arduino minis etc

[jordan_bench10]

Anyone any experience woth these ? Isnt these what the tamiya mfcs are made with ?

[Tamiyacowboy]

Anyone any experience woth these ? Isnt these what the tamiya mfcs are made with ?

 

 

Arduino /  nano-due-uno-mega 

 

the due and uno are nearly the same, small size micro controllers running 328 chip

the mega boards have more I/O porting and analog pins they also come with a faster micro controller

and more memory in terms of kb . the nano are just that a shrinked down sized UNO ( but without any change in i/o or anolog outputs-inputs)

 

atmel - tiny -sli labs 

 

the above are three chips used in these systems, others will use ARM based chipsets.

sli labs controllers are usually found in high end ESC's ( the likes of afro esc , etc etc)

but ESC's will and can have a atmel based core in the system, they all do a same job.

some better than others (SLI labs are more known for flashing with upgrade firmware on quadcopters)

 

So what do these things do ? 

 

control servos, sensors etc etc, they are like a prototype base, where you can build up circuits and test them 

in a closed enviroment (ie not the internet of everything).

Your fancy Lipo battery charger, at the heart of your charger is a micro controller just like an arduino.

Those fancy flying quadcopters that nutter tamiyacowboy and all those guys fly ? yeah quadcopters/drones and even james may

have used arduino to control and fly aircraft. 

 

what could they be used in ? 

 

TANKS - CAR- TRUCK-BUGGY- Tracked machines - aircraft - helicopters - weather stations - astronomical telescopes

quadcopters - drones - lipo chargers - esc's - rc sound/rc lights , the list goes on and on.

 

here is an idea for a Kers system on a RC F1 car.

 

the controller runs a RFID loop, its looking for a radio signal like a security tag on clothes.

the controller is hooked to a small servo and in turn this is hitched to a moveable wing flap.

the car drives round the track and at a certain point, the controller activates due to the RFID signal.

this allows user to engage the rear Kers system and release the wingflap to an open position , when signal is lost

the system auto shuts down and closes the Kers wing.

 

you monster truck, 

 

inside we hook up an arduino, we want to control the esc , but not via a handset, lets go bluetooth

and control the truck with our andriod phone. yes its possible, and with added sensors, you could also have direction 

as where you are compass wise, we could also use a barometer to measure temp or altitude.

we could use some gyros to tell us the incline the machine is on and its declanation to.

 

 

if you want to play with arduino, you need to learn and that is what they are used for, as a teaching device and more.

they let you have your own freedom,  simple things for making an led flash on and off to making a solar tracking sun panel with a few rc servos

Edited November 24, 2014 by Tamiyacowboy

[Tamiyacowboy]

if your wanting something to mess about with. 

 

arduino is all good, but its just the micro contoller on its own with usb.

add-ons come in the form of modules called breakout boards. these are small devices like say a GPS dongle

or a voltage regulator - converter.

 

Soldering ?, yeah a couple asked me do you have to have a solder gun. the answer is NO most of the time

but some breakout boards you need to build yourself so a soldering iron is handy as always. 

 

ok so no soldering , well how do you tami make a connection, 

thats simple we use what is called a bread board. it is a plastic board with lots of little holes in.

here you can push in an led, a capacitor  and a diode. i can charge up the capacitor, and tell the arduino

so pulse a signal to the LED, when turned on the capacitor charges the circuit and lights the led.

i can also bridge pins on the arduino using wires with each end bare and twisted, or purchase arduino wires.

 

quadcopter controllers like a multiwii controller are an arduino and a Wii fit dongle and control gutted out and its parts removed.

they are also cheap, you can pick up old boards for next to nothing (14 quid upwards)

they come with a gryo accel and sometime compass and barometer already populated on the board.

the only difference is the computer code controlling it. you can UPLOAD a new code and tell the quadcopter controller to now be something differnet.

a weather station. right now my old quadcopter controller (multiwii) had been installed with arduino. when its turned on it thinks its an arduino

with some fancy sensors already plugged in to use 

 

arduino lets you add-on extras, like a gps to pinpoint its location or beam the location to a home base/laptop/phone.

bluetooth means you can talk to the controller and it will talk to you back. low pressure or high pressure, what way the device is sitting ie north south east or west.

andif its tilted left-right or up or down.  they all DO one thing and thats control or turn on and off a different device in the chain.

