Blackberry bold 9000 sound fix

July 1st, 2010

For those of you that have a Blackberry bold 9000, you are probably familiar with the problem of having intermittent ring sound or loudness.

For ages i have put up with the problem on mine, trying various fixes based on the contacts between the main board and the pads
on the underside of the speakers which appeared to solve the problem for a little while but it seems it was only incidental. It was
not until recently that i finally discovered the REAL reason for the fading sound.  The problem is caused by a conductive
elastomer that fails.  If you remember back years and years ago, the old Nokia 3/5/6/7/8110’s and others in the era suffered from a
failure of a similar item which caused the dreaded ’screen fade’ problem where you could push below the screen and the display
would come back to life. What would happen is that over time, from being continuously compressed in pockets etc, the elastomer
would compress permanently causing it to lose connection between the two surfaces. Nokia learnt from it’s mistakes and promptly
moved to a sprung contact in it’s next generation of phones.

This is exactly what is happening in the Bold but for the connections to the speakers.  For some reason that is still not obvious to
me, they use electrical tracks on the underside of the grey cover that goes over the camera flash LED to conduct electricity to the
speakers from the flex circuit the LED is mounted to (via the conductive elastomer).  It seems idiotic to do it this way, there is
simply no need for it.  The design is simply flawed – as if it was an afterthought.

So, on to a FIX – Well, so far i have managed a ‘primary’ fix which involves removing the grey plate, stretching the elastomer out and
replacing the plate again with a bit more force than it had before.  This is all i have needed to do to get it back to ‘as new’ but time
will tell if it is a long term solution or not.  If it proves to fail further down the track, the next option would be to connect the
speakers with wire directly rather than relying on the elastomer.

Disclaimer: In doing this ‘fix’ you will be voiding your warranty. I accept no responsibility for damage to your phone in any way.  This information is provided ‘as is’ without any warranty or guarantee that it is accurate or will actually fix your phone.  These are the steps i undertook to repair my phone and it worked, it may not for you. Follow these steps at your own discretion and risk.

Tools required:
Sharp knife (hobby knife or box cutter type), Fine tipped soldering iron and a spoon (yes, I’m serious)

Step 1:
Remove the battery cover

Step 2:
Look at the grey plate.  As you can see, the plate is held on by 8 plastic pins that have been melted over (marked in red in the pic below). With a small sharp knife
(Be careful!) remove the melted tops of the pins so the grey plate can be removed.  Try not to push down on the grey bit when you cut the tops
of the pins off, you want to leave as much pin left as you can.

Step 3:
Remove the grey cover, being careful not to lose the led reflector from between it and the LED and put them aside.

Step 4:
Either flip the phone over and give it a tap on your hand or gently pry the elastomer out with something small – it’s the white bit
above the LED (marked in green below).

Step 5:
Grab your spoon and put the elastomer on it’s SIDE on a clean, hard, flat surface.  Now what we want to do is squash it a bit.  You
can use a bit of force but the idea is to get it to bulge back out from the way it was compressed in the phone.

Step 6:
Replace the elastomer in the phone, put the LED reflector back in the grey plate and put it back on the phone.  While holding them
together with a little bit of force, check the sound is all good by playing some music or something.

Step 7:
Once you are happy that it’s all going to work and the led reflector is definitely in place, grab your soldering iron and with a bit of force, hold the grey plate down to expose
some more of the black pins and just dab each one with the soldering iron.  It only takes a dab, no need to hold it on there.  Once all of them
are done, test again and with any luck you now have an ‘as new’ sound level.

Time will tell on this fix but if it fails again, i will simply solder some extra fine wire from the flex board on the bottom to the
contacts on the speakers.  The problem then is that it would likely be next to impossible to replace the grey plate for a ’stock’ look
but probably nothing some hot glue and some slight modding would not fix :)   The other option is to just replace the rear frame with
a new one but that is not really fixing the problem – even RIM have told me replacing it will not fix it permanently meaning they have
not changed the design of the part so it is still flawed. If you prefer to go down that path http://cnn.cn offer great deals on phone
parts and are really efficient.  I don’t have any affiliation with them, I have just been a very happy customer of thiers in the past.

I do not believe this is a problem in the newer 9700 bold.

Hope this helps someone!

Posted in Voiding Warranties | 8 Comments »

Sim Update – Shifter paddles and a better seat

June 29th, 2010

With the basics now sorted I’ve moved on to some more asthetic and convinience items for the sim.  I managed to pick up a seat from a local DIY car wrecker from a Suzuki Swift Gti for $28!  It’s got a couple of very minor rips but over all it’s in great condition and super comfy.

