SUICIDALRAIDER
New Member
great job julie!!!! covered in awesome sauce and has alittle on the side too!!!
Evolution of the Countdown
- Thread starter Ei luj
- Start date
Naasad Tal
Well-Known Member
HOLY FREAKIN CRAP!!!! that thing is AMAZING!!! I am definantly gonna get one for all three of us...my little girl is gonna FLIP when we mount that thing in her new gaunt!!!
Julie it's people like you that have made The Lair what it is...great work!!!
Julie it's people like you that have made The Lair what it is...great work!!!
Ei luj
New Member
Blasturbator, Un-Blooded, PredatrHuntr, Suicidalraider, Bovine13
Many thanks *more shy grins* just doin' my job
OK, my turn
Jason, I thought it was "Mmmmm, DONUTS"
you guys are making me hungry!!! RIBS, big juicy RIBS!!!!
Nope, keep it goin'
(I'm dyin' here )
Again my thanks to all of you!
(P.S. need help with photo bucket, worked fine yesterday, not today... arrrgh)
---
Ei'luj
Many thanks *more shy grins* just doin' my job
OK, my turn
Jason, I thought it was "Mmmmm, DONUTS"
you guys are making me hungry!!! RIBS, big juicy RIBS!!!!
Nope, keep it goin'
(I'm dyin' here )
Again my thanks to all of you!
(P.S. need help with photo bucket, worked fine yesterday, not today... arrrgh)
---
Ei'luj
AlphaTech686
Active Member
Now that is some nice work. The final outcome is beautiful.
Ei luj
New Member
Alphatech,
Many thanks!
Here's some more details associated with it, my gaunt has a layer of leather velcroed across it, that holds the 2-part foam padding.
If foam is left off, and the layer is put in (with cutouts for battery area) then it serves as an insulator and protective layer between one's arm and the board. (that 9v battery is looking more attractive )
gaunt and layer:
attach at elbow end:
attachment at wrist end:
closed up (sorry for crosswise picture):
I will be posting up info how I made the overlay in the front.
---
Ei'luj
Many thanks!
Here's some more details associated with it, my gaunt has a layer of leather velcroed across it, that holds the 2-part foam padding.
If foam is left off, and the layer is put in (with cutouts for battery area) then it serves as an insulator and protective layer between one's arm and the board. (that 9v battery is looking more attractive )
gaunt and layer:
attach at elbow end:
attachment at wrist end:
closed up (sorry for crosswise picture):
I will be posting up info how I made the overlay in the front.
---
Ei'luj
Ei luj
New Member
Honus,
many thanks, it was a blast (if you will excuse the choice of words) figuring it out
I have to go check out your cannon thread
---
Ei'luj
P.S.
This is how I did that overlay
cut out the front and back of the box plastic
Here's the circuit layout as-is, from that program I exported it to a drawing program (TurboCad)
Added rectangles and printed it out (a couple of copies)
On one copy cut out the rectangles and the outline of the overlay. Used the other to help make the window template (seen above)
Peeled off the film (its called Frisket film, get it at the art supply store) and put it on the front of the plastic
Put the pattern with the cut out rectangles over the film and filled in the rectangles with sharpie pen
Cut the colored portion of the rectangles with an exacto knife
Carefully peeled off the film, leaving the rectangles stuck on there
Now painted the plastic with flat black spray enamel (just a small amount of sharpie'd border shown here for reference)
After it dried, peeled off the little rectangles
The overlay before peeling
Finished overlay on a board (again please excuse my schizoid sideways camera....)
Mortal Immortal
New Member
Great stuff Julie (Wiring Queen)
Its been a while since I see any working timers over flashing lights.
Its been a while since I see any working timers over flashing lights.
Ei luj
New Member
Scott,
Many thanks! When was it that you saw the timers, my memory is foggy...
