Earlier in the week my chips showed. They came from California, not from up the street. Wow, they are tiny, but that is ok. I've decided this is going to be a prototype, and if things are working, I'll do a board layout, and have a short run of boards made. Maybe do a kit, if anyone wants one. This being a holiday weekend (Thanksgiving), I didn't do anything but think about things.
I did go look a new phones. I am really excited about the Galaxy Note II. Close to a tablet, but then it is still a phone. It does fit in my pocket, and the stylus seems really useful. I played with one at the mall on Friday, and I really liked it. More to learn, but overall the same Android that I know and love. More to see and a smooth briht screen.
Speaking of Android vs. Apple again, one of the other Cozy builders talked with one of the autopilot manufacturers who said, Apple doesn't want liability for any control software, so Apple won't let anyone add an autopilot app to the iTunes store. My comment was, the Android eco-system is just getting ramped up, with multiple sizes and configurations. Unless Apple has something significantly better than Siri, they are always going to be playing catch-up to Android.
Discovery Board - Autopilot
Hack-a-day again cam through. They had links to the STM discovery F3 board Linux tool chain. Not for building Linux on the board, but for building apps for the board in Linux. The board has been sitting in my bedroom on my night stand for the last month. I was excited about getting it, but no time. Hopefully some time will be available real soon now, especially with the availability of OpenOCD for the F3 ready to go.
The DIY Drones guys had a Black Friday sale. I was looking and thinking, they have whole FMC (flight management computer) for about $150 on sale. I certainly can't build one for that much, including software, given my time.
My Christmas wish...more time, and closer to my airplane.
happy holidays
tom
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
I just gotta say something...
A product review, if you will.
I got an "Fly Air Mouse" for the Mk808, and am mostly unhappy with it. The accuracy isn't that good, and it doesn't function all the time. The keys bounce, and the some of the buttons don't always do what it says.
There is a nice bluetooth to USB dongle that just plugs in the Mk808 and it all woks fine. The instructions aren't really clear. You need to push the Android button down half way, to use it like a mouse. The full press means select, similar to the left mouse button, but it doesn't always work.
There is a full keyboard on the device, that can be very nice. searching for netflix videos, or entering something in a web site. You need to be careful, the keys bounce. You might be typing in a simple word, say "columbus" and it comes out "ccollumbbuus". I am never sure, and still pressing the delete or back space, and that key will bounce. Getting back to the first "c" may erase the whole word.
Actually I think the best thing would be a simple wireless mouse. The on screen keyboard on the Mk808 is really solid, and almost everything can be done with the left mouse button.
I don't want to complain about anything, or make the world think that this is completely useless. It can be usable, but I probably won't use it much.
That is all for tonight.
tom
I got an "Fly Air Mouse" for the Mk808, and am mostly unhappy with it. The accuracy isn't that good, and it doesn't function all the time. The keys bounce, and the some of the buttons don't always do what it says.
There is a nice bluetooth to USB dongle that just plugs in the Mk808 and it all woks fine. The instructions aren't really clear. You need to push the Android button down half way, to use it like a mouse. The full press means select, similar to the left mouse button, but it doesn't always work.
There is a full keyboard on the device, that can be very nice. searching for netflix videos, or entering something in a web site. You need to be careful, the keys bounce. You might be typing in a simple word, say "columbus" and it comes out "ccollumbbuus". I am never sure, and still pressing the delete or back space, and that key will bounce. Getting back to the first "c" may erase the whole word.
Actually I think the best thing would be a simple wireless mouse. The on screen keyboard on the Mk808 is really solid, and almost everything can be done with the left mouse button.
I don't want to complain about anything, or make the world think that this is completely useless. It can be usable, but I probably won't use it much.
That is all for tonight.
tom
Sunday, November 11, 2012
I got a couple days...
Before the MAX31855's show up. So I can afford some distractions. The STM32F3 discovery board I ordered showed up. This board will probably be pretty useful. I still want to do some instruments, and this could be the strap down IRU maybe. It seems to have enough GPIO pins on the board to maybe even be an air data computer by adding a couple pressure sensors to it. It only has USB IO so connecting it to an Android might be a challenge.
I've been listening to the GoogleIO podcasts and the Android library has a nice IO library that allows similar calls for Bluetooth and USB. I think it requires 4.1 though, and may or may not have backward compatibility. I really feel I missed out on this years conference. I don't know why it wasn't even on my list this last year. They gave away a really cool ADK kit that is like an alarm clock, but allows many development options, including demo code for connecting euther Bluetooth or USB.
