (5/0.1) = 50Ω

You should keep in mind how much power your resistors can handle though! If not, they’ll end up a bit toasty… With 5V and 100mA, the power would be 500mW or 1/2W. The small resistors in the kit above can only handle 250mW or 1/4W at most. But, wait! A resourceful engineer knows you can still use the 1/4W resistors, you just need to split the power dissipation. By placing equal resistors in parallel, you can increase the maximum allowable power dissipation; each resistor just adds their power rating. IE: 1/4W resistor + 1/4W resistor = 1/2W capacity! Keep in mind that the equivalent resistance will be lower though.

500mW is still a lot of power for these 1/4W resistors, so I recommend using only 50mA to tune the gain, unless you have the power resistors linked to above.

To get 50mA from 5V, you need 100Ω. Using parallel resistances, you need double that, or around 220Ω. You may want to use your multimeter to make sure the current flowing through the circuit is indeed 50mA. The tolerances of resistors can alter this current. To measure current with your multimeter, make sure to connect it in series! To see a diagram of how to build the circuit for setting the gain, see the Fritzing diagram below:

Having a hard time seeing the circuit? Click on the wiring diagram for a closer look.

With a known, constant current flowing through the sensor, the gain can be adjusted. The same sketch can be used as last time. Open up the Serial Plotter again. To set the gain, disconnect one of the wires to break the current sensing circuit, when you reconnect it, see how much the output voltage increases. Subtract this from your Vref, to keep the voltage change (also known as delta). So, if you have 50mA flowing in the circuit, you want this change to be about 125mV for the 250mV/100mA sensitivity example. An example is shown below:

Adjust the change (Vdelta) to what you need it to be by tuning the gain potentiometer. As mentioned above, this affects the noise (spikiness) you see in the output:

As the gain increases, the spiky noise gets bigger (and the Vref changes slightly)

Once you have Vref and the sensitivity settings selected, you can modify the code in the example sketch to print out your current readings in milliamps! Follow step 3 in the code comments to learn how to do this. Make sure to change the sensitivity and Vref variables to what you have set so the code can calculate the current properly.

Resources and Going Further

The ACS712 sensor is ideal if you need to measure a small to moderate amount of current, especially if it’s AC current! For more information about the ACS712, check out the links below:

• ACS712 Datasheet
• Product GitHub Page
• Product Schematic

If you don’t need electrical isolation and want to measure smaller currents, check out the INA169 Breakout Board. And for even higher power applications, check out the Non-Invasive Current Sensor - 30A.

For more power related learning, check out the tutorials below:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

ZX Distance and Gesture Sensor SMD Hookup Guide a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t521

Introduction

The ZX Distance and Gesture Sensor is a collaboration product with XYZ Interactive. The innovative people at XYZ Interactive have created a unique technology that allows for simple infrared (IR) beams to be used to detect an object’s location in two dimensions.

The ZX Sensor is a touchless sensor that is capable of looking for simple gestures in the air above the sensor (e.g. swipe left or swipe right). Additionally, the sensor can also recognize the distance of an object away from the sensor at distances up to about 12 inches (30 cm), referred to as the “Z” axis, and the location of the object from side to side across the sensor in about a 6 inch (15 cm) span, referred to as the “X” axis.

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Covered in This Tutorial

We can use I²C or UART to communicate with the ZX Sensor. In this tutorial, we will show you how to connect the sensor to an Arduino or Arduino-compatible board as well as a computer so you can start creating gestures to handle all our your daily tasks or add some interactive flair to your project.

Materials Used

In addition to the sensor itself, you will need a few extra components to follow along with the Arduino examples:

If you would like to try the ZX Sensor on a Windows-based PC, you will need an FTDI Breakout:

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Recommended Reading

There are a few concepts that you should be familiar with before getting started with the ZX Sensor. Consider reading some of these tutorials before continuing:

• What is an Arduino?– Two of the examples use an Arduino to control the ZX Sensor
• I²C– I²C is the one of the protocols used by the ZX Sensor
• Serial Communication– We use serial communications to program the Arduino, view debugging information, and transmit data from the ZX Sensor
• How to Use a Breadboard– The breadboard ties the Arduino to the ZX Sensor
• How to Install FTDI Drivers– If you are programming an Arduino or using the ZX Sensor demo app, chances are you will need to use an FTDI

Board Overview

The ZX Sensor works by bouncing infrared (IR) beams of light from the two LEDs on either side off of an object above the sensor. The bounced light returns to the receiver in the center of the sensor, and a microcontroller on the back of the sensor interprets the data. We can read the results using an I²C or UART connection.

Pin Descriptions

The ZX Sensor gives us two ports to connect to: I²C and UART. You can see both ports are broken out to the 0.1" thru holes. See the table below for a list of each pin and its function.

Setting the Jumpers

The ZX Sensor has a couple of jumpers on the back of the board that can be opened or closed with a soldering iron.

I2C Pullups

The ZX Sensor, by default, comes with 4.7 kΩ pull-up resistors on the SDA and SCL I²C lines. Remove the solder on this jumper using solder wick to disconnect the pull-ups.

I2C Addr

By default, this jumper is open. Close it to change the I²C address of the sensor.

Hardware Hookup

Add Headers

Solder a row of male headers to the nine headers holes on the board.

To keep the board from tilting while soldering, place the unused break away headers sideways under the board.

Connect the Breakout Board

For the Arduino examples, we will be using I²C. Connect the breakout board to the following RedBoard pins:

Note that we connect the DR pin, but we will only use it in the Arduino: Gesture Example. DR stands for “Data Ready,” which is active high whenever data is ready to be read from the ZX Sensor. We can attach this to an Arduino interrupt so we don’t have to continuously poll the sensor.

Arduino Library Installation

All of the hard work for the ZX Sensor is being accomplished in the microcontroller on the sensor itself. All we need to do is read the results! We have created an Arduino library to make that even easier for you. Click the button to download the latest version of the ZX Sensor Arduino Library.

Download the ZX Sensor Arduino Library!

Unzip the downloaded file. Follow this guide on installing Arduino libraries to install the files as an Arduino library.

Arduino: ZX Example

Load the ZX Demo

Open up the Arduino program and select File → Examples → SparkFun_ZX_Distance_and_Gesture_Sensor → I2C_ZX_Demo.

Attach a USB mini cable from your computer to the RedBoard. If you have not previously done so, install the FTDI drivers.

For reference, here is the I2C_ZX_Demo.ino sketch.

language:c
    /****************************************************************
    I2C_ZX_Demo.ino
    XYZ Interactive ZX Sensor
    Shawn Hymel @ SparkFun Electronics
    May 6, 2015
    https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun_ZX_Distance_and_Gesture_Sensor_Arduino_Library

    Tests the ZX sensor's ability to read ZX data over I2C. This demo
    configures the ZX sensor and periodically polls for Z-axis and X-axis data.

    Hardware Connections:

     Arduino Pin  ZX Sensor Board  Function
     ---------------------------------------
     5V           VCC              Power
     GND          GND              Ground
     A4           DA               I2C Data
     A5           CL               I2C Clock

    Resources:
    Include Wire.h and ZX_Sensor.h

    Development environment specifics:
    Written in Arduino 1.6.3
    Tested with a SparkFun RedBoard

    This code is beerware; if you see me (or any other SparkFun
    employee) at the local, and you've found our code helpful, please
    buy us a round!

    Distributed as-is; no warranty is given.
    ****************************************************************/

    #include <Wire.h>
    #include <ZX_Sensor.h>

    // Constants
    const int ZX_ADDR = 0x10;  // ZX Sensor I2C address

    // Global Variables
    ZX_Sensor zx_sensor = ZX_Sensor(ZX_ADDR);
    uint8_t x_pos;
    uint8_t z_pos;

    void setup() {

      uint8_t ver;

      // Initialize Serial port
      Serial.begin(9600);
      Serial.println();
      Serial.println("-----------------------------------");
      Serial.println("SparkFun/GestureSense - I2C ZX Demo");
      Serial.println("-----------------------------------");

      // Initialize ZX Sensor (configure I2C and read model ID)
      if ( zx_sensor.init() ) {
        Serial.println("ZX Sensor initialization complete");
      } else {
        Serial.println("Something went wrong during ZX Sensor init!");
      }

      // Read the model version number and ensure the library will work
      ver = zx_sensor.getModelVersion();
      if ( ver == ZX_ERROR ) {
        Serial.println("Error reading model version number");
      } else {
        Serial.print("Model version: ");
        Serial.println(ver);
      }
      if ( ver != ZX_MODEL_VER ) {
        Serial.print("Model version needs to be ");
        Serial.print(ZX_MODEL_VER);
        Serial.print(" to work with this library. Stopping.");
        while(1);
      }

      // Read the register map version and ensure the library will work
      ver = zx_sensor.getRegMapVersion();
      if ( ver == ZX_ERROR ) {
        Serial.println("Error reading register map version number");
      } else {
        Serial.print("Register Map Version: ");
        Serial.println(ver);
      }
      if ( ver != ZX_REG_MAP_VER ) {
        Serial.print("Register map version needs to be ");
        Serial.print(ZX_REG_MAP_VER);
        Serial.print(" to work with this library. Stopping.");
        while(1);
      }
    }

    void loop() {

      // If there is position data available, read and print it
      if ( zx_sensor.positionAvailable() ) {
        x_pos = zx_sensor.readX();
        if ( x_pos != ZX_ERROR ) {
          Serial.print("X: ");
          Serial.print(x_pos);
        }
        z_pos = zx_sensor.readZ();
        if ( z_pos != ZX_ERROR ) {
          Serial.print(" Z: ");
          Serial.println(z_pos);
        }
      }
    }

Run

Make sure you have the correct serial port selected under Tools → Serial Port and “Arduino Uno” selected under Tools → Board. If you have never used the Arduino IDE before, this turoial should get you started.