More background on the countdown:
Here's a link to the "Picaxe Chips and General Electronics" thread by Xrobots; he and PredaHawk and I were talking about the various electronic approaches, mostly the programmable chips:
http://www.thehunterslair.com/index.php?sh...3&hl=picaxe
Post #3 has the links to where I got the programmer, #7 is the video of the then existing countdown, and #21 is where I started to dig into it but got sidetracked on boatload of costuming.... its where I said that when I got it working, you'd all hear me holler EUREKAAAAA ............ now you've heard it
Wiring Queen, reminds me of a certain song by ABBA
Tusky,
Many thanks, I wanted to get it as accurate as possible, I played the AVP movie and stepped thru where the countdown is running, and took the sequence from that, and filled in any blank segments.
Note that its "accurate" and not "accurized", Carlart has dibs on that term
----
Ei'luj
Ei luj
New Member
Good stuff, Julie. Can't wait to see a video of that thing workin'
thanks Carl
video's up!
(to borrow Scott's phrase, thanks for watching )
---
Ei'luj
MasterAnubis
Sr Member
Your inspiring. I didn't really feel the need for a flashy bomb gaunlet but heres what I did over the last couple of days because of this thead.
Like you, I played to my strengths (but with programming) and I already have an Arduino microcontroller. So I tested the possibility to multiplex the rows and was able to come up with something 'flashy'. It only has 25 LEDs not the 35 yours does. But hey, I dont plan on finishing it anyway. The code I wrote won't win any awards either.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Shawn
Like you, I played to my strengths (but with programming) and I already have an Arduino microcontroller. So I tested the possibility to multiplex the rows and was able to come up with something 'flashy'. It only has 25 LEDs not the 35 yours does. But hey, I dont plan on finishing it anyway. The code I wrote won't win any awards either.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Shawn
Ei luj
New Member
MasterAnubis/Shawn,
thanks for the good reviews
And your approach is interesting, using fewer LEDs. Got me to thinking on the I/O lines from my controller.
Now that I look at my sketch of the sequence I took down from the AVP movie, I realize that the last window's 5 LEDs are on just on the first count, and then the next count they are all off.
So instead of using the max I/O lines from my controller and take the last I/O and run it to a hex buffer chip and run a couple LEDs off that buffer output, I could cheat the whole last 5 LEDs.
Run all 5 at once; one I/O line to all 5 inputs of the buffer, and each out put of the buffer runs an LED.
Now three fewer I/O lines would be used, total would be 29.
Nice when some of em are by default used for other purposes and you don't want to go thru contortions to get em to be freed up for I/O and not something else
How many max I/O lines are on your Arduino?
(I clicked on the video you posted and its taking forever to load, I use Mozilla/Firefox, will it load better using I.E. ?)
anyway, I'm glad this got you going, that's the way of the Lair, get folks going, Hey, I can do that
---
Ei'luj
thanks for the good reviews
And your approach is interesting, using fewer LEDs. Got me to thinking on the I/O lines from my controller.
Now that I look at my sketch of the sequence I took down from the AVP movie, I realize that the last window's 5 LEDs are on just on the first count, and then the next count they are all off.
So instead of using the max I/O lines from my controller and take the last I/O and run it to a hex buffer chip and run a couple LEDs off that buffer output, I could cheat the whole last 5 LEDs.
Run all 5 at once; one I/O line to all 5 inputs of the buffer, and each out put of the buffer runs an LED.
Now three fewer I/O lines would be used, total would be 29.
Nice when some of em are by default used for other purposes and you don't want to go thru contortions to get em to be freed up for I/O and not something else
How many max I/O lines are on your Arduino?
(I clicked on the video you posted and its taking forever to load, I use Mozilla/Firefox, will it load better using I.E. ?)
anyway, I'm glad this got you going, that's the way of the Lair, get folks going, Hey, I can do that
---
Ei'luj
MasterAnubis
Sr Member
I'm using the very popular Duemilanove board with 14 digital (6 of those can be pulse width modulated) and 6 analog. They are assigned to be input or outputs.
http://www.arduino.cc/
There is an incredible home brew support community out there. The main thing that drew me to it is the use of C as the primary programming language. The compiler/editer is free from Arduino and the whole thing is open source so there are code examples and projects all over the place. This platform is what Honus is basing his cannon control off of.