I figure between the ADK libraries and some demo code for the STM32 discovery board, I ought to be able to connect them together. I need to play with USB hubs though. The physical connectors are either USB minis or USB micros and nothing has a A connector. The discovery board has two USB mini connectors, and the tablets and phones have USB mini connectors. I believe the phones support USB On-The-Go so that should work, but I still need a cable. That is there I think the HUB would work, since I have plenty of A to Mini and A to micro cables.
Sure enough, once you start looking, good things happen! There are A female adapters to mini and micro B connectors, or individual ones. This is going my way now.
Some phones have gyros, and most have compasses with accelerometers, so why have this board in the plane? Few tablets have gyros, and that is what I want in the dash of the plane. The compass may not work in all orientations, or near whatever is in the panel either. Having this board allows placing the gyros and compass in known good locations, and having the air data information integrated will allow any tablet to be used, and know it will work at all times.
I may not finish this in the next couple days, but that is OK. I have plenty to follow up on, and read about and plan. Give me a couple months, and I think I'll have something working.
I've been listening to the GoogleIO podcasts and the Android library has a nice IO library that allows similar calls for Bluetooth and USB. I think it requires 4.1 though, and may or may not have backward compatibility. I really feel I missed out on this years conference. I don't know why it wasn't even on my list this last year. They gave away a really cool ADK kit that is like an alarm clock, but allows many development options, including demo code for connecting euther Bluetooth or USB.
I figure between the ADK libraries and some demo code for the STM32 discovery board, I ought to be able to connect them together. I need to play with USB hubs though. The physical connectors are either USB minis or USB micros and nothing has a A connector. The discovery board has two USB mini connectors, and the tablets and phones have USB mini connectors. I believe the phones support USB On-The-Go so that should work, but I still need a cable. That is there I think the HUB would work, since I have plenty of A to Mini and A to micro cables.
Sure enough, once you start looking, good things happen! There are A female adapters to mini and micro B connectors, or individual ones. This is going my way now.
Some phones have gyros, and most have compasses with accelerometers, so why have this board in the plane? Few tablets have gyros, and that is what I want in the dash of the plane. The compass may not work in all orientations, or near whatever is in the panel either. Having this board allows placing the gyros and compass in known good locations, and having the air data information integrated will allow any tablet to be used, and know it will work at all times.
I may not finish this in the next couple days, but that is OK. I have plenty to follow up on, and read about and plan. Give me a couple months, and I think I'll have something working.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Back to the Original Purpose
Enough with the SDRs and Chumby's and other distractions. Well, mostly...
I've been a subscriber to EE Times for probably 20 years. It used to be a weekly paper like format, but is now a skinny magazine, but with amazing web bits to supplement it. A couple weeks ago, there was the an invitation to a webinar on RTD and Thermocouples put on by Maxim. The webinar happened on Wednesday, and I listened to it. Pretty good talk, the speaker couple have been more exciting, but was well prepared, and talked about some good products. He didn't convince me to switch to RTD's but I am now thinking of using an integrated SPI chip to do everything.
The webinar hammered into me the reason for the second temperature sensor at the cold junction. The reason is, that ends up being a second thermocouple, since the copper wires that we are connecting to are of different material than the wires in the thermocouple. If we don't know that temperature, then the actual temperature we want to measure will be off a bit. Having the second temperature sensor will add to the complexity, and cost of the circuit.
The one complex circuit presented used the MAX6126 for voltage reference, and DS600 for the cold junction temperature sensor and the MX7705 for A/D converter. There was some discussion about keeping a constant current source, and other details using these three chips to get a good measuring circuit.
Then he showed the MAX31855, wow, pretty simple. Connect the thermocouple on two pins, some power on a couple more pins, a crystal and capacitors on other pins, and then the SPI to the processor and you are done! About the simplest convertor I have seen for under $5! It does SPI, so I should be able to piggyback 8 or 12 or 16 depending on engine chosen. I won't have to use up the A/D convertors to get past a 6 cylinder engine. There is an SPI library for the Arduino and everything.
