2 Signs Up One to Go

Checking for accuracy.  Yes my fat ass did rip my pants today.

The public already interacting.

It's correct! 

Sign #2 Complete

I also made a slight change to the G to improve legibility.  Hopefully I'll finish the 3rd tomorrow.

Off to the printer.

The signs files are off to the printer today.  As for the hardware build, the shades are complete.  The software is in Beta, just needs some final Q/A to make sure everything lines up correctly.  Just a couple weeks to go.

Build process begins

Yesterday I completed building all of the rear portions of the signs.  Today I've marked all of the drill locations for the fronts and hopefully will head over to carpentry to use the drill press later today or tomorrow.

16!

So I spent the 2nd half of the day cleaning up my code and adding a few more matrixes. We're up to 16 running off of one Arduino Delimouve. Power seems steady everything is at the same lighting level. Pretty psyched. So with the big map I'll either have to use a 2 Megas (one for green and one for bolue trails, as they have more that 16 trails statuses that we display) or find out if I can use the analog pins to drive the matrixes also. I have doubts about that one. Tomorrow I'll probably hook a mega up and try to hook up another set of 4. Final step of this project will be

1. Figure out layout of all 3 boards

2. Finalize housing for system

3. Finalize wireless process

4. Create code from snow reporting system to update the sign

5. Hard wire everything and mount.

Hooked up and lookin pretty

We're up and running. After alittle hiccup I was able to plug straight into my Arduino and get the trail statuses displaying right away. We're a go. We just need the rest of our boards to be cleared of this hiccup and we'll be good to go.

Final PCB in House.

After a long process, my boards have come in. We're on to the final phase of the build. Big thanks to Stillwell Baker & Screaming Circuits.

The Guitar is installed.

The guitar is installed in Metals Rock!

8 MAX72XX is the limit

I reached the limit on how many MAX7219's can be chained together. That's 8. Good article here, so I'll have to use another 3 outputs on the arduino for my 5th matrix. Photos soon.

External Power

So I did some reading and some internet searching, and think I have at least part of the power issue figured out. I purchased a 7805 +5VDC Voltage Regulator, wired up my 1/2 size breadboard as my external power supply and added an led to that board and to 3 others down the line as a visual to see if power is being routed properly. Now with just the ground from the Arduino going into the circuit I can get everything operating properly. So the next test will be to get a Voltage Regulator with a higher current rating and a heat sink to get up to the current I need to drive all of the leds. 2 internet posts that helped a bunch. *ITP Physical Computing & *http://pixelriot.com/pmatp/node/285

Also http://www.tkk.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/psu_5v.html

Cutting the cord

Well one of them. We're now offcially wireless. I got 2 xbees talking to each other and was able to move my 2 matrixes across the room. This article here helped a lot with setting up the xbees. Next step will be power. Preferably we'd run on solar power (I can get one matrix running & xbee if I plug straight into the solar panel) still working on wiring up the battery and running off of that.

Of note I didn't have to change my arduino code at all, just plugged one xbee straight into the iobridge, GND->GND, 5V->5V, Rx->Tx & Tx ->Rx. The other xbee went to the arduino, 3.3v ->3v, GND->GND, Rx ->Tx & Tx ->Rx. Simple as that. Photos shortly, gotta charge my camera.

2-8x8 working

Quick update today. I reorganized the 8x8 led and added a 2nd in sequence. We now have 2 8x8 leds displaying open/closed/groomed.

2 New Vids

Ok First we got the Red/Green function working for the 8x8 Matrix.

Secondly, we added a blue row to our LEDs and now show the open/closed/groomed status for 16 trails. I tried to make it a little easier to see the different rows by putting the cardboard on top. Here's a quick guide, Red = Closed, Green = Open, Blue = Groomed. Only one light will illuminate for each trail. Next step would be to do this with a single RGB LED. Also to note what it is doing, I create a quick startup sequence that runs when I reset the Arduino. Then I click 2 buttons I created in the flash program to turn on trails 1-8 & 9-16.

Today, I was able to hook-up an 8x8 R/G led matrix and display X,O and G in red. Still need to get Green going and then re-write the code in Flash so I can connect it to the internet.

Web Connected

So using AS3 Glue, I've been able to talk to the Arduino using flash. This allows me to load my XML file for trail status, parse it and send the data to the LEDs. I currently am showing the open closed status of 16 trails. Figuring using the arduino mega, and 74HC595 shift registers, I should be able to show the Open/Closed/Groomed status of 96 trails. This might get a little smaller to make room for wireless. Expanding to matrixes instead of individual LEDs or LEDs in parallel will add some other difficulties I'm sure. I could also replace the 74HC595's with a STP16C596 shift register and take 8 to 16, or run the matrixes with MAX7219CNG. More testing once some more parts get it. I'll get a video posted later today.

RGB LED Matrix