What got me to do this project is that I was messing with a practice project that used a shift register. It only needed 3 ouputs for the chip to drive 8 LEDs. I believe they need the PWM pins to work in a real usable fashion so that would mean only two could be used(only 6 PWM pins). I started thinking about the blanking signal in a CRT. I didn't know if the clock in the Arduino could go fast enough to make this possible. If I scan through all of the rows one at a time while blanking the rows not showing I should be able to get it to display different information at seaming the same time. I started with the two rows and expanded from there. Oddly I had to add a 2ms delay between lines to have it work. The resulting scan time is tolerable.
With the direction I was going, making the last digit 'fixed' really didn't matter because I am using the same pins for all of the 'rows'. I was driving it no matter what. I could extend the count down and change that digit if I needed. I only went with 5 LED per row because thats what I had. 6 probably wouldn't be an issue.
I also thought about 'cheating' because if you had a couple of the LEDs that were going to be on at the same time for all of the characters that digit is assigned, then they don't need to be separate. That way you could add an eighth or even ninth without needing more data lines.
As far as loading in IE, no it isn't faster. I had the same issues with your video. I also load some of my vids on Youtube. Youtube is blocked at work so I try to upload to Photobucket when I can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdufnJIqDzs
.
http://www.arduino.cc/
There is an incredible home brew support community out there. The main thing that drew me to it is the use of C as the primary programming language. The compiler/editer is free from Arduino and the whole thing is open source so there are code examples and projects all over the place. This platform is what Honus is basing his cannon control off of.
What got me to do this project is that I was messing with a practice project that used a shift register. It only needed 3 ouputs for the chip to drive 8 LEDs. I believe they need the PWM pins to work in a real usable fashion so that would mean only two could be used(only 6 PWM pins). I started thinking about the blanking signal in a CRT. I didn't know if the clock in the Arduino could go fast enough to make this possible. If I scan through all of the rows one at a time while blanking the rows not showing I should be able to get it to display different information at seaming the same time. I started with the two rows and expanded from there. Oddly I had to add a 2ms delay between lines to have it work. The resulting scan time is tolerable.
With the direction I was going, making the last digit 'fixed' really didn't matter because I am using the same pins for all of the 'rows'. I was driving it no matter what. I could extend the count down and change that digit if I needed. I only went with 5 LED per row because thats what I had. 6 probably wouldn't be an issue.
I also thought about 'cheating' because if you had a couple of the LEDs that were going to be on at the same time for all of the characters that digit is assigned, then they don't need to be separate. That way you could add an eighth or even ninth without needing more data lines.
As far as loading in IE, no it isn't faster. I had the same issues with your video. I also load some of my vids on Youtube. Youtube is blocked at work so I try to upload to Photobucket when I can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdufnJIqDzs
.
Ei luj
New Member
Shawn,
Thanks for the link to the arduino site. Its great to have the online community available to bounce ideas off of; there's one for the PIC microcontrollers also.
OK, I was able to view your video on youtube. I like your idea of the CRT refresh rate.
I'm wondering how close to the AVP movie sequence it can come....
Now you have got me thinking about multiplexing and a variant on the older discrete scheme of having binary up/down counters.. thats what the original countdown had, four drivers for the LEDs, four up/down counters behind them, some flip flops for the buttons, and some glue logic... in addition to the bazillion #30 wires.
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Ei'luj
Thanks for the link to the arduino site. Its great to have the online community available to bounce ideas off of; there's one for the PIC microcontrollers also.
OK, I was able to view your video on youtube. I like your idea of the CRT refresh rate.
I'm wondering how close to the AVP movie sequence it can come....