Now I am still dreaming, I need to actually build something. I need to order about 8 of them, 4 J type, and 4 K type. DigiKey has them for about $3.55 each, but only if you order 2500 at a time! Single quantities are over $7.50 each, and hard to come by. Maxim is generous, and offers them as free samples. I was able to get 2 of each that way. Well, I ordered them tonight. They are just up the street, well some part of the company is (right down Beltline on Midway in Addison, probably 5 miles west, yup google maps says 4.7 miles).
Another toy
This is sort of related, since it is Android. I got an Mk808 android device. I say device, because I am not sure how to categorize it. It plugs into a HDMI port on a TV or monitor and uses that for a display. Otherwise it mostly acts like a tablet processor. There are no g sensors or touch screens, but you can plug in mice (or bluetooth mice) and control the desktop that way. It can run crackle or netflix, and youtube so it is good for an entertainment device. It has a browser (two), and can read and write office like documents (or use google docs).
So what you say, I can get a tablet and do all that. How about replacing your PC with one of these? What would it hurt? You say you can't download photos to it, no you probably can't. You can't play games on it? Well, my kids are driving my wife nuts playing angry birds. You can download all kinds of games. It has the whole google play store on it. Games, apps and media are all available.
What if you wrote desktop type apps for it. Why not, you know, a 32 in 1080p monitor would be way cooler than two 20 inchers, there would be no line, and the mouse would smoothly slide between windows.
What does a desktop PC cost, $400, maybe $1000? Well this is under $100. Yes, that is right, 1.6GHz processor with 1GB memory isn't much, but it might be worth a try? EBay has 'em for about $50 if you want to experiment and don't want to blow too much. Get one of the fancy wireless keyboard mouse combos and you have a full multimedia center. Cut the cable and do some fun stuff.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Chumby Links, and Tips
People are starting to ask me questions about the Chumby. I am not sure what to think, but rather than getting asked the same questions dozens of times, I thought I'd offer some answers ahead of time.
You can start up an SSHD on the Chumby. Go to the about device screen in setup and click on the pi symbol in the upper right corner. Using something like putty on windows, or ssh on linux/mac command line, you can connect as the root user. On my chumby, I connect by typing:
ssh root@192.168.2.10
or
ssh 192.168.2.10 -l root
By default there is no password. You can add one, but on reboot, the sshd turns off, and no one can connect. There are instructions for adding passwords on chumby tricks web site. Actually that page has lots of useful links.
I am an emacs user. It is a wonderful tool/IDE/editor. There is no emacs on the stock chumby. I used my laptop to enter the code, this provided me a place to backup the code, so now it is on both the Chumby and my PC. I then cut-n-pasted to a simple vi session on the chumby.
Of course Perl is already there, and all I needed to do was write some code it could interpret. Yes, interpret, but trust me, well written Perl is stinking fast. I've done some image processing using it, it is fast enough.
There is a micro SD card in the Chumby. It can be removed, and I imagine you could load your code on there. You don't need to, you can use the read write file system /mnt/storage to put your code on. I made a sub directory and called it bin, to be standard with the rest of *nix. (If you want to learn about the philosophy behind Unix/Linux etc, the book The UNIX Programming Environment by Kernighan and Pike, read it study it, and you will be the best programmer ever).
Every time the Chumby boots up, or any *nix system starts, it runs some fixed sequence. There are some scripts in /etc/init.d that has the scripts. I didn't use them, because that partition is read only. You can do a mount -o remount,rw / on that partition, and put in your script.
I did it the old fashion way; using the command line. Unix is funny, if you start an app on the command line, and the terminal that that app was started from the app goes away also. There are things we can do to get around that. The nohup command is how we ignore the hangup signal when the terminal goes away. Just start the program prefixing the command line with "nohup" and end it with an ampersand "&", and the program will keep running until it gets a fatal error, or the computer reboots.
Another way to make an app keep running after the terminal goes away, involves fork and exec, and a disoconnect. The Stevens book Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment (another book you should be at least familiar with if you want to be a great programmer) has that answer.
SMTP servers have many options. Some require authentication, some don't. You will have to read all your server documentation to figure out what kind of authentication (if any) is needed. Sendmail can handle most, maybe not in the orientation you are thinking. Like sometimes you need the ssh port, other times it will leave everything visible.
There is some documentation about connecting to gmail at:
http://forums.fengoffice.com/
If it isn't working, run the sendmail command using the strace. Something like:
strace sendmail cozytom@gmail.com -f sender@example.com -S smtp-server.tx.rr.com -au senderusername -ap senderpassword < mail.txt
The output will be pretty chatty, but you should be able to see any errors or find clues as to where it is quitting.