Click the Upload button and wait for the program to finish uploading to the Arduino. Select Tools → Serial Monitor to open up the serial terminal. More info on the Serial Terminal can be found here. Note that the Serial Monitor settings are the default settings (9600, 8, n, 1). You should see a couple of messages noting that “ZX Sensor initialization complete.”

Hover your hand 4 to 10 inches (10 to 25 cm) above the sensor.

Move your hand around above the sensor, and you should see Z (height above the sensor) and X (position side to side) appear in the serial terminal.

Arduino: Gesture Example

Load the Gesture Interrupt Demo

In addition to providing Z- and X- axis data about an object, the ZX Sensor is also capable of detecting simple gestures. To see an example of this, open File → Examples → SparkFun_ZX_Distance_and_Gesture_Sensor → I2C_Gesture_Interrupt.

Here is the I2C_Gesture_Interrupt.ino sketch for reference.

language:c
/****************************************************************
I2C_Gesture_Interrupt.ino
XYZ Interactive ZX Sensor
Shawn Hymel @ SparkFun Electronics
May 6, 2015
https://github.com/sparkfun/SparkFun_ZX_Distance_and_Gesture_Sensor_Arduino_Library

Tests the ZX sensor's ability to read gesture data over I2C using
an interrupt pin. This program configures I2C and sets up an
interrupt to occur whenever the ZX Sensor throws its DR pin high.
The gesture is displayed along with its "speed" (how long it takes
to complete the gesture). Note that higher numbers of "speed"
indicate a slower speed.

Hardware Connections:

 Arduino Pin  ZX Sensor Board  Function
 ---------------------------------------
 5V           VCC              Power
 GND          GND              Ground
 A4           DA               I2C Data
 A5           CL               I2C Clock
 2            DR               Data Ready

Resources:
Include Wire.h and ZX_Sensor.h

Development environment specifics:
Written in Arduino 1.6.3
Tested with a SparkFun RedBoard

This code is beerware; if you see me (or any other SparkFun
employee) at the local, and you've found our code helpful, please
buy us a round!

Distributed as-is; no warranty is given.
****************************************************************/

#include <Wire.h>
#include <ZX_Sensor.h>

// Constants
const int ZX_ADDR = 0x10;    // ZX Sensor I2C address
const int INTERRUPT_NUM = 0; // Pin 2 on the UNO

// Global Variables
ZX_Sensor zx_sensor = ZX_Sensor(ZX_ADDR);
volatile GestureType gesture;
volatile bool interrupt_flag;
uint8_t gesture_speed;

void setup() {

  uint8_t ver;

  // Initialize gesture to no gesture
  gesture = NO_GESTURE;

  // Initialize Serial port
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println();
  Serial.println("---------------------------------------------");
  Serial.println("SparkFun/GestureSense - I2C Gesture Interrupt");
  Serial.println("Note: higher 'speed' numbers mean slower");
  Serial.println("---------------------------------------------");

  // Initialize ZX Sensor (configure I2C and read model ID)
  if ( zx_sensor.init(GESTURE_INTERRUPTS) ) {
    Serial.println("ZX Sensor initialization complete");
  } else {
    Serial.println("Something went wrong during ZX Sensor init!");
  }

  // Read the model version number and ensure the library will work
  ver = zx_sensor.getModelVersion();
  if ( ver == ZX_ERROR ) {
    Serial.println("Error reading model version number");
  } else {
    Serial.print("Model version: ");
    Serial.println(ver);
  }
  if ( ver != ZX_MODEL_VER ) {
    Serial.print("Model version needs to be ");
    Serial.print(ZX_MODEL_VER);
    Serial.print(" to work with this library. Stopping.");
    while(1);
  }

  // Read the register map version and ensure the library will work
  ver = zx_sensor.getRegMapVersion();
  if ( ver == ZX_ERROR ) {
    Serial.println("Error reading register map version number");
  } else {
    Serial.print("Register Map Version: ");
    Serial.println(ver);
  }
  if ( ver != ZX_REG_MAP_VER ) {
    Serial.print("Register map version needs to be ");
    Serial.print(ZX_REG_MAP_VER);
    Serial.print(" to work with this library. Stopping.");
    while(1);
  }

  // Initialize interrupt service routine
  interrupt_flag = false;
  zx_sensor.clearInterrupt();
  attachInterrupt(INTERRUPT_NUM, interruptRoutine, RISING);
  Serial.println("Interrupts now configured. Gesture away!");
}

void loop() {

  // If we have an interrupt, read and print the gesture
  if ( interrupt_flag ) {

    // Clear the interrupt flag
    interrupt_flag = false;

    // You MUST read the STATUS register to clear interrupt!
    zx_sensor.clearInterrupt();

    // Read last gesture
    gesture = zx_sensor.readGesture();
    gesture_speed = zx_sensor.readGestureSpeed();
    switch ( gesture ) {
      case NO_GESTURE:
        Serial.println("No Gesture");
        break;
      case RIGHT_SWIPE:
        Serial.print("Right Swipe. Speed: ");
        Serial.println(gesture_speed, DEC);
        break;
      case LEFT_SWIPE:
        Serial.print("Left Swipe. Speed: ");
        Serial.println(gesture_speed, DEC);
        break;
      case UP_SWIPE:
        Serial.print("Up Swipe. Speed: ");
        Serial.println(gesture_speed, DEC);
        break;
      default:
        break;
    }
  }
}

void interruptRoutine() {
  interrupt_flag = true;
}

Run

Upload the sketch, and open the Serial Monitor. You should see a message stating that initialization is complete.

Start with your hand off to one side (a “side” being the one of the infrared LEDs with the brass covers) about 4 to 10 inches (10 to 25 cm) above the sensor. Swipe your hand horizontally across the sensor so that your hand passes over the one infrared LED and then the next infrared LED.

If you performed the gesture correctly, you should see a message appear in the Serial Monitor.

Supported Gestures

Here is a list of the currently supported gestures. Make sure each gesture begins outside of the range of the sensor, moves into the range of the sensor, and ends outside the range of the sensor.

PC: ZX Example

The ZX Sensor, in addition to responding to I²C commands, continually transmits ZX data over its UART port. We can connect an FTDI Breakout directly to the ZX Sensor and read the output. You can use serial applications or the screen command (Linux or Mac) to view the output.

If you are on a Windows computer, you can use the demo application (linked below) provided by XYZ Interactive to test the ZX Sensor.

Setup

Connect the FTDI Breakout board to the ZX Sensor. Ensure the pins on the FTDI Brekaout line up with the pins on the ZX Sensor (e.g. GRN connects to GRN and BLK connects to BLK). Connect the FTDI Breakout to your computer with a USB cable.

Download the ZX Demo application, and unzip it.

Download the ZX Demo Application

Run

Double-click to run the ZX Demo application. Under “Input:” on the right side, drop down the list and select the COM port that corresponds to your FTDI Breakout (if you need a refresher on find the right COM port, check out this section of the Terminal Basics tutorial). You do not need to choose an “Output:” port.

Click Open to connect to the FTDI Breakout.

Move your hand around above the sensor, and you should see the red ball move.

Try out the other tabs in the application! The Z-Control tab lets your try moving your hand toward and away from the sensor, and the Gestures tab computes a few different gestures based on the Z- and X- data.

Resources and Going Further

After trying the basic ZX and gesture demos, you can try the other examples in the Arduino library. A description of each of the examples is given below:

• I2C_Gesture_Demo– Poll the sensor over I²C to see if any gestures have occurred.
• I2C_Gesture_Interrupt– The DR pin will go from low to high when a gesture is detected. This example reads the gesture over I2C and tells the sensor to clear DR.
• I2C_ZX_Demo– Poll the sensor periodically over I²C for Z- and X- axis data.
• I2C_ZX_Interrupt– The ZX Sensor will throw DR high whenever valid ZX data is ready.
• UART_Gesture_Demo– NOTE: Gestures over UART are not supported at this time. This demo is a placeholder for the time being.
• UART_ZX_Demo– Read Z- and X- axis data from a software serial port and display them on the Serial Monitor.

