Messages

286

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: TinyScreen -- Is it possible to measure strings?

« on: January 22, 2016, 12:41:48 PM »

Thank you. We've merged it, I'll probably 'arduinofy' it very soon in the next update- just split it into two functions so that each can return a single result.

287

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Compiler Errors in TinyDuino SmartWatch Example

« on: January 21, 2016, 02:21:27 PM »

Hi Mitch and all,

Sorry about the late reply. This issue is related to the Nordic BLE code rather than the Time library. Unfortunately codebender is based around an older version of the Arduino IDE, which has different compiler options compared to the current IDE- new versions want small changes in constant declaration etc. At the moment we provide the example on codebender and most people modify it in that environment, so the problem actually does not come up very often. I would certainly like to provide it in an IDE-friendly way- I don't have a date, but I can say that we plan to do a smartwatch kit upgrade with TinyScreen+ after our current Kickstarter is fulfilled, and that will definitely include a software update for old and new hardware.

Thanks,
Ben

288

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: TinyDuino Processor Board Coin cell powered + TinyRTC

« on: January 20, 2016, 05:33:36 PM »

Sorry about that. In the future, you can always email us beforehand if there's something missing on the store. If there are still problems with the RTC, we'll sort something out- we are definitely not intending to force people to buy things twice.

Lithium kits are supposed to be part of our future store upgrade, but we keep hitting delays with the changeover.

289

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Audio on the TinyArcade

« on: January 20, 2016, 05:14:40 PM »

All good thoughts. Right, that function requires optimization- since we're doing something specific and care less about portability, the main functionality of it is simply:

DAC->DATA.reg =  audioBuffer[__SampleIndex++];

The pin doesn't actually need to be set up each time, so nothing more than filling a register and incrementing through the buffer. This is probably in the area of 50-100 instructions, running at (in my case for video playback) 30720 times per second- 3% to 6% of processor time based on this rough guess.

The DMA is(should be) able to do just the same thing, but setting it up for a particular use like this is not trivial, so I'm not sure when that will happen.

290

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Audio on the TinyArcade

« on: January 19, 2016, 02:34:28 PM »

Tastewar is exactly correct with the general response, excellent. Especially about the 'quick function check' part quoted by Magnus, which will match most of our example code.

In our case for TinyArcade audio, what you've found is correct- the basic setup in the AudioZero example is the way to go, we're using the hardware in the same way. So just set up an interrupt(for now- I need to figure out the DMA approach) to load the 10 bit DAC output from a buffer, and make sure the buffer is loaded as necessary. I have this working well enough to play raw audio and video at 30 FPS from an SD card with some processing to spare, but the code is ugly- I'll clean this up asap so you can take a look.

291

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Not powering on

« on: January 19, 2016, 02:23:14 PM »

Hi- are you able to test the USB board on its own with another USB cable, maybe on another computer? You should have a new com/serial port show up in the Arduino IDE(or another program) as you would expect from the FTDI chip. If not, shoot an email to info@tiny-circuits.com

The LED is not a power on LED, it's a general purpose LED(the usual pin 13 LED)- sometimes the bootloader toggles it depending on the internal state, so it's not necessarily indicative of a fault with the processor if it doesn't flash.

Thanks,
Ben

292

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: TinyDuino Processor Board Coin cell powered + TinyRTC

« on: January 19, 2016, 02:13:18 PM »

Claudio, I think you're correct, good detective work- I must have picked that particular DS1339 for use with the lithium ion cell without thinking about coin cell use. I think that's our fault- are you able to use a lithium ion cell in your project?

293

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: TinyScreen -- Is it possible to measure strings?

« on: January 19, 2016, 02:03:06 PM »

Hi- just back from holiday. I haven't check your further posts in other threads, but this is something I've played with before- I'll take a look at your implementation and make sure something gets into the next library update, since this is such a useful feature.

294

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: TinyArcade and the SD card reader

« on: January 04, 2016, 06:29:48 PM »

Absolutely- that's how it's able to play video/audio. These are in a completely raw format that goes straight from a RAM buffer to the screen/audio hardware- consider it more or less maxed out streaming the data from the SD card at ~430KB/s and to the screen at ~368KB/s.