There is probably more to consider, but that will get you started anyway.
How did I load my software?
You can start up an SSHD on the Chumby. Go to the about device screen in setup and click on the pi symbol in the upper right corner. Using something like putty on windows, or ssh on linux/mac command line, you can connect as the root user. On my chumby, I connect by typing:
ssh root@192.168.2.10
or
ssh 192.168.2.10 -l root
By default there is no password. You can add one, but on reboot, the sshd turns off, and no one can connect. There are instructions for adding passwords on chumby tricks web site. Actually that page has lots of useful links.
I am an emacs user. It is a wonderful tool/IDE/editor. There is no emacs on the stock chumby. I used my laptop to enter the code, this provided me a place to backup the code, so now it is on both the Chumby and my PC. I then cut-n-pasted to a simple vi session on the chumby.
Of course Perl is already there, and all I needed to do was write some code it could interpret. Yes, interpret, but trust me, well written Perl is stinking fast. I've done some image processing using it, it is fast enough.
Where did I store my app?
There is a micro SD card in the Chumby. It can be removed, and I imagine you could load your code on there. You don't need to, you can use the read write file system /mnt/storage to put your code on. I made a sub directory and called it bin, to be standard with the rest of *nix. (If you want to learn about the philosophy behind Unix/Linux etc, the book The UNIX Programming Environment by Kernighan and Pike, read it study it, and you will be the best programmer ever).
How to start the app?
Every time the Chumby boots up, or any *nix system starts, it runs some fixed sequence. There are some scripts in /etc/init.d that has the scripts. I didn't use them, because that partition is read only. You can do a mount -o remount,rw / on that partition, and put in your script.
I did it the old fashion way; using the command line. Unix is funny, if you start an app on the command line, and the terminal that that app was started from the app goes away also. There are things we can do to get around that. The nohup command is how we ignore the hangup signal when the terminal goes away. Just start the program prefixing the command line with "nohup" and end it with an ampersand "&", and the program will keep running until it gets a fatal error, or the computer reboots.
Another way to make an app keep running after the terminal goes away, involves fork and exec, and a disoconnect. The Stevens book Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment (another book you should be at least familiar with if you want to be a great programmer) has that answer.
Sending Mail
Oh boy, how does mail work. The chumby acts as a client to a mail server. The mail server is usually called the "SMTP" (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) server. Your ISP probably has a SMTP server that you can use, or google users can use the Google one. The sendmail program on the chumby is the client program that talks to the SMTP server program. The SMTP server will help route your message to the appropriate next hop on the way to the mails destination.SMTP servers have many options. Some require authentication, some don't. You will have to read all your server documentation to figure out what kind of authentication (if any) is needed. Sendmail can handle most, maybe not in the orientation you are thinking. Like sometimes you need the ssh port, other times it will leave everything visible.
There is some documentation about connecting to gmail at:
http://forums.fengoffice.com/
If it isn't working, run the sendmail command using the strace. Something like:
strace sendmail cozytom@gmail.com -f sender@example.com -S smtp-server.tx.rr.com -au senderusername -ap senderpassword < mail.txt
The output will be pretty chatty, but you should be able to see any errors or find clues as to where it is quitting.
There is probably more to consider, but that will get you started anyway.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Don't Try This at Home
It isn't dangerous, or anything, mostly just dumb. I wanted a way to know my garage got shut, after I left. Sometimes things happen, and the door doesn't shut all the way, maybe something fell while it was closing, or maybe a cat ran in or out. The optical sensors pick it up, and think it is a kid, so it reverses. I didn't always wait for the door to close, before driving away, then two blocks away, I wonder, did it close.
I used to be really interested in home automation. My previous house had most of the lights controlled by X-10. I had a Unix computer as the hub, allowing a bridge from the X10 to cron jobs, other sensors, and sprinkler controllers. I could be out on my deck, and press a button on the X-10 remote to start a sprinkler. I could turn off the sprinklers by pressing a code on the phone. The Unix machine was a Sun 3/110, mostly because it had a VME serial board, allowing 10 serial ports. The bedroom had a light that would start out low, and get brighter minute by minute, for my morning wake up. It was fun, and I tried to sell this stuff for a while.
I thought if there was a simple board, that had some GPIO, and a WiFi link, for about $50 that would be perfect. I thought maybe there would be some ARM or Pic chip based board that would be perfect. I couldn't find one, not standalone.