Resources

Here are some additional resources to help you with the ZX Sensor:

• ZX Sensor Datasheet
• Using the ZX Sensor with Arduino
• ZX Sensor Schematic
• ZX Sensor GitHub Repository
• ZX Sensor I2C Register Map

Other Tutorials

What will you make with the ZX Sensor? If you need some inspiration, check out these related tutorials:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

Marquee Party Bag a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t661

Introduction

The Marquee Party Bag is a purse embedded with several LED Matrices and a Lilypad Microcontroller. The LEDs are easily programmable for the user to convey marquee messages or to simply make beautiful patterns. In this tutorial we will go through the step by step process of making this project.

Required Materials

To follow along with this guide, you will need the following:

You Will Also Need:

• A small purse
• A hot glue gun
• Hot glue sticks

Suggested Reading

If you aren’t familiar with the following concepts, we recommend checking out these tutorials before continuing.

Hardware Overview

The two main components that the Marquee Party Bag use are the following:

• LilyPad Arduino USB - ATmega32U4 Board
• NeoPixel NeoMatrix 8x8 - 64 RGB LED

LilyPad Arduino USB

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LilyPad Arduino USB - ATmega32U4 Board

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The brains behind the Marquee Party Bag is an LilyPad Arduino USB - ATmega32U4 Board, a sewable Arduino-compatible microcontroller. It features the ATmega32U4. The LilyPad Arduino can be powered either from the USB connection or a 3.7V LiPo battery. The board runs at 3.3V; applying more voltage (e.g. 5V) to its pins may damage it.

The LilyPad Arduino uses only a single microcontroller (the Atmel ATmega32U4) to both run your sketches and communicate over USB with the computer. This means that you only need a USB cable to program the LilyPad Arduino USB (as opposed to an FTDI USB-serial adaptor as with other LilyPads). It is programmable via the Arduino IDE.

LilyPad Arduino USB - ATmega32U4 Board Technical Specifications:

NeoPixel NeoMatrix 8x8

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The NeoPixel NeoMatrix from Adafruit is a large board with 64 WS2812 RGB LEDs arranged in an 8x8 matrix. Each individual LED is addressable through your microcontroller.

There are two 3-pin connection ports to wire the NeoMatrix up. Solder wires to the input port, and provide 5VDC to the +5V and ground pins. Then connect the DIN pin to your microcontroller, and make a common ground from the 5V power supply to the microcontroller/Arduino.

Additionally, you can chain as many NeoMatrix panels together as you’d like. For the second panel, connect the DIN connection to the first panel’s DOUT. Connect the ground pins together and power with 5V.

Please refer to the NeoPixel Überguide for a more in depth view of Neopixels.

Hardware Assembly

To build your own Marquee Party Bag at home, you will need to collect all of your supplies fist.

The following diagram illustrates the circuit we will be putting together visually.

Having a hard time seeing the circuit? Click on the wiring diagram for a closer look.

Start by plotting out the position of your three matrices.

Solder the matrices in a row according to the Fritzing diagram above. I used all black wires to make them as invisible as possible.

When you finish this step, your three matrices should look like this:

Use your hot glue gun to glue the matrices onto the front of your bag.

Bend the three hook up wires from the first matrix around to the inner flap of the bag, and solder your connections according to the Fritzing Diagram above.

This inside flap of your bag should look something like this when you are done:

Now our circuit is done, and it’s time to move onto programming.

Software Installation

The LilyPad Arduino USB - ATmega32U4 Board is programmable via the Arduino IDE. If you have not yet downloaded this software, please visit our guide for installing the Arduino IDE.

If this is your first time working with neopixels, you will also need to download the Adafruit Neopixel Library.

For Arduino IDE users, click here to download a copy of the NeoPixel library along with some example code SparkFun has created.

Sample Code

I am providing two separate programs for you to work with. The first is the Marquee option. I have added a handful of comments in the code to show you how and where to edit for customization.

language:c
//Marquee Party bag by Melissa Felderman for SparkFun Electronics.
// Based on Adafruit_NeoMatrix example for single NeoPixel Shield.
// Scrolls 'PARTY BAG!' across the matrix in a landscapr (horizontal) orientation.

#include <Adafruit_GFX.h> //include graphics library
#include <Adafruit_NeoMatrix.h> //include neopixel matrix library
#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h> //include neopixel library
#ifndef PSTR
 #define PSTR // Make Arduino Due happy
#endif

#define PIN 2

Adafruit_NeoMatrix matrix = Adafruit_NeoMatrix(8, 8, 3, 1, PIN,
  NEO_MATRIX_TOP     + NEO_MATRIX_LEFT +
  NEO_MATRIX_ROWS + NEO_MATRIX_PROGRESSIVE,
  NEO_GRB            + NEO_KHZ800);

//Inlcude the colors that you would like your writing to reflect in the colors array
const uint16_t colors[] = {
  matrix.Color(255, 0, 0), matrix.Color(0, 255, 0), matrix.Color(0, 0, 255) };


void setup() {
  matrix.begin();
  matrix.setTextWrap(false);
  matrix.setBrightness(40);
  matrix.setTextColor(colors[0]);
}

int x    = matrix.width();
int pass = 0;

void loop() {
  matrix.fillScreen(0);
  matrix.setCursor(x, 0);
  matrix.print(F("PARTY BAG!")); //replace 'PARTY BAG!' with your personal message
  if(--x < -36) {
    x = matrix.width();
    if(++pass >= 3) pass = 0; //if you included more than three colors in the color array, change the number in the if statement to reflect that amount
    matrix.setTextColor(colors[pass]);
  }
  matrix.show();
  delay(100);
}

The second is a simple rainbow cycle.

language:c
//rainbow LED bag by Melissa Felderman for Spsarfun
//This sketch is an edited version of the Adafruit Neopixel Strand Test example code from the Neopixel Library.

#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>
#ifdef __AVR__
  #include <avr/power.h>
#endif

#define PIN 2


Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(198, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);


void setup() {
  // This is for Trinket 5V 16MHz, you can remove these three lines if you are not using a Trinket
  #if defined (__AVR_ATtiny85__)
    if (F_CPU == 16000000) clock_prescale_set(clock_div_1);
  #endif
  // End of trinket special code


  strip.begin();
  strip.show(); // Initialize all pixels to 'off'
}

void loop() {


  rainbow(20);
  rainbowCycle(20);
  theaterChaseRainbow(50);
}


void rainbow(uint8_t wait) {
  uint16_t i, j;

  for(j=0; j<256; j++) {
    for(i=0; i<strip.numPixels(); i++) {
      strip.setPixelColor(i, Wheel((i+j) & 255));
    }
    strip.show();
    delay(wait);
  }
}

// Slightly different, this makes the rainbow equally distributed throughout
void rainbowCycle(uint8_t wait) {
  uint16_t i, j;

  for(j=0; j<256*5; j++) { // 5 cycles of all colors on wheel
    for(i=0; i< strip.numPixels(); i++) {
      strip.setPixelColor(i, Wheel(((i * 256 / strip.numPixels()) + j) & 255));
    }
    strip.show();
    delay(wait);
  }
}



//Theatre-style crawling lights with rainbow effect
void theaterChaseRainbow(uint8_t wait) {
  for (int j=0; j < 256; j++) {     // cycle all 256 colors in the wheel
    for (int q=0; q < 3; q++) {
      for (int i=0; i < strip.numPixels(); i=i+3) {
        strip.setPixelColor(i+q, Wheel( (i+j) % 255));    //turn every third pixel on
      }
      strip.show();

      delay(wait);

      for (int i=0; i < strip.numPixels(); i=i+3) {
        strip.setPixelColor(i+q, 0);        //turn every third pixel off
      }
    }
  }
}

// Input a value 0 to 255 to get a color value.
// The colours are a transition r - g - b - back to r.
uint32_t Wheel(byte WheelPos) {
  WheelPos = 255 - WheelPos;
  if(WheelPos < 85) {
    return strip.Color(255 - WheelPos * 3, 0, WheelPos * 3);
  }
  if(WheelPos < 170) {
    WheelPos -= 85;
    return strip.Color(0, WheelPos * 3, 255 - WheelPos * 3);
  }
  WheelPos -= 170;
  return strip.Color(WheelPos * 3, 255 - WheelPos * 3, 0);
}

When you are ready, pick your program, copy it, and paste it into a new window in your Arduino IDE. Make sure the correct board is seleced by going to Tools > Board > Lilypad Arduino USB. Then, connected your Lilypad to your computer via USB. Turn the Lilypad on, and select the active port from Tools > Port. Now all you need to do is upload the program to your Lilypad by hitting the upload button!