I’ve also recently added some F1 style shifter paddles to the wheel.  This enables easy use of cars that are only sequencial shifing in LFS.  It’s odd – a ‘H pattern’  gearbox based car can be driven as a sequencial but not the other way around.  I guess it’s because most commercial wheels do not have H shifting (or a clutch for that matter) so it keeps compatibility. I’m still considering what i can do to make an add-on for the H shifter to convert it easily to sequencial and back again but it’s less important now and it would only be for realism.

The paddles are constructed very simply. The orangy brown stuff is a silicone rubber.  The bolts support the flaps on the main bolts and give it a spring effect.  The gap between the microswitch and the paddle is only a couple of mm and it works really well.  The original design for the paddles were a little short and were not easy enough to reach so i extended them with another bit of aluninium rather than make new ones - hence the addition of the second set of bolts.

Posted in Projects, Racing Sim, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Sim pretty much finished now

June 7th, 2010

I completed the shifter not long after the last post and also made some slight mods to it.  The main change being that the shaft is now much shorter than the original one.

This is the shifter in it’s current state:

Also, since completing the shifter, I broke one of my design rules – the ‘Small/Storable/Dissasemblable” rule.  There were various reasons for this but the main one was that i just could not get the ergonomics right when sitting at a desk/table.  It mean that regardless of how i laid it out, it just didn’t feel right.  Not only that, I decided to utlise an old 32″ HD CRT TV that i had and it weighs about 50kg.  It’s not something i wanted to put on a rickety desk.

I proceeded to make a metal frame placing the pedals, shifter and wheel at comparable distances to my real car.  The seat came later….

With the basic frame complete, I was in the hunt for a seat.  Ideally i wanted to use a real car seat.  Not necessarily a real racing seat but perhaps just a slightly bucketed seat from a sports car (something still nice and comfy).  That is still the intention but for now, i’ve mounted an old school style plastic chair to it.  It’s not overly comfy and still doesn’t feel quite right but does the trick for the time being. I also added some adjustable feet to the frame.

This is pretty much how it is today:

The only change i have made since this image was taken is the addition of a handbrake.  This helps immensely for drifting and offroad driving.  It uses an extra axis on the mjoy.  It’s noting spectacular and ideally needs more sprung force on it but is very functional.

Posted in Projects, Racing Sim | 2 Comments »

Shifter update

March 28th, 2010

My shifter is almost complete now.  All the mechanics of it have been done, just the electrics left.

The pictures are pretty self explainatory but i’ll explain how it works.

The first collet on the shifter shaft is staic and held by a grub screw.  The spring then exerts force against the delrin block supporting the skate bearings.  The block is free to move over the shaft.  This part gives the ‘clunk into gear’ feel.  Underneath the the rod end is a slightly cupped out thick ‘washer’ and then that’s followed by another static collet.  The spring force is also excerted on the washer and then the body of the rod end.  This means that when the shaft is moved off center, the washer falcrums on the body of the rod end and pulls the shaft down against the spring, this keeps it centered.  This combined with the gates on the bottom of the shifter gives it a very real feel.  I still have to put a slight concave in the neutral position although it is not stirctly needed as the spring is just about enough to give some more resistance, just before falling over the edge onto the ‘in gear’ ramp.

The plan for the electrics is to have a dual personality 6th gear.  There will be a toggle switch to make it either reverse or 6th.  Therefore in normal 5 speed boxes it will be reverse but in 6 speeds i can use it as 6th but flick a switch and it will be reverse.

p3280032_sml p3280034_sml p3280033_sml

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Racing sim update

March 26th, 2010

Ok, as promised here is the details of the electronics.  Most of you would be interested in the load cell interface so i’ll start with that.  The interface is truly simple, the main chip, an INA122PA is only about $7 from RS and a little more from Farnell.  There are other equivalents but this is the one i used and is also one of the cheapest.  The pinout is very basic for our purposes.  You have a power supply (coming from the Mjoy) to power the chip and the load cell.  The load cell applies it’s voltage to 2 pins and the chip simply amplifies the voltage from the load cell.  The gain (how much it amplifies the voltage) is set by the resistor accross pins 1 and 8.  The capacitor is a simple 0.1uf filtering type. The cell puts out 2mv/v so at 5v excitation we get 10mv at full scale.  To get 0-5v we need to multiply that by 500.  For this chip that means a resistor of about 400 ohms.  Less resistance will give more gain.  Since my load cell is a 100kg item i have increased the gain on mine to about 600.