To get the message to a smart phone, I thought I'd be able to use one of the free email systems, maybe use an address like tomsgarage@gmail.com or something. The smart phone would be able to subscribe to that address, and I'd know the state of the door. When the door changed states, an email would be sent out.
I asked the DPRG group about such a plan, and got a few ideas. Folks offered suggestions, but eventually what I did find was a Chumby clone, the Best Buy branded Insignia Infocast, on eBay for about $35.
Ok, I am still under $50, let me look around. Sure enough, I found an Insignia Infocast for about $30 so I ordered it. The chumby came, and I messed with it. Dang, my simple power supply didn't have enough current. The diagram says 2.5A, wow! This isn't a green project anymore (that is a few watts). Finally the Infocast showed up with it's power supply. Cool it works for both the Chumby and the infocast.
My kids then stole it. If you don't know what the chumby is, it is pretty cool. A little 3.5 inch LCD touch screen (resistive), and ARM processor (400MHz or something). It is Linux based, and uses webkit for the Gui. You need to be registered to get apps are for it. There are some apps that come with it, including radios both software (IE Pandora) and a true FM receiver. Most of the inside of the case is dedicated to giving the little speaker sound good! It isn't bad, and would make an excellent bedroom alarm clock. The kids loved the radio, I didn't try to explain Pandora or any of that back.
Eventually I was able to steal it back. I kind like it, using it for a radio, and I could see it useful for other stuff, so I didn't want to break it.
A little work with the soldering iron, and I got a ribbon cable connected to the GPIO port. I didn't think a connector would fit. The main LCD cable goes right across the GPIO port (connector for the LCD ribbon is the upper right corner).
I used to solder ribbon cables all the time. I did a bunch of keyboards when I had the old Xerox 820, and the serial cables before I found the press on ones, so I got the technique. How about this:
I thought, I'd keep things simple. I knew to control a switch, I needed ground, thinking that the GPIO pin would float high, and then I thought I would help the pin float high with a pull up. The schematic ended up being something like:
The control pin is that middle pin D3, the one across from the GND, keeping the wiring simple. +3V is on the end. I got a magnetic reed switch, like used for alarms for the switch. The magnet was stuck to the side of the door.
I used regutils command to read the pin. And sendmail to send the mail out. It isn't fancy, or efficient, just something that will run in the background, tests the one pin once a second. here is the code:
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# setup the chumby for reading, and read pin3.
#
# tgb 10-20-12
#
## setup IO
`regutil -w HW_PINCTRL_MUXSEL0_SET=0x00000003`;
my $curVal="";
my $newVal="";
my $results;
my $ccmp;
my $val;
while (true) {
$result = `regutil -r HW_PINCTRL_DIN0`;
chomp($result);
$result =~ m/Value at.*: (.*)/i;
$ccmp = $1;
$val = hex $ccmp;
print " CMP 00 ".$ccmp." 11 $val ";
if ($val & 0x08) {
$newVal = "CLOSED";
} else {
$newVal = "OPEN";
}
print "$newVal\r";
if ($newVal ne $curVal) {
sendmsg($newVal);
$curVal = $newVal;
}
sleep 1;
}
sub sendmsg
{
my $msg = shift;
#sendmail cozytom@gmail.com -f sender@example.com -S smtp-server.tx.rr.com -au senderusername -ap senderpassword < mail.txt
open MAILFILE,"> /tmp/mail.txt";
print MAILFILE "from: cozytom@tx.rr.com\n";
print MAILFILE "subject: garagedoor $msg\n";
print MAILFILE "Garage is $msg\n";
close MAILFILE;
`sendmail yourgarage\@gmail.com -f "me@email.com" -S smtp-server.yourdomain.com < /tmp/mail.txt`
}
Which part, do the actual project? Well that I discussed already. Wanted to know the state of my garage door. How about, why publish it. Well, I needed to show folks I actually am able to accomplish something. Yes this works, I finally completed something. Once I get around to collecting all the parts I am able to make it work.
What was dumb? Well 2.5A for a silly monitor system. It is much better than the silly Sun 3/110. It isn't doing X-10, or anything, but it doesn't need to. I still have a radio and other uses in the garage for it. Probably no one else will use it, but maybe it will inspire someone to do something similar.