Resources and Going Further

Now that you’ve successfully made your own Marquee Party Bag, it’s time to design your own LED animation! If you’d like to learn more about Neopixels, you should check out the Adafruit NeoPixel Überguide.

Need some inspiration for your next project? Check out some of these related tutorials:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

ESP32 Thing Power Control Shield Hookup Guide a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t656

Introduction

The ESP32 Power Control Shield offers a wide variety of options to control your next project. This shield enables the ESP32 Thing to switch up to 5A of a DC load between 5 and 28 volts.

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Required Materials

The wish list below includes all of the materials that will be utilized in this tutorial:

Suggested Reading

If you aren’t familiar with the following concepts, we recommend checking out these tutorials before continuing:

Hardware Overview

The ESP32 Thing Power Control Shield has a voltage range of 5-28VDC. Power can be connected in one of two ways. The first is the barrel connector, but with a maximum current rating of 2.5A it’s really only meant for light loads. The second option is on the three pin screw terminal (rated at 6A), which has connections for VCC, ground, and a 5V output. The supply voltage is regulated down to 5V to power the ESP32 Thing, as well as a fan to keep the board cool under heavy loads.

At the heart of the board, is the MC33926 motor driver by NXP Semiconductors. The driver is capable of switching loads between 5-28VDC up to 5A. While the board is theoretically capable of switching up to 30A total, the power traces in the board and connectors have only been tested up to 10A total across the 6 outputs pins.

Along with switching DC loads on and off, the MC33926 also has three built in current sensors, which are connected to outputs 2, 4, and 6. Each of the current sensors are connected to a LMV358 operational amplifier to adjust the gain of each current measurement. For more details, refer to the Hardware Assembly section.

For a list of all connections to the ESP32 Thing, refer to the table below:

Hardware Assembly

Soldering the pins

The first step in assembly is connecting the ESP32 Thing. Solder the male header pins from the top of the ESP32. Then solder the female header pins on the bottom side of the Power Control Shield. Make sure that the female header pin’s sockets are facing out from the top side. The top side of the Power Control Shield will have the relay, barrel jack, and screw terminals. When connecting the ESP32, make sure to align it to the Power Control Shield’s silkscreen for USB and BATT. These silk references correspond to the USB and battery connector on the ESP32 Thing. The correct orientation can be seen below after soldering the header pins.

Current Sense Gain

The MC33926 has a built in current sensor, which corresponds to 0.24% of the output current. Unfortunately, there is only one current sensor per driver which means current sensing is only supported on outputs 2, 4, and 6. For smaller loads, clearing the solder jumper with the iron and soldering in the appropriate feedback resistors for I2 gain, I4 gain, and I6 gain can maximize the sensitivity of the 12-bit analog to digital converter (ADC) built into the ESP32 Thing.

Use the table below for choosing the appropriate resistor values.

Keeping the Drivers Cool

As VCC and the current draw increases, the driver ICs can get pretty hot due to the MOSFET’s resistance that do the actual switching between VCC and GND. MOSFETs are often described as switches. Unlike a normal switch, the resistance between the drain and source pins when the MOSFET is on, often referred to as Rds(on), is a bit higher than a mechanical switch (around 225 mΩ). It doesn’t sound like much, but under full load the power that’s wasted as heat can be as high as 5.6W! If your drivers are getting hot, add a heat sink to the back of the board like the image shown below.

5V Bypass Jumper

A linear regulator (like the LM7805), can regulate any DC voltage from 7 to 35V down to 5V. If your supply drops below 7V, the output voltage will follow the input voltage up to 5V. To minimize the heat dissipation, a high efficiency DC-DC converter was used on the Power Control Shield to regulate the supply voltage down to 5V for powering the ESP32 Thing. Unfortunately, the output from the DC-DC converter will not turn on like a linear regulator if the input voltage drops below the minimum voltage. With the ESP32 Thing Power Control Shield, that minimum voltage of 7V and any voltage under that is not guaranteed to be sufficient for providing power to the ESP32.

What if the load needs to be at 5V? In that case, you should use the 5V bypass jumper that is shown in the image below.

When soldered closed, the jumper shorts the VCC and 5V power rails together, allowing you to bypass the regulator and power the ESP32.

Slew Rate

The slew rate jumper on the top of the board has two configurations to control how fast the output pins switch between on and off. The default mode has the solder jumper set to SLOW and it typically takes 3.0 us to switch states. You can cut the trace and add a solder jumper to switch to FAST mode. When the board is set to FAST, it can switch the state anywhere from 0.2 us to 1.45 us. If you are not using an inductive load (such as a motor), the default slow slew will create smaller current spikes when the load switches on or off.

The Unpopulated Parts

You may have noticed that there are quite a few unpopulated through hole parts on the board. The first three to mention are the resistors labeled I2 Gain, I4 Gain, and I6 Gain. These are the feedback resistors used in the non-inverting op-amps circuits that are discussed in detail in the Current Sense Gain section above.

Next is the capacitor connected to VCC and GND. As inductive loads (such as motors) turn on, there is a large current spike to charge the coils which can pull the supply voltage low enough that the power supply to the ESP32 Thing shuts off which can cause the microcontroller to reset. To keep the input voltage steady, you can add a large capacitor. The right capacitor depends on the size of the load, but any electrolytic capacitor larger than 100 μF should help. The pin spacing should be 2.5 mm, and the voltage rating should be at least the same as your supply voltage. Although, it’s good practice to use parts that are rated for 1.5 times the voltage you expect.

Lastly, there are 12 unpopulated diodes that are connected to either VCC or GND, and the output pins. The diode footprints are there for people that are planning on using inductive loads. As an inductor discharges, there can be a large voltage spike. If the spike is large enough, it can possibly damage the MC33926 driver. For that reason, it’s recommended to pick up and install 12 of our 1N5819 or 1N4001 diodes.

Software

Now that the shield is assembled, the only thing left to do is to throw some code on the ESP32!

LED Strips

LED strips have gained a lot of popularity in the last few years, from task lighting, to computer cases, and even home theater lighting. In this section, we’ll explore how you can use the ESP32 Thing with a Power Control Shield to control your LED strips.

For this example, we’ll be using the non-addressable LED strips (either 1m strip or 5m strip will do the trick). Because each strip has a red, green, and blue pin, you could easily connect two strips to the shield for different patterns at the same time. In this example, VCC is set to 12V. Start by connecting the 12V black wire of the LED strip to the screw terminal labeled VCC. Then connect the red wire to Output 1, green wire to Output 2, and the blue wire to Output 3. Upload the example code below to the ESP32. Once uploaded, you will be able to see the LEDs changing colors.

language:c
// Connect the BLACK wire to VCC (12V)
#define CTRL_1 25 // Output 1 (RED)
#define CTRL_2 18 // Output 2 (GREEN)
#define CTRL_3 23 // Output 3 (BLUE)

void setup() {
  // Initialize pins
  pinMode(CTRL_1,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(CTRL_2,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(CTRL_3,OUTPUT);

  // Assign the control pins to PWM channels 0-2
  ledcAttachPin(CTRL_1, 0);
  ledcAttachPin(CTRL_2, 1);
  ledcAttachPin(CTRL_3, 2);

  // Initialize PWM Channels
  // ledcSetup(uint8_t channel, uint32_t frequency, uint8_t bit_resolution)
  ledcSetup(0,10000,8);
  ledcSetup(1,10000,8);
  ledcSetup(2,10000,8);
}

void loop() {
  int rgb[] = {255, 255, 255};

  // ledcWrite(channel, duty)
  ledcWrite(0,rgb[0]);
  ledcWrite(1,rgb[1]);
  ledcWrite(2,rgb[2]);

  for(int i=0;i<255;i+=5)
  {
    rgb[0] = 0;
    rgb[1] = 255 - i;
    rgb[2] = 255;
    ledcWrite(0,rgb[0]);
    ledcWrite(1,rgb[1]);
    ledcWrite(2,rgb[2]);
    delay(25);
  }

  for(int i=0;i<255;i+=5)
  {
    rgb[0] = i;
    rgb[1] = 0;
    rgb[2] = 255;
    ledcWrite(0,rgb[0]);
    ledcWrite(1,rgb[1]);
    ledcWrite(2,rgb[2]);
    delay(25);
  }

  for(int i=0;i<255;i+=5)
  {
    rgb[0] = 255;
    rgb[1] = 0;
    rgb[2] = 255 - i;
    ledcWrite(0,rgb[0]);
    ledcWrite(1,rgb[1]);
    ledcWrite(2,rgb[2]);
    delay(25);
  }

  for(int i=0;i<255;i+=5)
  {
    rgb[0] = 255;
    rgb[1] = i;
    rgb[2] = 0;
    ledcWrite(0,rgb[0]);
    ledcWrite(1,rgb[1]);
    ledcWrite(2,rgb[2]);
    delay(25);
  }

  for(int i=0;i<255;i+=5)
  {
    rgb[0] = 255 - i;
    rgb[1] = 255;
    rgb[2] = 0;
    ledcWrite(0,rgb[0]);
    ledcWrite(1,rgb[1]);
    ledcWrite(2,rgb[2]);
    delay(25);
  }

  for(int i=0;i<255;i+=5)
  {
    rgb[0] = 0;
    rgb[1] = 255;
    rgb[2] = i;
    ledcWrite(0,rgb[0]);
    ledcWrite(1,rgb[1]);
    ledcWrite(2,rgb[2]);
    delay(25);
  }
}