That’s about it!  Hook it up inline instead of a pot and you’re done.  Just make sure you get the wires around the right way…

lc_interface Load Cell interface

As for the main Mjoy board, I modified a layout i found around the net.  I have not removed any ‘branding’ so if one wanted to seek out the original designer i’m sure they could.  The only real change i made was to add pads to be able to vertical mount standard diodes for the buttons rather than use SMD types.  Most other changes were to add some distance between tracks etc.  Print, transfer, etch, drill and solder etc.  I made up my own paralell port programmer interface to program the chip in place with the provided header.

One thing i would like to add here is that originally i tried to use an AtMega88 as i was told they were basically the same.  Unfortunately they are not.  There are too many dfferences to allow the standard hex file (for the AtMega8) to work.  Someone has ported the code to the ‘88 but i have not been able to get this to work.  I presume it has something to do with fuse settings on the chip but even though i have set them right, it still does not work for me. I ended up having to stick with an AtMega8 at about 5 times the price of the ‘88.

mjoy_pcb p3210025_sml1

PCB Layout files (Sprint 5.0 format, free reader available to be able to print them http://www.abacom-online.de/uk/html/dateien/demos/viewlayout50.exe)

NB – The Mjoy PCB has incorrect axis lables, they are backwards so it should read X,Y,R,T,Z,Rx.  Not really important other than the fact that the XYRT axes are 10bit and the other 2 are only 8bit. Earlier versions of Mjoy only have 2 10bit axes (X and Y)

pcb-mjoy-v14
load_cell_board

Please let me know if you download these files, it’s nice to know someone else is finding these useful.

I’ve also started work on my H Shifter for the sim.  I’m trying to keep the design simple but at the same time i want something robust and somewhat realistic.  Combining the ideas of some others, i have come up with my own design which should allow for this.

Shown below is the basis of the shifter (not complete obviously).  Between the 2 horizontal bars (the ones with holes in them) will go a block of delrin which supports 2 standard skate bearings.  I have not yet finished the profile on the horizontal bars, there will be another dip in the middle. The delrin will freely slide over the 1/2″ shaft and will be followed by a spring and then a retaining clip.  This will force the block/bearings down on the ‘ramps’.  This should give a ‘clunk’ into gear and also allow for a little freeplay between gears in the ‘y axis’ when viewed from above.  The centering mechanism will be another single spring around the shaft that sits on the rod end and is secured again by a retainer.  The compression of the spring will try to keep it centered.  From there it is only a matter of making a gate plate and hooking up the switches for the gears.  I intend to mount the switches in the base of the unit to keep them safe.

p3250031_sml p3250030_sml

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Posted in Electronics, Projects, Racing Sim | 11 Comments »

Time for a new project

March 21st, 2010

While i’ve been tinkering with many things over the time since my last post.  Most of it has not really been very noteworthy or at least nothing that would probably be of interest or use to anyone else.

However, inspired by now owning a 2L turbo sports car and some recent participation in some motorsport events i’ve decided to build a racing simulator.  It’s nothing new, i don’t claim it to be but i’ve decided to collaborate some of the things i have done in hope that it might help someone else going down the same path.

The aim of this project is to produce a somewhat life-like simulator without using a standard shop bought wheel/pedal set.  I’ts not going to be real, i know, but here’s my ‘requirements’:

  • Realistic steering wheel with as much rotation as possible
  • Analogue Clutch
  • ‘H’ pattern gear shifting
  • Analogue Hand/E brake
  • Force measured brake (not movement like normal pedal sets)
  • Small/Storable/Disassembleable  (I don’t have a spare room for a sim cockpit)
  • Strong/Durable
  • Cheap!

The intended target platform is a PC running ‘Live for speed’

I started this project a couple of months back, starting with the wheel and now i have just completed the pedals.   The steering mechanism was construced utilising a 2:1 ratio cam belt driven gearbox giving a theoretical ‘lock to lock’ of 540 Deg.  A little less than i wanted but it works ok.  There’s nothing too technical about it other than the gear reduction.  It uses a real sports steering wheel too.  A keen eye might also be able to tell what the bearing/shaft supports are recycled from :)

The pedals were heavily based on the design of the commercial product from http://www.cannonsimulationtechnologies.com. Todd of CST also sells a ‘DIY’ guide for making a pedal set that is somewhat comparable to his commercial product for only US$12.  I probably could have constructed my pedals without the need for the guide but i went and bought it anyway.  I saw it like paying royalties for his design and i think it’s only fair he gets some reward for his efforts.

