Messages

316

General Discussion / Re: Specs of project "GPS Tracker and Data Logger Tutorial"

« on: November 04, 2020, 12:52:49 PM »

Hello,

All of our product pages include dimensions specs as well as power consumption specs. Dimensions are included as the last image in each product photo reel. Power consumption can be found under Tech Specs, or more in-depth information about power and different power modes can be found from the datasheets included under downloads.

Most boards in the TinyDuino platform are 20mm x 20mm.

From there you can make a few choices to minimize the stack height if you choose to do so. The GPS Tracker Stack in the tutorial includes the TinyDuino, USB TinyShield, GPS TinyShield, and Flash Memory TinyShield. With this stack in mind, the height would match the screw height from the Mounting Kit (https://tinycircuits.com/collections/accessories-add-ons/products/tinyduino-mounting-kit) to be around 15mm. The GPS Antenna of course takes up some space, but the main stack would be 20mm x 20mm x 15mm.

You could simplify the TinyDuino and USB TinyShield into one board, the TinyZero to save a few mm of height to have around 8-10mm instead. (You can cut the mounting kit screws once installed)

For power consumption, it depends on how often you are polling data, reading and writing data to the flash memory, and if you take into account any low-power modes. I recommend thinking about how long you need to run your project (in hours) and what the likely consumption is in mA. Once you have the number of hours, and the amount of mA the project is likely to draw, you can multiply these to get a mAh approximation. This number can be used to decide which battery works best for your project: https://tinycircuits.com/collections/batteries

Hope that helps!

Réna

317

Wirelings / Re: How to debug thermal camera capturer example code?

« on: November 03, 2020, 11:51:48 AM »

I removed the incorrect comment in the program and tested the program itself.

The program works as it is detailed in the project writeup and I was not able to duplicate any errors. I would recommend moving the sensor around the room or waving your hand in front of it at some distance to see a change in the graphic. When I tested the program, I noticed it stopped working when the boards became loose in the stack - the Wireling Adapter TinyShield remained intact but loose, so this may be something to look for as well.

Have you been able to get working behavior using the correct port and address?  Let me know!

318

Wirelings / Re: How to debug thermal camera capturer example code?

« on: November 03, 2020, 10:08:15 AM »

I forgot there was a project with it!

Yes, for that project you linked you will want to plug the Wireling into port 0 as noted in the program, and for all examples you will want to use address 0x69. There was a prototype before that used address 0x68, but we changed it before production so it looks like that note in the tutorial didn't get changed to reflect the production boards. I will fix it sometime today.

I would recommend first verifying the simpler program in the tutorial is working (use port 1, address 0x69): https://learn.tinycircuits.com/Wirelings/Thermal-Camera_Wireling_Tutorial/

I will take a look at the project program to see if I can sort anything out.

319

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Motor x4

« on: November 02, 2020, 07:25:20 PM »

Hello,

As far as I know, there is no reason not to use it if you have it and it makes sense for your project. The current Dual Motor Shield is an updated version that adds more functionality with the JST-SH connectors so you can use a small rechargeable lithium battery, as well as being able to plug in motors rather than solder them or use a breadboard like you would need to do for the obsolete board.

The current board is also cheaper with 2 motor chips rather than 4. Either option works for your project, so I would say to give the obsolete board a shot. The tutorial is here for the Motor X4 TinyShield: https://learn.tinycircuits.com/Obsolete/Motor-x4_TinyShield_Tutorial/

Let me know if you have any problems or questions!

Thanks

320

Wirelings / Re: How to debug thermal camera capturer example code?

« on: November 02, 2020, 02:34:06 PM »

Hello,

You mentioned you edited the I2C address of the component in the adafruit library to 0x68. The library address should be 0x69, so make sure you have changed it back.

Let me know if that solves the problem.

I looked into the places where we have the program downloadable (GitHub, the product page, and the Wiki with the tutorial) and was unable to find a copy using port 0. Let me know where you found it, and I would be happy to correct the problem for future users.

Thank you!

321

Wirelings / Re: How to debug thermal camera capturer example code?

« on: October 30, 2020, 03:43:24 PM »

Hello!

If you're following the tutorial with the example program from the tutorial page here: https://learn.tinycircuits.com/Wirelings/Thermal-Camera_Wireling_Tutorial/

You will want to plug the Wireling into Port 1. This is the only Wireling example different from all the others that use port 0 since it makes the most sense visually to put the sensor in port 1 and then wrap it to the back so that the graphic matches the direction the sensor is facing.

That should help!

322

General Discussion / Re: Tiny Zero: Serial monitor shows no output using ASCIITable example

« on: October 26, 2020, 12:00:35 PM »

Hello,

For SAMD processors, like the one used in the TinyZero, you will need to use the SerialUSB object instead of the Serial object. For example, use:

SerialUSB.println("Hello World");

rather than

Serial.println("Hello World");

Let me know if that solves your problem or not!

Thanks

323

General Discussion / Re: Remote power switch

« on: October 23, 2020, 12:53:11 PM »

Hello,

We do not have a direct solution for that available, unfortunately. We do have some project boxes that you could drill a hole into, but then you would need to think of something to be able to access the switch efficiently through a hole:
https://tinycircuits.com/collections/accessories-add-ons/products/plastic-project-enclosure-box-51mm-x-51mm-x-20mm
https://tinycircuits.com/collections/accessories-add-ons/products/small-enclosure

The best option in my opinion would be to design and 3D print an enclosure. The TinyTV is the closest enclosure we sell to what you are looking for. Unfortunately, it is designed for the TinyScreen+ so the sizing and functionality wouldn't work out of the box. So I would recommend perhaps looking at the switch parts of the TinyTV enclosure file and then designing the project box from there. The TinyTV enclosure file: https://github.com/TinyCircuits/TinyCircuits-TinyTV-ASK4002/raw/master/res/TinyTV_3D_files.zip

There are hardware sketches available for our boards on each project page that should help.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Thanks,
Réna

324

General Discussion / Re: More Dual Motor Board Software Questions

« on: October 20, 2020, 08:02:55 PM »

John,

There is also an alternative setMotor() function with a third useBrakes input of true or false for stopping the motors.