Motor Control Current Sensing

This code allows you to control a motor using the current sensor connected to output 2. For this example, we we will be using a 90 RPM micro gearmotor with a wheel. We will be connecting VCC to a 12V power supply. Prepare the micro gearmotor by soldering wires to the terminals. Then attach the wheel to the shaft. Connect the wire that is attached to the “+” pin to OUTPUT 2. Connect the other wire to OUTPUT 1. Upload the code below to the ESP32.

language:c
#define CTRL_1 25 // Output 1 (Motor -)
#define CTRL_2 18 // Output 2 (Motor +)

void setup() {
  // Initialize UART
  Serial.begin(115200);

  // Initialize pins
  pinMode(CTRL_1,OUTPUT);
  pinMode(CTRL_2,OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  int adcVal = 0;
  boolean runMode = 0; // 0-Stop, 1-Run

  while(runMode == 0) // Forward
  {
    // Turn motor on
    digitalWrite(CTRL_1,LOW);
    digitalWrite(CTRL_2,HIGH);
    delay(250); // delay to prevent current spike from giving a false positive on the ADC

    // Sample I-Sense 2
    adcVal = analogRead(34);
    Serial.println(adcVal);

    if(adcVal > 100)
    {
      runMode = 1;  // Reverse
    }
  }

  // Stop motor
  digitalWrite(CTRL_1,LOW);
  digitalWrite(CTRL_2,LOW);
  delay(2000);

  while(runMode == 1) // Reverse
  {
    // Turn motor on
    digitalWrite(CTRL_1,HIGH);
    digitalWrite(CTRL_2,LOW);
    delay(250); // delay to prevent current spike from giving a false positive on the ADC

    // Sample I-Sense 2
    adcVal = analogRead(34);
    Serial.println(adcVal);

    if(adcVal > 100)
    {
      runMode = 0;  // Forward
    }
  }

  // Stop motor
  digitalWrite(CTRL_1,LOW);
  digitalWrite(CTRL_2,LOW);
  delay(2000);
}

When we hold the motor with one hand, and the spinning wheel with the other, the motor will draw more current as the motor slows down. Too much current, and the motor will stop, wait for two seconds, spin in the opposite direction, and repeat. By opening a serial monitor set to 115200, we can also observe the changes in current as the motor increases the torque. Without a feedback resistor for I2 Gain, the motor draws a small enough current, that the ADC value should be close to 0. When the torque increases, the current increases as well which results in a ADC value greater than 100. In robotics and home automation, measuring the current being delivered to a motor can provide a lot of information, like being stuck.

Resources and Going Further

Now that you’ve successfully got your ESP32 Power Control Shield up and running, it’s time to incorporate it into your own project!

For more information, check out the resources below:

• ESP32 Thing Power Control Shield Schematic
• Eagle Files
• MC33926 Datasheet
• SparkFun ESP32 Thing Power Control Shield Github Repo

Need some inspiration for your next project? Check out some of these related tutorials:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

LED PomPom Headbands a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t663

Introduction

Design and build time for each project: 30 minutes — 1 hour

In this project, we’ll create two versions of a wearable headband - one for beginners and one for more advanced makers. In the beginner project, we will make a simple circuit made of 8x - 10x Super Bright White LEDs wired in parallel and powered by a single rechargeable LiPo Battery.

In the more advanced project, we will make a more complicated programmable circuit using addressable LEDs, Arduino Pro Mini 5V/16MHz, and two LiPo batteries wired in parallel.

Suggested Reading

Before you get started with the beginner’s version, take some time to familiarize yourself with the following:

In order to follow along with the more advanced version, ensure that you are familiar with the following as well:

Materials and Tools

Let’s go over all of the things you’ll need to solder your project together.

Items required for the beginner LED PomPom Headband project:

Items required for the advanced LED PomPom Headband project:

For both options, you will also need the following supplies:

• Headbands (can be found at your local drugstore)
• PomPoms (available at most local craft stores)
• Hot glue gun (with extra glue)
• Soldering Iron
• Solder
• Hook up Wire (Black, Red, and White)
• Flush Cutters
• Wire Strippers

Understanding Your Circuit

The beginner PomPom Headband project is an example of a basic circuit– an electrical loop that travels from a power source along a path (i.e. wires, traces, or any conductive materials), through one or more component(s), and then back to the power source. For our project, we’ll use LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes). This electrical loop for the project is completed by soldering the LED’s leads together. In order to light the LEDs, electricity from the power source must flow from the positive (+) side of the battery through an LED and back to the negative (–) side of the battery. This electric flow is called current.

In this circuit, the LEDs are soldered in parallel. This means that all the positive leads will be connected together. Additionally, the negative leads will share another connection. Take a look at the LEDs and battery in the circuit diagram below. Notice that the leads on the left (cathodes -) are connected to ground on the power source and each other in black. Also notice that the bent leads on the right (anodes +) are connected to VCC on the power source and each other in red.

It’s important to keep in mind that certain electronic components have polarity, meaning electric current can only flow through them in one direction. If hooked up incorrectly, the LEDs will not light up. The battery is also polarized; it has a positive and negative side. Always check the to make sure that all your parts are correctly oriented before soldering together a circuit.

Having a hard time seeing the circuit? Click on the wiring diagram for a closer look.

The more advanced PomPom Headband project is a more complex circuit in that we are including a microcontroller - the 5V Arduino Pro Mini. This single board computer is the brains behind this project. The program we upload to the 5V Arduino Pro Mini will dictate the colors of addressable RGB LEDs. The exciting part about this project is that you can change your code as many times as you like to customize the colors for a specific event! Please refer to the below circuit diagram when soldering your parts together.

Beginner PomPom Headband

STEP 1:

Bend the leads of your LEDs to a 90 degree angle. Remember, LEDs have polarity, so make sure they are all facing the same direction.

STEP 2:

Solder the LEDs together in a parallel chain. All the anodes should be connected together on one side and all of the cathodes should be connected on the other side. If any of the LEDs are arranged incorrectly, they will not illuminate when power is applied.

STEP 3:

Solder the JST connector to the last LED on the chain. Remember, the battery also needs to align with the polarity, so make sure you have the anode and cathode connecting to the correct side of connector. You can figure this out by sticking the battery inside before soldering and noting which side is VCC and which side is ground.

STEP 4:

Test your circuit! Make sure that your circuit is working properly and lighting up before moving on to the next step. To test, plug the battery into the circuit.

STEP 5:

Hot glue the LED chain with the JST connector to the top of your headband.

STEP 6:

Insulate all exposed metal pins with hot glue.

STEP 7:

Hot glue your PomPoms on top of the LEDs. Through experimentation, I found that it looked better by adding the larger PomPoms at the crown of the headband and tapered the size down as I moved to the sides.

STEP 8:

Hot glue your battery to the bottom of the headband on the same side as the connector. Wrap the wires around the headband to secure and add a drop of glue to secure the wires. Make sure to leave some extra wire so that you can unplug the JST connector.

STEP 9:

Plug in the battery, and enjoy!

Advanced PomPom Headband

STEP 1:

Cut your addressable LED strip down so that you have 10x LEDs on one strip. Cut three strands of hookup wire and strip them using a wire stripper. Solder the hook up wire leads to the solder pads on the LED strip. Feel free to use some tape to help hold down the LED strip when soldering the wires. Make sure you are on the end that says DIN and not DOUT. We will be using these leads again in step 7.

STEP 2:

Add hot glue to the back of the LED strip.

Attach the LED strip to the top of the headband before the hot glue cools down and make sure to center it as much as possible. Set aside when complete.

STEP 3:

Prepare your Arduino Pro Mini by soldering headers to the plated through holes. Solder right angle headers to the FTDI headers at the top of the board (short side), and straight headers to plated through holes on the sides of the board (longer side).

STEP 4:

Break off a grid of 9x16 from the snappable protoboard. Solder your Arduino to it. Ensure that it is positioned so that there is one row of protoboard available on each side, and space for the programming headers.

STEP 5:

Add 2x JST connectors wired parallel using hook up wire. This means that you will need to connect the Arduino's Vcc pin to the red wire of BOTH batteries and the GND pin to the black wires of BOTH batteries. As a result, you will have a capacity of 800mAh for your power source. If you have an 800 mAH battery or above, you only need one JST Connector.