The main difference with my pedals are basically the fact that i have constructed them almost entirely of things i had at home already or i could acquire for free.  The problem for someone attempting to replicate what i have done is, not everyone would have the stuff lying around like i do but parts can easily be substituted.

So far, the build has only cost me about $80.  The bulk of that cost is for the rod ends that go to the tops of the pedals at ~$16ea.  The springs were about $7 each.  The steering mechanism has been totally free so far.

All these mechanics are no good without some way to interface them with a PC.  I tinkered with the idea of using an optical mouse to track an encoder mounted to the steering wheel at first but this was not far from epic fail.  It worked but was too unreliable, lost it’s center and basically sucked.  One advantage it did have was an almost unlimited number of rotations.  Pity it sucked everywhere else.  Abandoning the optical mouse idea, i moved to the old pot style joystick.  I happened to have an old E-Sky USB trainer in the cupboard that i never use anymore so i gutted that –  The result is the ability to have 4 axis analogue joystick control.  Only problem was that ideally i needed 5 analogue inputs but it was enough for ‘proof of concept’ for now.

Not long after destroying the USB trainer I came across Leo Bodnar’s site.  He sells a generic USB interface that provides 6+ Analogue inputs as well as 32 odd buttons.  While his product is good, it did not really follow the rule of cheap.  At about $80 to get one to my door, it would have doubled the current cost of the build.  Some more googling turned up a ‘product’ called Mjoy by Mindaugas Milasauskas.  It’s a DIY USB joystick interface based on an Atmega8 AVR. It seems that his legacy goes on but for some reason his website is gone.  I am making  Mindaugas’ and version of the joystick interface (for a fraction of the cost of Leo’s).  All of my designs and ideas will be published here.

The interesting thing with the CST pedals is the use of a load sensor for the brake sensing.  This is a superb idea (Although Todd admits it was not his).  This will give a much more real feel to the brake pedal.  I managed to salvage a load sensor from some industrial scales some time back – I knew it would be good for something! The problem is the interface between the load sensor and the joystick controller.  The load sensor only puts out ~2mv at full load, we need 0-5v scale for the joystick interface.  Some more googling dug up an ‘off the shelf’ chip designed for this exact task.  It’s an INA122 by Burr-Brown (owned by Texas instruments i believe).  As it turns out,  this appears to be the chip Leo uses in his controller with load cell interface.  The difference with me is, i’m going to give you all the info you need to get it running with Mindaugas’ design for free.

Details to come….

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Posted in Electronics, Projects, Racing Sim | 9 Comments »

DIY PCB Boards – Toner transfer method

March 21st, 2009

I know this is nothing new,  the toner transfer method has been around for years.  One of the pioneers was probably Thomas Gootee.  He discovered the miracle of the Staples paper and described the method of making a board really well.

While i don’t want to undermine what beautiful work he has done  (in fact, if you have come here without seeing his page first, i strongly reccomend you follow the link above before going further here) I would like to document some of my experiences using this method and what i use to produce repeatable results.

Primarily, the problem for us Aussies is that the staples paper is simply not available here.  I have gone through several brands of paper and just could not find any that released well enough.  Most of the papers coating also got stuck to the board and was hard to almost impossible to remove without damaging the toner.  I have used generic papers such as OfficeWorks brand, Avery, Canon and Kodak papers.  None of which produced good results.  All were cheap and only 15×10cm papers so fortunately it has not cost me a mint in research but the one i have settled on with PERFECT results is:

HP Everyday photo paper

The item number of the papers i have (in 10X15cm) is Q5441A.  This is plenty big enough for all my projects.  It releases PERFECTLY with no residue, even on the toner.  I only soak for about 5 mins in hot water and it simply slides off.  If some is left behind, soak for a little more and it will all come off – NO scrubbing with toothbrush, heavy rubbing etc.  it just glides off the board.  I was absolutely amazed at how well this paper worked compared to all the others i have tried.  There is simply no better paper in Australia.  To make things even better – the pack of 100 sheets only cost me $6!!  that’s right, the paper is so cheap it’s not funny.  Compare that to press ‘n’ peel or other commercial toner transfer paper which is not any better and WELL above that price.

