Lab progress (G+ post)

Decided to turn the unused room in the basement into a lab, built this bench. Got a computer set up there and drivers working for AVR programming. Gathering all the random bits and pieces from all over into one place.

( G+ comments after cut )

Electronics thinking

Now that I have a proper place to work, I'm trying to get my electronics neurons started up and firing.

I wired up a cable from the computer at the lab bench and measured the output from the annoy-o-tron that Tulio gave me a year or two ago. Reproducing it with a microcontroller doesn't look too hard. I'll be working on that later.

I was just LED shopping, and I had a realization slap me upside the head; for some stupid reason I had it stuck in my head that you couldn't charlieplex common anode/cathode LEDs (like RGB LEDs). A part of my brain said "of course you can, you dolt." I had to go sketch for 5 minutes to prove it to myself, but of course, you can. I think I was just thinking linearly, wanting the mapping between output lines and row/column to be uniform between different colors. This is just silly.

Totally my fault for allowing a stray thought getting into my head and blocking up stuff for a long time.

There are, of course, a few limitations. The rule for number of LEDs runnable per output line doesn't hold exactly since you have to get enough lines to run groups of 3 (for RGB LEDs) at a time, but that's fine.

There are some RGB LEDs on the market for relatively cheap (20 cents each or so), so I'm going to start playing with some. The only thing is that the 3v lithium cell ain't going to work for blue LEDs, but I have a plan for that as well.

I really need to get a solid charlieplexed PWM fade subroutine developed. Developing more knowledge of interrupt routines is in order.

I also need to start toying with driving some alternative output devices like motors and voice coils, and using some input devices like microphones, accelerometers, light sensors and such. I've got ideas for stuff that will need all of those things (not all at once though).