There is also a sleep() function that will power down the motors.

You can look in the library for the functions: https://github.com/TinyCircuits/TinyCircuits-ATtiny841-Library/blob/master/MotorDriver.cpp

Réna

325

General Discussion / Re: Motor Driver Issue

« on: October 20, 2020, 02:00:59 PM »

Hello John,

The library you want is on the tutorial page: https://learn.tinycircuits.com/Motors/Dual-Motor_TinyShield_Tutorial/ and on the product page under downloads: https://tinycircuits.com/products/dual-motor-tinyshield?_pos=1&_sid=0e46d202e&_ss=r

There is an old motor library that was deprecated as noted in the README file on GitHub: https://github.com/TinyCircuits/TinyCircuits-TinyShield_Motor_Library - this library should be deleted from your Arduino/libraries folder if you have it so that you are using the new one. Having both would throw errors.

You can download just the ATtiny841 library (the new one) and then access the motor driver example from the examples/ folder within the library.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you are still encountering issues.

Thanks,
Réna

326

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: TinyZero voltage output

« on: October 19, 2020, 02:10:11 PM »

Hello,

Yes, you can plug in the 3.7V lithium batteries directly into the TinyZero. There are a few options: https://tinycircuits.com/collections/batteries

To convert a 3.7V input to 5V output, you would need some separate hardware. This forum post references some options, but there are a lot of options available online: https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=119175.0

I hope that helps!

Réna

327

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Using multiple 9AXIS IMU TinyShield

« on: October 15, 2020, 01:25:34 PM »

The master (central) device can communicate with multiple slave (peripheral) devices, but the central is limited to talking to one peripheral at a time with the way the software is currently written. I tested this and have a picture attached with some colors so that you can see how it looks.

If you need data at the same time, I might recommend pairing the 9-Axis data with a timestamp so that you can get all the data you need at those specific time points, but there might be an easier solution!

It is true that BLE 4.1 is able to support concurrent data between multiple peripherals - but the software is rather complex and there is usually an easier solution in many Arduino situations, so this is why you will not often see the above method pursued.

I would recommend using your phone as the central device and then having the 4 BLE/9-Axis stacks as the peripherals. Depending on your phone's Bluetooth, I believe there will be enough resources online to make this method easier than needing to develop a Bluetooth library for Arduino.

I cannot help much on the Android side of things, but I hope that helps point you in the right direction!

Thanks,
Laveréna

328

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Using multiple 9AXIS IMU TinyShield

« on: October 13, 2020, 03:02:25 PM »

polar96,

We do not have any formal documentation on the process or formal examples posted on our website, but I did manage to find some examples we developed in the past in the hopes of releasing them on our site at some point.

These examples will be a good place to start for pairing Bluetooth devices together, but will by no means fulfill all of your project desires - the 9-Axis data transmission will need to be added by you. Please keep in mind that these examples are unpublished due to limited testing. There might be bugs to solve, but I was able to use the programs and two ST BLE stacks to communicate with each other using TinyZero processors. (To test for yourself, you'll just need to open two different Arduino IDEs/serial monitors and plug two stacks into your computer with the different programs uploaded on the different stacks)

The blueNRGUARTPassThrough example is similar to what you already have available from our site but improved in some ways. This code will work for your non-central Bluetooth device.

The blueNRGCentralSenderNew example should be used on the Bluetooth module you want to be your central device.

When the code is uploaded to each correctly, you should be able to open the Serial Monitor and see the modules say “Hello!” to each other with timestamps.

This should be a good starting point for you.

Thanks,

Laveréna

329

General Discussion / Re: Tinyduino gps

« on: October 12, 2020, 12:50:49 PM »

Hello,

This Overview page may help clear up some questions about how our boards work together: https://tinycircuits.com/pages/tinyduino-overview

For the coin cell battery board, I am assuming the Coin Cell TinyDuino is what you currently have. The coin cell option is incompatible with lithium batteries due to its existing power source being the coin cell battery - so there is nowhere to use a lithium battery in this scenario. as you have found.

It sounds like you want to use a GPS TinyShield. Unfortunately, as noted on the GPS product page in the power requirements, the GPS requires more current than the coin cell option can supply, so you would need a processor compatible with the lithium batteries in order to power the GPS board. I would recommend the TinyZero: https://tinycircuits.com/collections/processors/products/tinyzero-processor

I hope that helps answer some of your questions. Let me know if you have any more!

Thanks,
Réna

330

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: read the status led for the battery

« on: October 07, 2020, 02:04:00 PM »

I believe I may have personally emailed you, but I will post the answers to your questions here for all forum users to see.

It depends on the processor board.

For the TinyZero – there isn’t a way to read the status due to the charging LED being encapsulated in a circuit with the voltage regulator.

For the TinyDuino – you would need to read the voltage of the processor and determine from there whether it is charging or not.

The TinyScreen+ is similar to the TinyDuino, and we have a ready-made tutorial for the TinyScreen+ and how to display the battery voltage if you are interested in knowing the state of charge of a TinyScreen+: https://learn.tinycircuits.com/Help/TinyScreenPlus-Battery-Voltage-Tutorial/ Just note that this tutorial only works for the TinyScreen+.