This week I’ve been trying out a new low-cost AVR programmer from Adafruit Industries, and it looks like a winner. The USBtinyISP AVR Programmer is an open-source, USB, in-system programmer (ISP) that you can get as a kit for $22. The design is simple, straightforward and fairly easy to assemble. It also manages to incorporate a couple of important features that I have found to be missing from the low-end USB AVR programmer from Atmel, the AVRISP MkII, while coming in at only half the price.
MAKEKits wrote up an article on Instructables about assembling and reprogramming our little LED Micro-Readerboards.
They suggest assembling the project with a socket so that you can take the microcontroller off and reprogram it in an external programmer.
Another way to build it with a socket is how we’re demonstrating here, in this test fixture for the project.
This setup has a tiny piece of perfboard that connects a 20-pin DIP ZIF socket and a socket for the 18-pin LED display. Thus, both the AVR microcontroller and the LED display are socketed, and can be easily removed. This fixture is used primarily to test programmed AVRs. Since the chips are swapped out regularly, the ZIF socket makes sense, even though it’s more expensive than a regular DIP socket.
We’ve just finished updating the LED Micro-Readerboard (formerly the micro-readerboard LED ornament) to version 2.0. This version features longer battery life, the use of a standard common-cathode LED display, and a new set of phrases including optional holiday phrases. It’s an open-source project so you can download the code, order some parts, and go to town.We are also making it available as a kit, exclusively through the Make Store. The kit features a remarkable high-intensity LED display that enables vastly improved battery life.
Frequency asked questions for version 2.0 of the LED Micro-Readerboard project; this list will expand as we get asked more questions. ;)
If you don’t find what you’re looking here, you might consider asking a question in the forums.
Continue reading LED Micro-Readerboard, version 2.0: FAQ File
This article contains some reference data– pinouts and the font table– relevant to the LED Micro-readerboard, version 2.0.
Continue reading LED Micro-Readerboard, version 2.0: Technical Data
One of the things that we kept hearing as a comment about our CNC toast story is that we really should be printing the Virgin Mary on grilled cheese sandwiches, or something like that.
As it turned out, by the time that we actually wrote about our toasting, we had already moved on to bigger and (probably) better things, like printing sugar. Since we were rushing to get ready for Maker Faire, we didn’t get a chance to make more creative toast.
But, Maker Faire has come and gone, and we’ve finally got our machine reassembled, and so here we are toasting again. Believe it or not, this is actually a step in the right direction for CandyFab as well, because these were printed at 20 DPI, already an improvement with four times as many pixels as our previous batches at 10 DPI. These four Flying Spaghetti Monster images on toast are adapted from the original artwork in pencil, by Bobby Henderson.
Oh yeah, and I put one of them on eBay. =D
Coming up real soon now: Three microcontroller-oriented classes, on Saturday afternoons at TechShop, at different levels of skill and with different emphases:
The classes are held at TechShop, a San Francisco Bay Area “open-access public workshop,” located just off of 101 in Menlo Park, where you can go use a wide range of tools to make things, and take all kinds of classes.
Make a custom LED Micro-Readerboard
Next Saturday, June 9, I’ll be giving a fun little class, suitable for anyone with a bit of soldering experience (even youngsters), where you can customize the phrases in and assemble an LED Micro-Readerboard. It’s a cute little thing that spells out a preprogrammed messages (e.g., your name), one letter at a time, on a single-character alphanumeric display. These are much like the ones that we programmed to be holiday ornaments a few months ago, but these are actually extra-spiffy version 2.0 micro-readerboards with higher brightness and better battery life. And, if you take the class, you get to choose what messages to put on your readerboard and take it home. It’s a neat, self-contained project that’s a great example of what you can do with a little AVR microcontroller.
(UPDATE: Second class added on June 30, also at 1:00 PM.)
And speaking of AVR Microcontrollers….
