Well into the new year - & my puter is better, along with my house..

Well i'm still around - my computer has a brain augmentation: another 2 GB of RAM.

& my roof leaks have been fixed - now i can get on with making my back room into my 'lab' room with puter bits, electronic stuff, & various tools & projects.

would like to re-build that 'hakeri' bloody shed out the back - it's falling down & being pushed sideways by a large, mostly non-fruiting plum tree!  somewhere to store garden tools cluttering up the house @ present.

bought myself a couple of tech-presents; one of those non-reciprocating saw thingies with a box of attachments of various kinds.  cutting aluminium sheet won't be the wretched business it used to be (& that's just the start - my house's previous occupants were real bush carpenters who did some amazingly silly things!).

FINAL -- duh!! -- so far..

Well, a final mark of 57 (C) was a bit underwhelming, but at least it's better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick!

i wish i knew how to make Georgia Bold my default font on this blog but..

& i'm not going to stop playing around with these things, but i've got rather a lot on at the moment, & i need to get thees out of my hair: 

the leaks in my hall roof; 

dealing to the undergrowth that is my yard (majorly chopped with a grunty weed-whacker, but still in need of further 'treatment') - i have an abiding hatred of grass - the agricultural kind, not friend Mary Jane - which i regard as suitable only for football & other sports to be played on & livestock to shit on; as a domestic ground cover it sucks enormously;

my feeble-minded computer - the poor wee thing does its best, but with the equivalent these days of a pre-frontal lobotomy (half-a-Gig), it desperately needs me to take pity on it & beef up its RAM (to at least 2 Gig);

there's a thing out the back masquerading as a shed; needs replacing or turned into a workshop-type thingy..;

a giant, non-producing, plum tree out the back needs topping ( i know it's a plum because it actually has delivered one or two plums occasionally (i'm not joking!), one of which has grown into a smaller, equally non-producing, tree - i need some arborist's/orchardist's advice maybe;

the inside of my house is a f*****g tip - it really needs sorting!

& NO i haven't made any poxy New Year's resolutions either!

(except maybe to bow to the inevitable & sign up to Facebook - not because i've any wish to dump myself online, but various friends keep asking me, & i'd like to be able to access their stuff.)

A bit of a laugh..

time for a giggle..

helps now that the tension's eased up - aside from results, of course..

All over bar the groaning..

Well, that's that for another year (academically speaking), but this blog will continue..

Last two projects were a bit of a frost - got most of the Minor Project posted, but i suspect hardware & programming logic problems, as i couldn't get it to do what i thought it should - it kept doing what i actually had told it to do.

As a poster i once saw says:

*                   I Know You Believe You Understood

*                 What It Was That You Though I Said,

*                          But I'm Not Sure You Realise

*                  That What You Thought You Heard

*                             Was NOT What I Meant!!

i can hear my Arduino chortling away at that thought, since it seems to me that what i thought i'd told it to do was something other than what i wanted {sigh}..

Always assuming the hardware works as expected, of course..

Projects -- Interrupts: Mark II

/*
 * Project:      Project_interrupt
 * Author:      Jane-Maree Howard
 * Date:         Monday 21/11/2011
 * Platform:    Arduino 22
 * Purpose:    To demonstrate an interrupt on Digital pin 3
 * Operation:  Description: Connect a 20kilOhm resistor from
 *                          digital pin3 to digital pin13!
 *                          Earlier problem solved as we now have a hardware feedback
 *                          from OUTPUT digi-pin13 to INPUT digi-pin3,
 *                          to which the interrupt is attached.
 *                          The digital flip-flop occurs every second, is fed to digi-pin3,
 *                          which registers the change & triggers the interrupt,
 *                          which, in turn, calls blink() where the pin state variable is flipped.
 *                          This state change is fed back via digi-pin13 to digi-pin3, triggering
 *                          the interrupt once again.                 
 */
int           iPin13   = 13;
int            iPin3   = 3;
volatile int  iState   = LOW;

void setup()
{
  // open Serial port
  Serial.begin(9600); 
  // set pin13, pin3 as OUTPUTs
  pinMode(iPin13, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(iPin3, INPUT);
  // interrupt1 calls blink() when pin13 flip-flops
  attachInterrupt(1, blink, CHANGE);
  digitalWrite(iPin3, iState);
  Serial.println("\nStart\n");
}//setup()

void loop()
{
  // delay 1 second
  delay(1000);
  // in effect, flip pin13
  Serial.println(iState);
  digitalWrite(iPin13, iState);
  digitalWrite(iPin3, iState);
}//loop()

void blink()
{
  // flip value to trigger interrupt
  iState = !iState;
}//blink()
//END

i finally cracked it!

most annoying though..
..but when i wondered about which pin the interrupt operated on, i went back to the appropriate page.. 

..where i saw that interrupt-0 can be attached to digital pin 2, & interrupt-1 to digital pin 3.

after that, it was pretty much plain sailing - the feedback resistor instead of some weird software, & as can be seen at left, it works beeootifly-thank-yew!

on to my next problem: how can i use LDR hardware to trigger an interrupt (for my "fridge door open" stuff!

{sigh of relief!}.

Projects -- Interrupts

/* example of interrupt function using Arduino 22 */

int                 iPin   = 13;
volatile int  iState = LOW;

void setup()
{
  // open Serial
  Serial.begin(9600); 
  // set pin13 as OUTPUT
  pinMode(iPin, OUTPUT);
  // interrupt1 calls blink() when pin13 flip-flops
  attachInterrupt(1, blink, CHANGE);
  digitalWrite(iPin, 1);
  Serial.println("\nStart\n");
}//setup()

void loop()
{
  // delay 1 second
  delay(1000);
  // in effect, flip pin13
  Serial.println(iState);
  digitalWrite(iPin, iState);
}//loop()

void blink()
{
  // flip value to trigger interrupt
  iState = !iState;
}//blink()
//END

i have been trying to get this interrupt program to work - it doesn't alternate the way i think/assume it should.


it just changes at random, sometimes acting like a touch or proximity switch!

i'm baffled :-?



here's where the example code came from - i've modified it to produce a serial monitor output, & inserted another digitalWrite() statement in the setup to try to get the thing triggering regularly..

..but it doesn't {sigh}..

Test Schedule

Well, to start with, here's some test information. Bit scary.. i had the erroneous impression it'd be next week, but it isn't!

Here's some hardware pics & the ATmega328 datasheet..
..& the pin-mapping between the ATmega328 & the Arduino..

We're getting lotsa questions on this.
Here's a schematic of the Duemilanove..
..& the Uno schematic.
 .