Step 6:

Before programming your Arduino, make sure to connect the 5V Arduino Pro Mini, 5V FTDI, and USB cable to your computer.

In order for this example code to work, you will need to install the Adafruit Neopixel Library. For Arduino IDE users, click here to download a copy of the NeoPixel library along with some example code SparkFun has created.

Program your Arduino by uploading the example code provided below.

//PomPom headband by Melissa Felderman for SparkFun
//This sketch is an edited version of the Adafruit Neopixel Strand Test example code from the Neopixel Library.

#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>
#ifdef __AVR__
  #include <avr/power.h>
#endif

#define PIN 2


Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(10, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);


void setup() {
  // This is for Trinket 5V 16MHz, you can remove these three lines if you are not using a Trinket
  #if defined (__AVR_ATtiny85__)
    if (F_CPU == 16000000) clock_prescale_set(clock_div_1);
  #endif
  // End of trinket special code


  strip.begin();
  strip.show(); // Initialize all pixels to 'off'
}

void loop() {

  rainbowCycle(20);

}



// Slightly different, this makes the rainbow equally distributed throughout
void rainbowCycle(uint8_t wait) {
  uint16_t i, j;

  for(j=0; j<256*5; j++) { // 5 cycles of all colors on wheel
    for(i=0; i< strip.numPixels(); i++) {
      strip.setPixelColor(i, Wheel(((i * 256 / strip.numPixels()) + j) & 255));
    }
    strip.show();
    delay(wait);
  }
}



// Input a value 0 to 255 to get a color value.
// The colours are a transition r - g - b - back to r.
uint32_t Wheel(byte WheelPos) {
  WheelPos = 255 - WheelPos;
  if(WheelPos < 85) {
    return strip.Color(255 - WheelPos * 3, 0, WheelPos * 3);
  }
  if(WheelPos < 170) {
    WheelPos -= 85;
    return strip.Color(0, WheelPos * 3, 255 - WheelPos * 3);
  }
  WheelPos -= 170;
  return strip.Color(WheelPos * 3, 255 - WheelPos * 3, 0);
}

STEP 7:

Find the hook up wire leads we attached to the LED strip in Step 1. Solder the DIN lead from the LED strip to pin 2 on your Arduino, GND to GND, and VCC to VCC. Since the snappable protoboards do not have metal traces connecting the pins together, you will need to add a solder bridge (similar to this example) between the holes to complete each connection.

STEP 8:

Test your circuit! Make sure that your circuit is working properly and lighting up before moving on to the next step. To test, plug in the LiPo battery into the circuit. If you used the provided code, your LEDs should animate with a rainbow spectrum that slowly flows from color to color.

STEP 9:

Glue down the back of the circuit to your headband as shown in the image below.

STEP 10:

On the same side, glue your battery to the very bottom and attach to the headband. Wrap the wires around the headband to secure the wires. Add an additional drop of glue to hold the wires down against the headband.

STEP 11:

Glue white PomPoms directly on top of the area covered by the LED strip.

STEP 12:

Plug in and enjoy!

Resources and Going Further

Looking for another project? Check out these similar projects for inspiration!

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

Spectacle Inertia Board Hookup Guide a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t634

Spectacle Inertia Board

The Spectacle Inertia Board makes it easy to sense motion or orientation with a Spectacle project.

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tl;dr (essentials)

1. The Inertia Board can sense motion, lack of motion, orientation, or acceleration.
2. It’s capable of either momentary triggers or continuous triggers.

Meet the Spectacle Inertia Board

The Spectacle Inertia Board is designed to allow a Spectacle project to detect its orientation, whether it is moving or stationary, or whether it is under acceleration.

It has two 1/8" (3.5mm) jacks for Spectacle control signals. Pay attention to the directionality of the jacks! The one labeled “In” should be plugged into a board that is closer to the Director Board than the Inertia Board is, or into the Director Board itself.

Suggested Reading

Before proceeding, you should read through the Spectacle User’s Guide. It will give you the basics you’ll need to know about how Spectacle works to follow the rest of this tutorial.

The Configuration Utility

There are three different actions which can be assigned to the inertia board, allowing you to sense several different options of motion and orientation. We’ll explain them one at a time below.

Sense All Motion

This action sends out a trigger when the board is either moving or stationary. When the board is moved, the trigger signal will be sent nearly immediately. When the board goes from moving to stationary, however, there is a delay of a couple of seconds before the trigger signal comes out.

• “if / while” - Determines whether the signal should happen only once, when the board starts or stops moving, or whether it should be constant any time the board is moving or not moving.
• “moving / stationary” - Should the signal be activated when the board starts moving, or when it stops moving?
• “activate channel number …” - Which channel do we want the signal to be on?

Sense Orientation

Another sensing application for the Inertia Board is orientation. Each face and edge of the Inertia Board has a name associated with it (A-D, Top, or Bottom). The board can output a signal when any of these sides is up, either only when it initially becomes face up or continually as long as it is face up.

• “if / while” - Determines whether the signal should happen only once, when the board first attains the orientation, or constantly, so long as the orientation is held.
• “ a b c d top bottom” - This is the side/face of the board which causes a signal to be sent when it’s on top.
• “activate channel number …” - Which channel do we want the signal to be on?

Measure Acceleration

The final sensing option is to measure acceleration. The output can be between 0 and 1000, depending on the acceleration of the board. The axis along which the acceleration is being measured is defined by the check boxes, and acceleration in a positive direction will be greater than 500 while a negative acceleration will be less than 500.

We recommend experimentation as the best way to figure out how this mode works.

Example Project

Let’s make a simple project using the Spectacle Audio Board and the Spectacle Inertia Board! We’ll set it up so that a sound is played whenever the Inertia Board is moved.

Connect the boards

To follow this tutorial, you’ll need this hardware:

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Wall Adapter Power Supply - 5.1V DC 2.5A (USB Micro-B)

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This is an 8 gig microSD memory card. It's perfect for massive datalogging without taking up a lot of space. These microSD ca…

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Note that you will need three of the TRRS cables!

First, plug one end of one of the TRRS cables into the “Direct” jack on the Director Board.

Next, take the other TRRS cable and plug it into the “Program” jack on the Director Board.

Take the other end of this cable and plug it into the audio jack of the phone, tablet, or computer that you’ll be using to program the system.

Plug the other end of that cable into the “In” jack on your Audio Board.

Plug the speaker into the Audio Out port on the Audio Board.

Take another one of the TRRS cables and plug one end into the “Out” port on the Audio Board…

…and plug the other end of that cable into the “In” port on the Inertia Board.

Finally, plug the Micro B end of the power adapter into the Director Board and the other end of the adapter into the wall. You should see one solid light and one blinking light on the Inertia Board and the Audio Board. On the Director Board, you’ll see one solid light and one light which blinks one time, then pauses, then repeats. This shows that power is present and the boards are up and running.

Setting up the board configuration

When you first visit the Spectacle configuration website, you’ll be presented with a screen that looks like this. Your project name will differ, however, as Spectacle assigns a new name to each project. To continue, we’re going to have to add our Audio Board to the project.

Click on the “Add a Board” button, as highlighted above, to bring up a list of available boards.

In the list, click anywhere in the “Audio” box to add an Audio Board to our project.

You’ll be returned to the main project page, but this time, an Audio Board will appear in the list on the page. Repeat these two steps to add an Inertia Board to the project.

Here you can see both boards in the list in place. Next we’ll need to add actions to the boards.

You can see highlighted above the clapboard icons which, when clicked, will take you to the “Actions” page, where you can assign an action to your board. Let’s start by assigning an action to the Audio Board.

An empty page will come up. There are no currently assigned actions, so we’ll need to assign some. Click the “Add an Action” button at the bottom of the page.

As you can see, the Audio Board only has one action. Click on “Play Sound” to add this action to your Audio Board.

Here are the various settings for the “Play Sound” action. Copy the settings as I’ve entered them into you project.

Click on the “Go Back” button at the bottom of the page to return to the main page, then click on the clapboard icon for the Inertia Board to add an action. When the empty list pops up, click the “Add an Action” button at the bottom to bring up the list of actions for the Inertia Board.

Here’s the list of actions for the Inertia Board. We want to detect when motion occurs, so click the first option, “Sense All Motion”.

Here’s the options page for the sense motion action. Note the choices I’ve made and duplicate them for your project, then click “Go Back”.

Congratulations! Your project is completed. Now let’s upload it to the Director Board.

Installing a project on the Director Board

Now that you’ve created your Spectacle program it’s time to upload it to the Director Board. If you followed the instructions above, your uploading device is connected to the board and ready to go, so all you need to do is touch the “Install Script” button at the bottom of the page. That will bring up the page seen below.

Make sure the volume on your device is turned all the way up, and that no other audio source (music, video, etc) is playing in the background. Then press and hold the “RST” button on the Director Board, press and hold the “PROG” button, then release the “RST” button.