Introduction to AVR Microcontrollers
Saturday, June 16, 1:00 PM
You may have noticed that a number of our interesting projects are based around AVR microcontrollers. AVR microcontrollers are powerful and inexpensive single-chip computers that are available in a wide range of sizes. They also happen to be remarkably easy to program in C, using entirely free and open-source tools that run on Macs, Windows, and Unix-like operating systems. In this practical introduction to AVR microcontrollers, we’ll take it from the beginning so that you can go home and use AVRs for your own cool projects. Some topics to be covered include: different types of AVRs and how to pick one, what kinds of programmer you should get, how to install the software tools, how to get started actually programming them, and how to download and run your code on the microcontroller.
Finally, on July 7, I’ll be giving a repeat of this introductory microcontroller class, called Choosing a Microcontroller. This large-format seminar is designed to be a broad introduction to the capabilities and variety of single-chip computers, as well how to actually pick one for a given application. It’s easy to get overwhelmed looking at the variety of range of micros, from four-bit micros that have a 4-bit wide data path — and actually cost four bits— to AVRs and PICs, basic stamps and Arduinos, to 32-bit gorillas with names like ARM, Blackfin, and Coldfire. So, we’ll try and cut through the fog and help you figure out where to get started.
If you’ve heard people getting excited about or doing cool things with microcontrollers and want to learn more, this might be a great introduction to the field.
Sign up for these and other TechShop classes here.
(By the way, it’s hard to tell what types of things people want to learn about. So, if you have suggestions for other classes that you’d like to see taught by the Evil Mad Scientists, you can E-mail us or leave comments here or in the forums.)
Today we have a fine crop of choice links, hand picked at the point of perfection, for your viewing pleasure:
We are also inducting several new Honorary Mad Scientists into the fold today:
Here’s how to take your left over Marshmallow Peeps, add a few components, and make them into pimped-out peepmobiles.
Okay, so Easter has come and gone. Really gone. And if you’re like us, you didn’t eat all of your Peeps. Have they gone bad by now? Probably not. As it turns out, the yellow chick-shaped Peeps are made all year long to build up enough supply for each easter, so the ones that you get for Easter could *already* be a year old. (So why can’t you buy them all year long? You can… you just have to know where to look.)
Even if you’re still saving your Chicks to eat them later, you’re not alone. The official Peeps site has a poll up asking whether you like your Peeps “Fresh from the package or aged to perfection.” According to the results so far, a full 12% of peepeaters like to wait six months or more.
However, we seem to be digressing. Let’s just go ahead and assume that you weren’t going to eat all of them. Then whatever’s left, you can make into Peepmobiles.
Continue reading Make a peepmobile
Last year at Maker Faire, we showed off our interactive LED dining table. There, we met the fine folks at Because We Can, who make amazing mostly wooden things with a little help from their robot. We eventually all decided on collaborating to design and build a new series of interactive coffee tables. We’ve just wrapped up the project and are introducing them this weekend at Maker Faire.
Besides what is written about them on this page, you can read more about them on the
Because We Can Blog, and you can also see lots of photos in the product pages for the two different coffee table designs: the wave and the ripple.
The new tables are designed to look really great whether or not you can see the LEDs. The wooden bases are elegant and attractive, and also if you go up to one and touch it, it will respond by pleasantly lighting up in that area. The tables are designed to respond in a subtle and gentle fashion to stimulus provided by human interaction. They are normally dim and constant– the most you’ll see in a dark room is a faint glow of twinkling like the night sky. When you set your glass down on the table, however, the table “sees” the motion that induces a slow ripple starting in that location that spreads out to other areas of the table as it dissipates. The overall effect is a bit like touching a pool of water, in that your local disturbance turns into an overall gentle rippling, and eventually settles down. It is decidedly not a disco floor– there is no blinking, no programmed oscillations, or for that matter, any digital electronics at all– the circuitry is completely analog to improve aesthetics and reduce eyestrain.
