DorkbotPDX people doing strange things with electricity

Getting things ready for the DorkbotPDX exhibit at Maker Faire.....

This blog entry is sort-of placeholder page, to be updated with photos and more info during or shorly after Maker Faire.

Click "Read more" for more pictures, source code and other stuff.

The Arduino IDE editor's lack of support for X11's select-paste mechanism has always annoyed me.  Well, I finally got around to adding it.  Especially for helping people with their Arduino troubles (which I do every day), it's so very nice to finally be able to quickly select-paste between Arduino and forum messages, email, terminal windows, etc.

This is a Unix/X11 feature.  Mac & Windows do not have anything similar.  But on Linux it's so very fast and convenient.  This tiny little feature really makes me happy.  :-)

Update: it's been accepted and will become part of Arduino 1.0.5.  Anyone using 1.0.4 who wants this feature now can install Teensyduino 1.0.4 release candidate #1 to get this feature without having to recompile the entire Arduino IDE.

Over the last couple weeks I've been working on a automated test system for Teensyduino, which someday will verify nearly all the Arduino functionality on every board and also test most of the Arduino libraries.  Here's what my first try looks like.

Click "Read more" for another photo, a bit of discussion about how this works (and what doesn't work so well), and a peek at what will be my second attempt.

A few months ago I was feeling inspired to create a nice countdown timer.  With the next Dorkbot open mic only days away, I finally had the motivation to actually put it together...

Click "Read more" for photos, source code, schematic and other info.

Last night I released OctoWS2811 ... after spending pretty much all Sunday making this 3 minute video:

Everyone at the meetup a couple weeks ago saw this right when it was first showing video.  Since then, pretty much all the work has been on the documentation and minor code improvements.

For the last several days I've been working to compile the latest free GNU Toolchain for ARM published by CodeSourcery (now owned by Mentor Graphics).

This process has not been easy.  In this lengthy blog post, I'll share all the patches I've written, with detailed explanations of exactly what errors I encountered, what I've learned about each problem, and how to work around it.

Edit: full source is on github.

"Read mode" for all the gory details......

I wanted a board that shows the state of all I/O pins on LEDs with all of these properties....

• Works for Digital Input, Output, and Input Pullup
• Pushbutton to drive the pin high, very weak pulldown (much weaker than on-chip pullup)
• Works for analog pins (thumbwheel pot), but also works when the same pin is used for digital
• LED shows actual analog level - LED current should be linear to actual voltage
• LED current does not interfere with analog voltage
• LED does not interfere with weak signals, or input pullup or pulldown
• Inexpensive - under $0.50 per pin - many parts are ok, as long as they're cheap!

"Read More" for the circuit details and photos.....

Full details are at this Teensy 3.0 Kickstarter Page....

At Maker Faire, I met Philip Torrone briefly. We talked about driver installation issues, and he resolved to find someone at Microsoft if I would send a summary.

Phil ended up posting on the Make Blog. There've been many reactions, mostly online comments, some in private email.

I'll briefly summarize the responses and offer my opinions here. Just click "read more"...

Last week I wrote firmware to control el wires by MIDI.

Hand-Eye Supply will be using it for their float in this year's Starlight Parade.

"Read more" for details....