That is not the only key to this system working consistantly, the other important factor is how the toner is transferred with heat and pressure.  Irons can and do work ok but repaeatable results are hard to achieve with them.  I generally found that i eneded up applying too much heat and/or the paper tended to slide and smudge the toner which meant starting again.  The answer to this is to use a laminator but even still, not just any laminator.  90% (if not more) of laminators heat, then squeeze the laminator pocket.  They do this by having 2 heat plates before the rollers to warm it up and the rollers then squeeze it all together.  What i have found is that the heat and pressure need to be applied at the SAME TIME for it to work well.

The key here is, find a laminator that utilizes a heater INSIDE the roller.  AFAIK, the only company that produces this type of laminator is GBC and even not all of thiers work like this.  I can confirm however that the GBC ‘Creative Laminator’ available at K-Mart DOES.  I believe this is also the same as the one available from Dick Smith stores and even Australia Post.  K-Mart is the cheapest however, i paid just under $40 for mine from there.

The method of using the laminator is pretty straightforward but there are some points that should be observed:

1, Make sure the laminators ‘ready’ light is on.  It takes about 5 mins to heat up…
2, Run the board through the laminator with a piece of ordinary blank paper over the copper to pre-heat the board.  The piece of paper is important as i have found that the toner does not stick as well if you don’t.  I presume this has something to do with the rubber rollers possibly having some oil residue on them.  It could go away after time.
3, Once the board is preheated, attach your PCB design and carefully feed the two through the laminator at least two, probably 3 times. 
4, Dunk board and paper in hot water and leave for about 5 mins then peel slowly. 
5, Etch as normal with your favourite echant
6, Clean toner off with Acetone 

So far using this combination of the HP paper and the GBC laminator i can consistantly produce boards with tracks at 0.4mm and even less between tracks/pads.  it’s possible that it could go less but i have not tried.

Below is some pics of a board i have just done… This is for a pic based li-po monitor i found over at http://www.plmsdevelopments.com (look for the link right down the end of the text about Martin’s Electic RC exploits).

I am using a HP Laserjet 1320 with density set to 5 (maximum).  I still get some pitting in the toner as you can see in the pics but it is not evident in the final product.  I’m hoping to find a better printer that can pile up the toner – something like a HP Laserjet 4 but they are hard to find in good enough condition on the cheap.

UPDATE: I’ve since slightly changed the way i do this.  One thing is that i now tend to print my PCB’s using a very dark blue (on a colour laser)  rather than black.  It could really be any colour i spose but my theory is the darker it is, the more toner is used.  I have found this to be the best way to avoid pitts in the copper after etching as it fills all the gaps.

The problem with this is, the colour toner tends to be a little harder to melt in the laminator. Basically, it doesn’t.  It’s very hard to get it to bond.  However, Ahmad Tabbouch has written an excellent guide on bumping up the temp on the GBC laminator, as well as another mod that should help it last a bit longer.  I won’t re-hash what he has done, but here’s a link to the guide on his site – http://www.ultrakeet.com.au/index.php?id=article&name=superfuser.  Even if you don’t use colour toner, it’s still a great mod.  No pre-warming the PCB and you only need to feed it once! Highly reccomended mod, you could even substitute the resistor with a trimpot and have variable temp if you ever need to use the laminator for it’s actual intended purpose.  However, the outer shell will get a little deformed from the extra heat and i would not reccomend leaving it on for more than is needed for a few boards. 

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Posted in Electronics | 22 Comments »

Why you shouldn’t buy batteries from Ebay…

February 16th, 2009

So i bought the drifter and i bought a couple of 7.2v packs from the LHS for about $40 each – they were 3600mah batteries.  Good but expensive (for a cheap drifter anyway).  So, i spotted an ebay store based in Hong Kong that was selling 2 X 3800mah Ni-Mh packs at about AU$40 for the two posted.  It seemed like a pretty good deal so i thought what the hell.  I mean, it’s not as if i need special ’super power’ racing packs anyway as the car is not raced as such.

I buy items from HK all the time so i had no hesitation.  My Heli’s, parts and most of my Maxx parts all come from HK and i have never had any problems with the service.  Infact, i’ve had more problems with local sellers on ebay than i have with international ones…

Anyway, 7 odd days later I got the two packs in the mail.  Generally the first charge should be for 10+ hrs at 1/10C or 380ma in this case.  I done that, the packs got warm as they should and nothing more.  So, i popped one in the car and went for a drift.  It seemed ok but didn’t last very long – about 5 mins which is pitiful.  The other pack was the same.  So, i slow charged them both again and gave it another shot the next day – Same result.  I have never experienced this type of problem with battery packs so i messaged the seller with a general question of ‘How many cycles should these batteries need to achieve full capacity’.  They replied with a generic text along the lines of ‘make sure you charge for 10hrs before use’.  I was not overly happy with the reply but i thought i’d just stick with them for a bit and see what happens.  After about 10 cycles and now using my smart charger at 1c rate (3.8A charge), the batteries would still only take about 1200mah.