This will put the Director Board into program mode. You’ll see the light on the board blink three times, pause, then repeat. This is your visual indicator that the board is in program mode. Once you’ve established that the board is in program mode, you can begin programming by touching the “Install” button on the Spectacle app screen. The button will gray out during the programming process, which should only last for a few seconds. Once programming is done, you’ll see the light on the Director Board blink 10 times, pause, then repeat. That’s your cue that the program was uploaded successfully.

Press the “RST” button again to reset the system and begin the program!

If you have any troubles, visit the troubleshooting page for help resolving your issues.

Further reading

For general Spectacle information, please check out the user guide:

Check out the additional Spectacle guides below:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

Spectacle Light Kit Hookup Guide a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t624

Introduction

The Spectacle Light Kit makes it easy to illuminate your next project at the push of a button!

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Suggested Reading

Before proceeding, you should read through the Spectacle User’s Guide. It will give you the basics you’ll need to know about how Spectacle works to follow the rest of this tutorial.

Spectacle Light Board

The Spectacle Light Board allows you to add some fairly complex lighting effects to your Spectacle projects. It has connections for up to three strands of addressable LEDs and a connector for external power.

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Spectacle Light Board

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tl;dr (essentials)

1. If more than approximately 10 pixels will be on at once, we recommend powering the Light Board through the onboard micro B USB port.
2. For smaller numbers of pixels, it is possible to power them directly over the Spectacle control cable.
3. Most of the LED effects want a continuous type signal, such as the Button board “Latch On/Latch Off” function.
4. Only WS2812 (NeoPixel) type addressable LED strips will work with the Spectacle Light Board.

Meet the Spectacle Light Board

Designed to make it easy to add relatively complex lighting effects to your Spectacle projects, the Spectacle Light Board integrates with the rest of the Spectacle ecosystem to allow you to control lighting effects relatively effortlessly.

It has two 1/8" (3.5mm) jacks for Spectacle control signals. Pay attention to the directionality of the jacks! The one labeled “In” should be plugged into a board that is closer to the Director Board than the Light Board is, or into the Director Board itself.

The Light Board supports up to three strands of addressable LEDs. Each strand can have up to 60 individual pixels. Not all types of addressable LEDs are compatible with the Spectacle Light Board. If you have questions about whether or not a particular type of LED strip is compatible with the Light Board, contact SparkFun technical support.

The Light Board has a Micro B USB connector to allow it to be directly powered by an external power supply. The relatively slender cables the Spectacle data travels over are not adequate for the large amount of current drawn by more than a few pixels.

Spectacle Button Board

The Spectacle Button Board allows you to add input from buttons or switches to your Spectacle projects. It has a total of 9 signal inputs, eight of which can come from external buttons and one button directly on the board.

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tl;dr

1. Buttons or switches can be connected to the board by pushing wires into the “poke home” type connectors on the board.
2. Up to nine signals are available.
3. Button signals can be either momentary or continuous.

Meet the Spectacle Button Board

Designed to bring simple signals from the world into your Spectacle projects, the Spectacle Button Board provides input for any of your Spectacle projects.

It has two 1/8" (3.5mm) jacks for connecting to other boards in a Spectacle system. Note that the Spectacle data jacks are directional: the one marked “In” should be plugged into the “upstream” board (i.e., closer to the Director Board than this one) and the one marked “Out” connects to the next downstream board.

There are 8 “poke home” connectors on the Button Board. Each one can be connected to one (or more) buttons. To add a connection, simply push the stripped end of a wire into the hole on the connector. The connector will automatically grab on and hold the wire in place. If you need to remove the wire later, an small object (bobby pin, ballpoint pen, etc.) can be used to depress the release button, allowing the wire to be extracted without damage.

There is an input button on the button board itself which can be used to provide an input signal if no other buttons are available. It functions like any other normal button that might be attached. Be certain you’re pressing the button labeled ‘8’ and not the one labeled ‘Reset’! Pressing the reset button will reset your button board, probably causing your entire system to stop working properly until you reset your Director Board!

The Configuration Utility

Spectacle Button Board

For the Button board, there are five options: three which produce a momentary pulse type output and two that produce a continuous switch type output.

Action on press

Trigger an action when a button is first pressed, regardless of how long it is subsequently held down.

• “When button number … is pressed” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “trigger channel number …” - A single, momentary pulse will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for starting a sound, initiating a motion, or setting the color of a light strip, but not for continuous sound playback or for turning on a light strip effect, for instance.

Action on release

Trigger an action when a button is released, regardless of how long it has been held down prior to being released.

• “When button number … is released” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “trigger channel number …” - A single, momentary pulse will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for starting a sound, initiating a motion, or setting the color of a light strip, but not for continuous sound playback or for turning on a light strip effect, for instance.

Action on press or release

Trigger an action when a button is pressed, then trigger the same action again when the button is released.

• “When button number … is either pressed or released” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “trigger channel number …” - A single, momentary pulse will be sent out on this channel both at the time the button is pressed and at the time it is released. It is suitable for starting a sound, initiating a motion, or setting the color of a light strip, but not for continuous sound playback or for turning on a light strip effect, for instance.

Action while holding

Trigger an event as soon as a button is pressed, then continue to trigger that event as long as the button is held down.

• “While button number … is pressed” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “activate channel number …” - A continuous will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for triggering and repeating a sound, or for turning on and keeping on (at least, while the button is held) a lighting effect.

Latch On/Latch Off

This action is like a latching power switch. One press turns the signal on, another later press turns the signal off.

• “While button number … is pressed” - This is the number of the button we wish to assign to this action. The button numbers are printed on the board, and run from 0 through 8.
• “activate channel number … until button is pressed again” - A continuous will be sent out on this channel. It is suitable for triggering and repeating a sound, or for turning on and keeping on a lighting effect.

Spectacle Light Board

The Light board supports 9 different actions. Most of them want a continuous-type signal input, although a couple of them can be used with momentary input signals. We’ll cover the difference under each action. Each action will have a field for the number of pixels the lightstrip that action is being applied to has, and we won’t mention it again.

Rainbow Effect

The rainbow effect displays a rainbow of colors across the strip, changing the color of each pixel indvidually to make it appear as though the rainbow is scrolling along the lightstrip.

• “While channel number … is active” - The rainbow effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “rainbow scroll lightstrip number …” - Select which lightstrip you wish the rainbow effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• scroll speed slider - controls how fast the pattern moves as it scrolls past.

Theater chase

Theater chase mode behaves like a marquee light border. The lights will march along making it appear as though the lightstrip is moving in steps.

• “While channel number … is active” - The theater chase effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “theater chase lightstrip number …” - Select which lightstrip you wish the theater chase effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• chase speed slider - controls how fast the pattern moves as it scrolls past.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights.

Scanning effect

Scanning mode sees a small group of lights bouncing back and forth along the length of the lightstrip, reminiscent of Cylons from Battlestar Galactica.

• “While channel number … is active” - The scanning effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “scan lightstrip number …” - Select which lightstrip you wish the scanning effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• scan speed slider - controls how fast the pattern moves as it scrolls past.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights.

Twinkle effect

Causes individual lights on the selected strip to perform a twinkling action.

• “While channel number … is active” - The twinkle effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “twinkle lightstrip number …” - Select which lightstrip you wish the twinkle effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights.
• speed slider - controls how fast the twinkles are moves as it scrolls past.
• magic slider - controls how magical the twinkles are. Play with it!

Lightning effect

Causes the entire strip to strobe in a manner that looks a lot like a lightning flash.

• “While channel number … is active” - The lightning effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “lightning on lightstrip number …” - Select which lightstrip you wish the lightning effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights.
• speed slider - controls how often the lightning strike occur moves as it scrolls past.
• fury slider - controls how furious the lightning is. Play with it!

Flame effect

Causes the entire strip to crackle like a fire.

• “While channel number … is active” - The flame effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “make fire on lightstrip number …” - Select which lightstrip you wish the flame effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• color picker input - allows you to select the color of the lights. Experiment with different colors!

Fade effect

The lightstrip will change from one color to another over time, then back to the first.

• “While channel number … is active” - The fade effect persists only while the channel is active, so a continuous input signal is needed.
• “fade lightstrip number … back and forth” - Select which lightstrip you wish the fade effect to operate on. To have the same effect on multiple lightstrips, you must create multiple actions.
• “from color” color picker - This is the initial color that the lightstrip will power up with.
• “to color” color picker - The other color, which the strip fades to and from periodically.
• “fade speed” slider - Controls how fast the fading action occurs.

Fill

Fills some number of lights on the light strip with a single color. Blanks the other lights to off.

• “listen to channel number …” - A momentary signal on this channel is all that is needed to trigger a fill operation, and the fill will persist until another effect starts.
• “wait for … seconds” - This delay allows for sequencing effects. Most often you’ll probably set it to 0.
• “clear lightstrip number …” - Select the lightstrip to operate upon.
• “and fill … pixels” - The number of pixels, from closest to the Light board out, to turn on.

