roB3AR's Blog

Blinded By the light…well actually not really, since it's IR

1 long range IR LED/sensor hybrid down, 2 to go. today, with the of teknick, i was able to accomplish the long range challenge. we developed a set up that is now transmitting a signal over about a 3-4 meter distance. earlier today i was able to boost the IR LED current to a whopping 150mA, from the previous 6mA (the 150mA ended up being too high). We realized earlier in the week that we were getting robbed current wise and when looking at the IR LED data sheet we read that we could send up to 200mA through the LED. the 150mA ended up being too high, so now we are using about 15mA. we accomplished this current by adding a transistor and adding a controller with 3.3V in series with our LED diode and a 100 ohm resistor (note: there is about a 1.5V drop across the diode and about a 300mV drop across the resistor). there is a lot more circuitry that we also added/changed/removed so i will post a diagram tomorrow. i am just very excited that we have a long range tripwire made up. check out the picture below.

lastly, i need to make a case for this bad boy. teknick mentioned that the LED and sensor are air tight, so if they are exposed nothing bad will happen. then we can seal the LED and sensor into an outdoor box by using a silicone seal. i will start messing with this stuff too, since its t minus 5 DAYS TIL SCHMOOOOOOOO!!!!

-rob3ar

motor-OH-la

today we had our big meeting with motorola and it went amazingly well. they loved our ideas and wanted to incorporate them into their works. another company, vidsys, also loved what we are doing and they want to come see our presentation at schmoocon. all this stuff is so amazing, especially because the word “internships” was thrown around a lot, and boy do i love internships! =] i am going to email the guy from motorola and see if an internship is possible. also, BIG NEWS, jazzman was able to connect to the router and we were sending data about people count. WOOO!!! XD

-rob3ar

LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!

there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel because everything is beginning to merge together. we (cuddles and i) have successfully combined our code with jazzman, who is working on getting it to afterburn. i still need to get more range. i have combined a stronger IR LED and IR sensor into one IR hybrid and i'm using a reflector to send the LED back to the sensor (check the image below). i have gotten up to about a foot distance, but i still need to work on getting this distance a LOT bigger.

-rob3ar

wonder twin powers ACTIVATE!

larry and i has successfully merged our codes. the PWM is working inside his people counting code. i also have an idea for merging out TPMs after looking at his code. he runs his TPM at the BUSCLK speed and he doesnt use the PWM, so why not combine and use only one TPM? makes sense since i only need it for the PWM and i need a the TPM runnin at the same speed as the BUSCLK.

-rob3ar

i'm a solderin machine!

i soldered my first piece today, connecting some Vcc, ground, and out wires for IR receiver use. i'm really hoping that the parts come tomorrow because i was looking at the list of ordered parts and i skeeted a little in my pants. on that note, i updated the wiki today and added a section to the PWM about power usage. should come in handy in the end! =] other than that i've just been playing around with different IR receivers (some dead, some alive) and i have a good idea of whats left to be coded.

cant wait for parts! XD

-rob3ar