It's also able to write that data from the RAM to the flash, if necessary. That's how we're doing our menu/game loading system- it's actually flashing new code from the SD card. I believe the flash is guaranteed for 25K writes. So that's fine for 'many times per day', but not fine for 'many times per second'.

295

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Questions about "dumb watch" project

« on: January 02, 2016, 06:51:16 PM »

PM your email- I'll write a note if it hasn't shipped. Want the interrupt line bridged on pin 2 or 3? Then I don't have to test the software myself

296

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Smart Watch documentation

« on: January 02, 2016, 04:43:41 PM »

Text message notifications should be passed through- are you getting calls? Android API may have changed- what phone and version of Android do you have? Stock messaging app? Hopefully we have a similar setup here to test on.

Number of text messages is a bit more difficult- you'll probably need to keep track in the app, then send that to the watch.

297

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Questions about "dumb watch" project

« on: January 02, 2016, 04:38:14 PM »

Not sure if you've tested it, but I can guess the coin cell plus OLED will cause some problems- OLED plus microcontroller pull about 30-60+ mA depending on brightness, so the coin cell voltage may sag to brownout levels pretty quickly.

1. The case definitely only holds 3 boards plus battery. Big compromise, but you can (maybe)imagine it even taller- cubewatch.
2. Bit of a coincidence- I'm testing the first production run of Rev5 TinyScreen boards that address these issues. I fixed a mistake with power consumption when the screen is 'off'(a few mA to a few uA), and added an optional pin 2/3 interrupt return from the GPIO board that is connected to the buttons- so with a solder bridge and library update, you can do wake on button press.

I haven't done enough testing, but I would guess our current processor board plus TS Rev5 and an RTC should be able to last at least a month on our standard rechargeable lithium battery, depending on screen usage- I think that's the way to go, does that sound doable?

298

General Discussion / Re: attiny841 in tinyshield dual motor

« on: December 30, 2015, 10:10:12 PM »

Thank you, glad you're taking a look at it.

1. You'll need to build an adapter with a TinyCircuits proto board so that you can connect a programmer- or connect to the TinyDuino and use ArduinoISP software. Then you need a software build environment- there are a lot of tutorials for setting up tools like AVR-GCC, avrdude, make, etc (WinAVR if you're on Windows), especially for 'raw' coding of a standard Arduino, and they should have about the same effect. However, the avrdude config file does need an addition for the ATtiny841- let me know if you get this far, or need help getting there.

2. For a multimeter you'll probably need a resistor/capacitor filter to get a nice voltage output. I've also remembered that the default behavior of the library is to let the motor 'coast'- ie, if one pin is being driven low, the other pin alternates between driven high and undriven- not driven high or driven low, like you would want for a voltage output. Since you're looking into the library, you should be able to write your own setMotor function to use 'maxPWM' instead of zero for the non-pwm pin. ie, a line like 'writeCommand(COMMAND_MOTOR_1,0,abs(val));' becomes 'writeCommand(COMMAND_MOTOR_1,maxPWM,abs(val));'

3. DRV8837 datasheet claims 280 milliohm total(high side plus low side) on resistance at 800mA, which would be 0.224V, so that may be what's going on if your motor is drawing over 1 amp. Is that the case?

Ben

299

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: TinyShield BLE nRF8001 20-byte limit?

« on: December 30, 2015, 09:34:57 PM »

Correct- BLE has 20 data bytes per packet, so anything sending more data than that is using a multi-packet protocol of some sort. These can be really simple or really complex. A simple way is just having a few byte header that's a message ID, packet number, total packets. Looking at Apple's ANCS BLE protocol may be instructive(or just overwhelming), but it's well designed.

300

TinyDuino Processors & TinyShields / Re: Update and Thanks!

« on: December 30, 2015, 09:23:08 PM »

Great, glad you're up and running. Our question when we hear about an iOS BLE app working is whether or not the source will be available at some point