Good Luck
I used to be really interested in home automation. My previous house had most of the lights controlled by X-10. I had a Unix computer as the hub, allowing a bridge from the X10 to cron jobs, other sensors, and sprinkler controllers. I could be out on my deck, and press a button on the X-10 remote to start a sprinkler. I could turn off the sprinklers by pressing a code on the phone. The Unix machine was a Sun 3/110, mostly because it had a VME serial board, allowing 10 serial ports. The bedroom had a light that would start out low, and get brighter minute by minute, for my morning wake up. It was fun, and I tried to sell this stuff for a while.
My Plan
I know Craftsman has a garage door opener that will talk to your smart phone and let you know the state of the door. I thought, maybe it was an add on to any craftsman or other garage door, but it wasn't so. It is only available with the specific assure link models. Thinking what I would pay for such a thing, maybe I'd be willing to go $60. The AssureLink also has an annual fee.I thought if there was a simple board, that had some GPIO, and a WiFi link, for about $50 that would be perfect. I thought maybe there would be some ARM or Pic chip based board that would be perfect. I couldn't find one, not standalone.
To get the message to a smart phone, I thought I'd be able to use one of the free email systems, maybe use an address like tomsgarage@gmail.com or something. The smart phone would be able to subscribe to that address, and I'd know the state of the door. When the door changed states, an email would be sent out.
I asked the DPRG group about such a plan, and got a few ideas. Folks offered suggestions, but eventually what I did find was a Chumby clone, the Best Buy branded Insignia Infocast, on eBay for about $35.
The process
I got on eBay, and someone had an actual Chumby, for under $20. A closer look showed it came without a power supply. Well, it is open source hardware and software, what can be so hard about getting a power supply for it. I bid on it. Then I started looking for a power supply. Ooops, the official Chumby power supplies are $15-20 on eBay. So much for saving money, I guess I don't need the official power supply, I can use the bench supply until I can source something else. hmmmmm.....Ok, I am still under $50, let me look around. Sure enough, I found an Insignia Infocast for about $30 so I ordered it. The chumby came, and I messed with it. Dang, my simple power supply didn't have enough current. The diagram says 2.5A, wow! This isn't a green project anymore (that is a few watts). Finally the Infocast showed up with it's power supply. Cool it works for both the Chumby and the infocast.
My kids then stole it. If you don't know what the chumby is, it is pretty cool. A little 3.5 inch LCD touch screen (resistive), and ARM processor (400MHz or something). It is Linux based, and uses webkit for the Gui. You need to be registered to get apps are for it. There are some apps that come with it, including radios both software (IE Pandora) and a true FM receiver. Most of the inside of the case is dedicated to giving the little speaker sound good! It isn't bad, and would make an excellent bedroom alarm clock. The kids loved the radio, I didn't try to explain Pandora or any of that back.
Eventually I was able to steal it back. I kind like it, using it for a radio, and I could see it useful for other stuff, so I didn't want to break it.
A little work with the soldering iron, and I got a ribbon cable connected to the GPIO port. I didn't think a connector would fit. The main LCD cable goes right across the GPIO port (connector for the LCD ribbon is the upper right corner).
I thought, I'd keep things simple. I knew to control a switch, I needed ground, thinking that the GPIO pin would float high, and then I thought I would help the pin float high with a pull up. The schematic ended up being something like:
The Software
I was surprised, someone said just use GCC. Nothing to it, right, I use it everyday, there are instructions to download gcc and program the chumby natively. It didn't work, not sure if the chumby folks gave up on it, or I did it wrong. I noticed there was a perl interpreter included. Why not, this won't be very complicated, read a single pin, when the state changes.I used regutils command to read the pin. And sendmail to send the mail out. It isn't fancy, or efficient, just something that will run in the background, tests the one pin once a second. here is the code:
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# setup the chumby for reading, and read pin3.
