Hooked up the Sparkfun LCD. It is unflashed but for now it will have to do!
Some LED flashing too ;D
10/16/12
Sparkfun LCD 09351 and some LEDs
Hooked up the Sparkfun LCD. It is unflashed but for now it will have to do!
Some LED flashing too ;D
10/10/12
Arduino robot project
10/10/12
With the helpful guys at Robonor.no, I've ordered the following parts for my project:
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| Arrived in the mail today, UNO R3 from Robonor |
- Sparkfun Inventor's Kit for Arduino
- Arduino Beginner Tool Kit Robonor (Soldering kit)
- Digital Multimeter Electrical Meter DT 9205A
- Battery pack - 4xAA
- Serial Enabled 16x2 LCD - Black on Green 5V
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| Dagu 4 motor controller is on it's way from England! |
I will eventually get the Rover5 4-engined robot, but as the Dagu controller card is hard to get, I have to put this on hold for a while. At the moment, I will have enough to do by going trough the basics! When the Rover is in place, I will get an Mega ADK board for my Android phone to utilize all the sensors.
I have ordered the Dagu controller from the UK along with an IR compund eye from RoboSavvy. I'll slip right under the 20 pound tax limit! This could take a cool
Meanwhile,I'll get to program the Arduino controller and hooking up the LCD display.
Fun times!
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| Serial Enabled 16x2 LCD - Black on Green 5V |
11/10/12
Got an old laptop from a friend for fixing his new one and installing games and a 'safe' browsing environment. Not too bad either, Dual core AMD Turion with 2 gigs and 256 mb shared gfx memory. Will probably install XP in this to use all the easily available Arduino tools, and run Linux in a VM to run electronics software.
Postal service reports that the package has been received and will probably end up here tomorrow afternoon :)
13/10/12
Picked up package today, everything was included as far as I can tell, except the 3-pin serial LCD, but i actually got a much better LCD with a mounted backpack, so this should be a serious upgrade! Thanks Robonor! Quick delivery too!
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| Graphic LCD Serial Backpack |
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| Serial Graphic LCD 128x64 |
First testing footage
From the Circ-02 tutorial with 8 leds
Well, cannot complain, everything worked as expected!
Some software I probably need:
http://www.atmel.com/tools/AVR32STUDIO2_6.aspx
14/10/12
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| Some connectors was badly soldered from the factory. Fixed that and now it should work. Pixels was all over the screen. |
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| Some error in the manual it seems. It won't work from the 5.5v line, have to use Vin. Here you can see the Sparkfun icon! |
Some software I probably need:
http://www.atmel.com/tools/AVR32STUDIO2_6.aspx
10/9/12
Rooting and modding Samsung Galaxy S2
If you just have to mess with your phone all the time and try out every option and setting, you'll probably have heard about replacing stock software with custom kernels and flashing in mods. This could expand battery life, give you new features and make your phone faster.
It can also render your latest phone investment as useful as a brick. Yeah, brick. That's what they call it when either you or some software you tried to run makes your phone shut down for good and it will never boot up again. So be warned, even though I am about to tell you how to possibly avoid it.
I DO NO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS! YOUR PHONE IS YOUR OWN AND ANY OF THIS WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY!
And don't try to be clever, the phone will tell your technician that you installed a custom binary. This feature is called the 'ROM counter'.
At this point, download the following:
There is a particular problem that seems to come with the stock ICS 4.0.4 when you install the 'clockworkrecovery' mod. Therefore, first of all you need to root your phone to be able to actually check your phone. (with Siyah)
You also want the Google Apps extras
Then download an app called eMMC checker from the Play Store. Move CM and Google Apps over to the SDcard.
Note: Just to be clear, both the memory needs to be OK and the Siyah kernel must be installed or else you will have a dead phone before this tutorial is over.
Now, when you reboot, the phone will be a completely different beast. Modded or not, the S2 and S3 are formidable devices, featuring multi-core CPU and GPU processing, as well as standardized USB connectors, an array of special-purpose sensor chips and last, but not least, a Linux-based operating system to glue it all together. With the right add-ons installed, your phone is essentially a powerful hand-held computer that can be used for a multitude of uses. While the comparison is not fair, I would guess an S2 outperforms 5 year old laptops.
I think this was everything. Please comment if I missed something.
Anyway, here's the result:
It can also render your latest phone investment as useful as a brick. Yeah, brick. That's what they call it when either you or some software you tried to run makes your phone shut down for good and it will never boot up again. So be warned, even though I am about to tell you how to possibly avoid it.
I DO NO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS! YOUR PHONE IS YOUR OWN AND ANY OF THIS WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY!
And don't try to be clever, the phone will tell your technician that you installed a custom binary. This feature is called the 'ROM counter'.
- First of all, some phones are known to have a bad FLASH chip, and this includes most versions of the Samsung Galaxy S2, from what I can read.
- Personally I have the GT-I9100 which came with GingerBread 2.3.5.
- If you, like me, have Samsung Kies installed (if not, do that NOW) and updated the firmware, you will discover that GingerBread 2.3.5 will be updated to Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4.
At this point, download the following:
- Siyah kernel - Will give you a temporary rooted phone. Get the correct version, and put it on your SD card. (you do need an SD card)
- ClockWorkRecoveryMod (aka CWM)
There is a particular problem that seems to come with the stock ICS 4.0.4 when you install the 'clockworkrecovery' mod. Therefore, first of all you need to root your phone to be able to actually check your phone. (with Siyah)
- Heimdall Suite 1.3.2
- CyanogenMod verison 9 (aka CM)
You also want the Google Apps extras
- At this point, you have to boot up into recovery mode, and wipe the phone and the cache.
- Then, load this binary into the phone.
- When it reboots, it will show you a yellow triangle below the Galaxy logo at bootup, and if you go to Settings->About Phone you will see that the kernel has been replaced.
- If you forget to wipe the cache as well, the phone will not boot. (It is not bricked, just repeat the process.)
Then download an app called eMMC checker from the Play Store. Move CM and Google Apps over to the SDcard.
- Download eMMC Brickbug Check from Play Store
- Run check. It will probably say 'Insane chip: Yes' and then you must check the memory, for which you need to have the phone already rooted.
- If the memory check passes, your phone's flash chip is functioning well enough to flash the ROM, but it will still kill it of you skip to the CWM step now!
Note: Just to be clear, both the memory needs to be OK and the Siyah kernel must be installed or else you will have a dead phone before this tutorial is over.
- Boot phone into Recovery Mode. (Home + Vol Up + Power.
- Hold until logo appears, release keys.
- You will be presented with the recovery menu. Some phones has alternate combinations.
Lastly:
- Wipe and factory reset
- Wipe cache
- Install CM from SDcard
- Install Apps from SDcard
- Reboot phone
Now, when you reboot, the phone will be a completely different beast. Modded or not, the S2 and S3 are formidable devices, featuring multi-core CPU and GPU processing, as well as standardized USB connectors, an array of special-purpose sensor chips and last, but not least, a Linux-based operating system to glue it all together. With the right add-ons installed, your phone is essentially a powerful hand-held computer that can be used for a multitude of uses. While the comparison is not fair, I would guess an S2 outperforms 5 year old laptops.
I think this was everything. Please comment if I missed something.
Anyway, here's the result:
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