Now you have got me thinking about multiplexing and a variant on the older discrete scheme of having binary up/down counters.. thats what the original countdown had, four drivers for the LEDs, four up/down counters behind them, some flip flops for the buttons, and some glue logic... in addition to the bazillion #30 wires.
---
Ei'luj
MasterAnubis
Sr Member
No problem, I'm really liking the ease of use with the Arduino. It didn't take that much for me to get up and running. Since I'm allready familiar with C, I had no problems with the programming side. Especially since there are examples of everything.
I know there are plenty of examples out there better then mine for a small display matrix. I just like that I was able to actually do it. When making things like this it's alway nice to have options too. Basically, I'm glad I could bring something to the table that would make someone think about it.
Could multiplexing be reduce the part count in your original designs? Or is it just something that would be a different way to do it?
Off of the circuit topic... If you use a green scratch pad you can dull the lense and defuse the light. That will make the light fill out the rectangle and hide the LEDs. With your set up I think it would look best on the inside of the lense.
I know there are plenty of examples out there better then mine for a small display matrix. I just like that I was able to actually do it. When making things like this it's alway nice to have options too. Basically, I'm glad I could bring something to the table that would make someone think about it.
Could multiplexing be reduce the part count in your original designs? Or is it just something that would be a different way to do it?
Off of the circuit topic... If you use a green scratch pad you can dull the lense and defuse the light. That will make the light fill out the rectangle and hide the LEDs. With your set up I think it would look best on the inside of the lense.
Ei luj
New Member
Shawn,
regarding multiplexing to reduce parts:
hmmm, maybe it would have reduced it, but that display was a 8 to 0 countdown with the "8" segments rearranged, so it was sort of constrained by the parts.
....but I'm hooked on programming now
Regarding brightness:
I did put some frisket film in back of the overlay and if it had 576 ohm LED current limit resistors installed, it wasn't as bright as when 549 ohm ones were used in the Rev A board(s).
So note to self, add more film in back/scuff it up more before installing the overlays in Revision A boards.
Many thanks for the tip
---
Ei'luj
MasterAnubis
Sr Member
[quote name='ei'luj' post='186532' date='Feb 14 2010, 10:52 PM']Regarding brightness:
I did put some frisket film in back of the overlay and if it had 576 ohm LED current limit resistors installed, it wasn't as bright as when 549 ohm ones were used in the Rev A board(s).
So note to self, add more film in back/scuff it up more before installing the overlays in Revision A boards.
Many thanks for the tip
---
Ei'luj[/quote]OK, I get what that Frisket film is for now... I’ve never seen that. The only reason I said something is because I could see the LEDs. It wasn't because of the brightness. Good and bright LEDs are great for visibility in daylight. For my circuit the brightness is a combination of the LED limiting resistor and the transistors limiting transistor. That's why my top two sets were dimmer then the rest, I didn't have enough resistors.
When I used acrylic on my computer case I used two different methods to make it opaque. I started with the scratch pad and then ended up bead blasting it. I had big area to cover and blasting it was convenient.
Your welcome,
Shawn
I did put some frisket film in back of the overlay and if it had 576 ohm LED current limit resistors installed, it wasn't as bright as when 549 ohm ones were used in the Rev A board(s).
So note to self, add more film in back/scuff it up more before installing the overlays in Revision A boards.
Many thanks for the tip
---
Ei'luj[/quote]OK, I get what that Frisket film is for now... I’ve never seen that. The only reason I said something is because I could see the LEDs. It wasn't because of the brightness. Good and bright LEDs are great for visibility in daylight. For my circuit the brightness is a combination of the LED limiting resistor and the transistors limiting transistor. That's why my top two sets were dimmer then the rest, I didn't have enough resistors.
When I used acrylic on my computer case I used two different methods to make it opaque. I started with the scratch pad and then ended up bead blasting it. I had big area to cover and blasting it was convenient.
Your welcome,
Shawn
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