I went to message the seller again but it seems that they are ‘no longer a registered user’.  Odd since they had been a member since 2004.  At about the same time I happened to notice that the 3800’s seemed to be much lighter than my 3600’s.  I was starting to suspect that perhaps they were not 3800 cells.  So, with the seller no longer active, beyond 60 days for buyer protection and the cost of a return likely to be at least half the cost of a new battery i decided to crack the heatshrink on the pack to inspect the cells.

When i finally cut through the two layers of shrink wrap i expected to see something dodgey but nothing prepared me for this!

battery_assembled1
battery_opened

That’s right, NO WHERE NEAR 3800mah at 1300mah and not only that they are Ni-CD cells, not Ni-Mh!!!  Buyer beware!  This could have caused huge problems.  I was charging this battery at 1C (3.8A) when it is not really supposed to be charged at any more than 1.3A.  If this had caused a fire or explosion I could have been in serious trouble.  Not only that, it’s complete fraud. I’m not really sure how you could avoid getting these dodgey packs other than staying away from these generic ones completeley.  My guess is that most of the cheapies on ebay are probably all from the same factory and just labelled differently.  Either that or get a 100% money back guaruntee that the packs you are buying are definately of the specified capacity and chemistry.  

If the seller resumes business then i will supply thier ID to anyone who wants it, otherwise just be very careful.

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Posted in RC Stuff | 2 Comments »

Another toy

February 12th, 2009

Over the xmas break i decided to invest in another RC toy.  I love my t-maxx truck but it’s noisy, messy and generally costs a lot to keep it running.  So, i thought i might have a go at an electric car and one step more – a drifter.  I managed to pick up a brand new Tamiya TT-01 chassis off ebay for about $100.  Throw in an ESC, steering servo, RX and a battery and you have a running car.  After that just bolt on some drift wheels and you’re up and drifting.

The advantage i saw with drifing is it’s low speed.  Low speed = less damage when you hit something = cheaper to run.  The other advantage is that you can drift with a real stock crapper, there is no need to do untold amount of upgrades to get it to drift well.  The stock Mabuchi 540 motor does the job fine and there is not a lot of advantage in going for more speed.  Drifting needs torque and not speed – I’ts more about driver skill than how many $$ the person has spent on the car. There are some minor upgrades that come in handy however, notably the shock absorbers.  On the stock TT-01 they are just friction types.  I swapped these for some oil filled dampeners and this has made a significant improvement to drifting.  You also really need to lock both front and rear diffs (nothing a bit of knead-it can’t handle)

Unfortunately the drift scene seems to have almost depleted totally from what it used to be at Hobby Habit here in South Australia.  I remember going to a ‘drift night’ there a couple of years back and there was probably about 30 cars.  It was awesome.  Now, unfortunately there are only about 5 compeditors in the drifing and the drift meet is now only part of thier friday night Hyper10 Racing as a time based event wich is somewhat pointless for a drifing comp.  It’s still great to go there in practice time for some fun though.

Tim and I went there a few times and it was soon apparent to Tim that he needed one too so he bought one not long after i did.  It’s very challenging but even more fun….

If anyone in the southern adelaide suburbs is interested in getting into drifting and/or would like to meet up for some drifting, post a comment here

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Anemometer update

February 12th, 2009

It’s been a while since i posted the original concept of the anemometer and much more development went into it after that.

I have now made a propper PCB and gone to a 20X4 LCD as well as probably tripling the lines of code.

The code now displays a speed for every revolution of the vane. It’s a little hard to read in windy conditions so i also added an average reading which is an average of the last 10 readings.  I also added a feature into the code to output the average value via a serial port on the chip. The serial port data is pumped into a MOXA nPort server, which is mapped to a virtual serial port on my server over the internet (some kilometers away).  The data is logged via a PHP script, further averaged and pumped into an rrdtool database at regular intervals.  This gives me the ability to easliy see what the conditions are like from anywhere in the world.  It’s geeky i know, and it was more of a ‘because i can’ feature rather than a requirement.

Feel free to check it out – http://www.hux.net.au/anemometer It’s basic but does the job.

anemometer_mounted

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