#
# tgb 10-20-12
#
## setup IO
`regutil -w HW_PINCTRL_MUXSEL0_SET=0x00000003`;
my $curVal="";
my $newVal="";
my $results;
my $ccmp;
my $val;
while (true) {
$result = `regutil -r HW_PINCTRL_DIN0`;
chomp($result);
$result =~ m/Value at.*: (.*)/i;
$ccmp = $1;
$val = hex $ccmp;
print " CMP 00 ".$ccmp." 11 $val ";
if ($val & 0x08) {
$newVal = "CLOSED";
} else {
$newVal = "OPEN";
}
print "$newVal\r";
if ($newVal ne $curVal) {
sendmsg($newVal);
$curVal = $newVal;
}
sleep 1;
}
sub sendmsg
{
my $msg = shift;
#sendmail cozytom@gmail.com -f sender@example.com -S smtp-server.tx.rr.com -au senderusername -ap senderpassword < mail.txt
open MAILFILE,"> /tmp/mail.txt";
print MAILFILE "from: cozytom@tx.rr.com\n";
print MAILFILE "subject: garagedoor $msg\n";
print MAILFILE "Garage is $msg\n";
close MAILFILE;
`sendmail yourgarage\@gmail.com -f "me@email.com" -S smtp-server.yourdomain.com < /tmp/mail.txt`
}
Why did I do this
Which part, do the actual project? Well that I discussed already. Wanted to know the state of my garage door. How about, why publish it. Well, I needed to show folks I actually am able to accomplish something. Yes this works, I finally completed something. Once I get around to collecting all the parts I am able to make it work.
What was dumb? Well 2.5A for a silly monitor system. It is much better than the silly Sun 3/110. It isn't doing X-10, or anything, but it doesn't need to. I still have a radio and other uses in the garage for it. Probably no one else will use it, but maybe it will inspire someone to do something similar.
Good Luck
Thursday, October 4, 2012
I am trying get fire myself up
I've sadly been neglecting this. Life is busy again, or still, or whatever. Shoot, I'd love to have a couple hours a day to work on this, but I don't. Between kids and homework, normal home repairs and other distractions, I haven't been too consistent.
SDR
I did get the SDR receiver, and I played with it. Not sure if it is the antenna, or what, but it only kinda works. It works well enough that I can say the vendors charging more than $100 for a UAT or 1090ES ADS-B in are charging too much. Here is another blogger working on the same idea: http://www.sharebrained.com/2012/05/10/progress-on-my-sdr/
Why do you want an ADS-B only receiver? Not only can you see where the other planes are, but FIS-B will give you weather, and NOTAMS and other good info. It is all broadcast the same way, and it is free to everyone in the air. (XM might be in trouble).
Arduino
Holy cow, people who did know about open source stuff are suddenly finding out about Arduino's and wanting to put them in airplanes. They can be very useful, with the UAV autopilot stuff, and IMUs and all. Lots can be done, we just have to get to it. There are ARM boards that will host the Arduino shields, and developer software coming soon, so you can have even more power, for only a little money (less than $100).
IMUs
There have been lots of IMUs around for a little while. Some better than others, and most aimed at the RC plane market. STM is coming out with a dev board that has all the hardware for an IMU. Developer market is all they are shooting for, but the board is supposed to be about $10! http://www.st.com/internet/com/press_release/p3323.jsp . Maybe they will be available by Halloween, and I'll have yet another distraction.
stuff
I had a spike in viewers this week. That is good I guess. Maybe eventually all of what I've built will generate enough traffic to pay for some of this stuff.
Write Soon!
SDR
I did get the SDR receiver, and I played with it. Not sure if it is the antenna, or what, but it only kinda works. It works well enough that I can say the vendors charging more than $100 for a UAT or 1090ES ADS-B in are charging too much. Here is another blogger working on the same idea: http://www.sharebrained.com/2012/05/10/progress-on-my-sdr/
Why do you want an ADS-B only receiver? Not only can you see where the other planes are, but FIS-B will give you weather, and NOTAMS and other good info. It is all broadcast the same way, and it is free to everyone in the air. (XM might be in trouble).
Arduino
Holy cow, people who did know about open source stuff are suddenly finding out about Arduino's and wanting to put them in airplanes. They can be very useful, with the UAV autopilot stuff, and IMUs and all. Lots can be done, we just have to get to it. There are ARM boards that will host the Arduino shields, and developer software coming soon, so you can have even more power, for only a little money (less than $100).
IMUs
There have been lots of IMUs around for a little while. Some better than others, and most aimed at the RC plane market. STM is coming out with a dev board that has all the hardware for an IMU. Developer market is all they are shooting for, but the board is supposed to be about $10! http://www.st.com/internet/com/press_release/p3323.jsp . Maybe they will be available by Halloween, and I'll have yet another distraction.
stuff
I had a spike in viewers this week. That is good I guess. Maybe eventually all of what I've built will generate enough traffic to pay for some of this stuff.
Write Soon!
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