Light pixel

Turns on one light and blanks the rest of the lights to off.

• “listen to channel number …” - A momentary signal on this channel is all that is needed to trigger a light pixel operation, and the lit pixel will persist until another effect starts.
• “wait for … seconds” - This delay allows for sequencing effects. Most often you’ll probably set it to 0.
• “clear lightstrip number …” - Select the lightstrip to operate upon.
• “and light pixel number … ” - The number of the pixel, from closest to the Light board out, to turn on.

Example Project

Let’s use the contents of the Spectacle Light Kit to put together a working project! We’re going to use the Button Board to control the Light Board’s “Scanning Effect” action.

Connect the boards

Start by connecting up the boards. All the hardware you’ll need came with the kit.

First, plug one end of one of the TRRS cables into the “Direct” jack on the Director Board.

Next, take the other TRRS cable and plug it into the “Program” jack on the Director Board.

Take the other end of this cable and plug it into the audio jack of the phone, tablet, or computer that you’ll be using to program the system.

Then take the other end of the first TRRS cable and plug it into the “In” jack on the Button Board.

Grab another of the TRRS cables and plug it into the “Out” jack on the Button Board.

Plug the other end of that cable into the “In” jack on your Light Board.

Now plug your lightstrip adapter cable into the Light Board…

…and plug the lightstrip into the other end of that adapter.

Finally, plug the Micro B end of the power adapter into the Director Board, and the other end into the wall. You should see one solid light and one blinking light on the Light board and the Button board. On the Director Board, you’ll see one solid light and one light which blinks eight times, then pauses, then repeats. This shows that power is present and the boards are up and running.

Setting up the board configuration

When you first open the Spectacle app webpage, this is what you’ll see. Your project name will differ from mine, as Spectacle assigns a random name to each project.

To continue, we must tell the project which boards we wish to use. Start by clicking the “Add a board” button at the bottom of the page.

This will bring up a list of the available boards. We’re going to add our button board first of all, so click anywhere in the “Button” box to add it.

Now, repeat this process one more time to add a Light Board.

You should now have a list that looks like this. Order is important, so make sure your boards are in the same order as shown above. Names are not important, however, and your boards will have different names than mine do, as Spectacle assigns names randomly.

Each board has a clapboard icon associated with it. To add or edit actions, click this icon. We’re going to start by adding an action to the button board.

The window that pops up will look like the above. Click the button highlighted in the image below to add an action to the Button Board.

This list will come up. It represents all the different actions which can be performed by a Button Board.

Click on the list entry which says “Latch On/Latch Off”.

You’ll then see this screen, which presents the various options for the Latch On/Latch Off action. Every action will have different settings.

Here are the settings we need to use for this project. We want button 8 (the button on the Button Board) to activate channel 0 when pressed. Later on, we’ll tell our light board to watch channel 0 and do something when it’s active.

Now click on the “Go Back” button to return to the main page. Your action changes will be saved automatically.

We’re back at the main page, now, and you can see that the action we added appears under the Button Board in the boards list.

Now click on the clapboard icon for the Light Board to add an action for the button to trigger. When you click the “Add an Action” button, you’ll be presented with this list of actions that the Light Board can perform. We’re going to choose the “Scanning Effect” action.

This screen will pop up, albeit without any of the entries in the fields. Go ahead and set up the fields as I’ve shown them above, then click the “Go Back” button.

Congratulations! You’ve finished the configuration step of the process. Now it’s time to move on to loading the project onto your Director Board.

Uploading

Now that you’ve created your Spectacle program it’s time to upload it to the Director Board. If you followed the instructions above, your uploading device is connected to the board and ready to go, so all you need to do is touch the “Install Script” button at the bottom of the page. That will bring up the page seen below.

Make sure the volume on your device is turned all the way up, and that no other audio source (music, video, etc) is playing in the background. Then press and hold the “RST” button on the Director Board, press and hold the “PROG” button, then release the “RST” button.

This will put the Director Board into program mode. You’ll see the light on the board blink three times, pause, then repeat. This is your visual indicator that the board is in program mode. Once you’ve established that the board is in program mode, you can begin programming by touching the “Install” button on the Spectacle app screen. The button will gray out during the programming process, which should only last for a few seconds. Once programming is done, you’ll see the light on the Director Board blink 10 times, pause, then repeat. That’s your cue that the program was uploaded successfully.

Press the “RST” button again to reset the system and begin the program!

If you have any troubles, visit the troubleshooting page for help resolving your issues.

Further reading

For general Spectacle information, please check out the user guide:

For more Spectacle fun, check out the additional tutorials below:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

Spectacle Example: Super Mario Bros. Diorama a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t638

Introduction

Spectacle is designed to make complicated electronics projects simple, so you can focus on what you do best: making cool things!

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to make an animated diorama (with sound effects!) using Spectacle.

Techniques of note

We created the tiles for the diorama using this project from Thingiverse. We 3D printed the tiles, then painted them accordingly.

The layout was designed in Inkscape, then etched into the wood with a laser cutter. The laser cutter was also used to cut out the slots that the moving pieces ride up and down in. Of course, this step is optional. The tiles could easily be placed by hand, and the cuts could be made with a hobby knife or similar woodworking tool.

Prior Reading

This tutorial assumes a basic familiarity with the Spectacle system. If you haven’t yet, read the following tutorials for all the basic information you’ll need to know to get this project going:

Animating the Diorama

To animate the diorama, we 3D printed a longer arm for the servo motor. The length of the arm must be approximately equal to the linear distance the moving component is expected to cover.

We then attached a piece of 0.020" (0.5mm) music wire to the end of the arm. The wire must be affixed in such a way that it can rotate freely as the arm moves. We passed it through a hole in the arm and bent it to a shape that will be retained by the hole.

The other end of the wire was affixed to the slide mechanism to which the tiles were glued. In that case, a small loop is printed on the back of the slide mechanism and the wire is again bent into a shape that will be retained by that loop. The wire is rigid enough to push the tiles into a new position, but flexible enough to bend when the stop is hit.

Adding Sound

We elected to keep the sound simple for this project, using the delaying mechanism of the Audio Board to trigger the sounds at the appropriate time rather than trying to trigger the sound by having Mario hit another switch.

Finding sound effects is left as an exercise for the reader, to prevent possible copyright or trademark issues. A quick web search will turn up sound effects for most projects, however.

Spectacle Project

The Spectacle project for this setup is very simple. It consists of a Button Board, a Motion Board, and an Audio Board. We’ll just give you the pages of the project here, rather than walk you step-by-step through making a Spectacle project. Below, find the main page of the app, with all the boards in place. Remember that the order the boards are connected in must match the order they appear in the app list in.

Here are the settings for the Button Board. Note that, although we’re triggering four separate actions, we only need to have a signal on one channel.

Here we see the Motion Board settings. You’ll note that there’s a slight delay between receipt of the triggering signal and activation of the first motion. That accounts for the brief delay between triggering the Sound Board and the sound actually playing. The sliders are opposite because the position of the motors is mirrored on the inside of the project.

Finally, here are the settings for the two sound events on the Sound Board. By layering them like this, we create the illusion of triggering the second sound when Mario hits the block without having to put a switch on that block.

Note that these are timing values for my system and you’ll probably have to change them if you do your own. I figured these out by playing around with it a bit.

Further reading

For general Spectacle information, please check out the user guide:

For more Spectacle fun, check out the additional tutorials below:

learn.sparkfun.com |CC BY-SA 3.0 | SparkFun Electronics | Niwot, Colorado

LIDAR-Lite v3 Hookup Guide a learn.sparkfun.com tutorial

Available online at: http://sfe.io/t671

Introduction

The LIDAR-Lite v3 is a compact optical distance measurement sensor, which is ideal for drones and unmanned vehicles.

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LIDAR is a combination of the words “light” and “RADAR.” Or, if you’d like, a backronym for “LIght Detection and Ranging” or “Laser Imaging, Detection, and Ranging.” At it’s core, LIDAR works by shooting a laser at an object and then measuring the time it takes for that light to return to the sensor. With this, the distance to the object can be measured with fairly good accuracy.

By sweeping or spinning a LIDAR unit, systems can create detailed distance maps. Survey equipment, satellites, and aircraft can be equipped with complex LIDAR systems to create topographic maps of terrain and buildings. Luckily, Garmin™ has created a user-friendly LIDAR unit for your robotics and DIY needs!

Note that this uses a Class 1 Laser, if you are concerned about your safety (in short: A Class 1 laser is safe under all conditions of normal use).

Required Materials

To follow along with this project tutorial, you will need the following materials:

Suggested Reading

If you aren’t familiar with the following concepts, we recommend checking out these tutorials before continuing.