Lcd screen you can add one of these to and see in real time, use it to navigate the system onboard. 

for sound you would want a speaker, a breakout sd card module ( to save the soundfile) and an amplifier to boost the signal to speaker.

maybe a poteniometer to adjust the sound volume, and a signal, here we could pinch the signal from the throttle channel on the rx or the 

signal wire on the servo lead from an esc. no throttle signal no sound. some throttle signal and you get a tickover engine sound, as you turn up throttle signal

you then get engine running powered sound.

 

there are many things one can do with a controller , but the first milestone is uploading your code to it and then making say an LED flash.

then making a servo work, then two servos or three. after that you can make led signal lights, and build your tinkering skills

Edited November 24, 2014 by Tamiyacowboy

[jordan_bench10]

I know theyre used all over the world for various things

However i dont want to splash out on an mfc if it can be done cheaper with a little time and patience so i would be willing to learn to programme these but i want to jump in and the deep end as i want it out the way lol

As ive purchased another big rig id like be able to do my 1st one before id decide whether i go down the mfc route for the 2nd or make my own again

I shall sign up to the arduino forum later on and have a read into deep explanations of how this can all be done

[Tamiyacowboy]

here you are a couple videos showing sound and wav file playing via a arduino

 

 

[jordan_bench10]

So i know id need a sd breakout board

A speaker controller and a signal what else do i need ? What connectors fo the boards work on ?

[Tamiyacowboy]

ok you need. 

 

a speaker 

an arduino nano - uno - mega 

a arduino SD card shield

a arduino BreadBoard. 

 

Connectors, just grab some coated wires, cut them to about 10cm in length and 15cm in length.

strip both ends and give them a good twist, these are your connectors. 

 

your arduino can power itself via USB or via an seperate battery. just go with usb at this point in time.

 

what your going to do is save a wave file (sound file ) to your SD card, then your going to play that sound in a loopback

on your arduino. its going to read the sd card and send the data to the speaker as sound.

 

Your Breadboard, think of this as a workbench , its got pos and neg voltage when connected to a powersource.

and those holes are your connectors,, you push in your chips / resistors - diodes - capacitors - regulators and use your wire leads

as connections, the bigger the board the more space you have to work, ist less fiddley to.

 

once you have your circuit on your breadboard you can power it up run your code, and see if all works.

add new sections like dedicated regulated power or even add a volt-amp meter, plug in an lcd to have a realtime view

or use it to help programming. you can then goto a PCB breadboard and build your circuit in a smaller version, just mounting everything closer.

as these boards are copper coated you can solder your work together bridging the gaps to make connections 

 

size in not a worry you can find small plastic breadboards to about 7cm in length and 5cm width so fairly small.

[jordan_bench10]

Thanks tamiyacowboy my next confusion is i can solder led lights to the board etc but how do i get these to work in direction ways

Half light full light off eyv

[Tamiyacowboy]

what we do is called multiplexing and charlieplexing. its a way of controlling the led's to come on when you want. 

 

have a look at this site about charliplexing an led cube. it shows you how to make the cube, how to connect it to your arduino pins

and how to control the cube with the arduino. turning on combinations and singles

 

http://aglick.com/charliecube.html

 

a simple way is what we call a digitalwrite 

 

we set the pins on the arduino as output, then send a signal to it

like digitalwrite=1 / time 1000 / digitalwrite=0 

 

the led comes on for 1 second then turns off . now lets say we want the led to shine constant

all we do is tell it to turn on and off very fast , about 25,000 a second and upto 60,000 times a second.

now we add the word loop into the code lines and it runs 24/7 until its told to turn off.

 

so you end up with your led lights doing this and dancing to code

 

 

now it does not have to be a 3d cube you can do this to a flat set of leds. or even leds mounted into your car/truck

Edited November 29, 2014 by Tamiyacowboy