While testing the serial functions I had issues as mentioned in the previous post where the AVR <-> FTDI seemed not to be working.

Initially I thought it was a hardware problem due to a hidden solder bridge or such, further testing on the ASCII example sketch revealed that something was being sent, albeit garbage, to me it looked like incorrect baud rate. After unsuccessfully checking bitrates, I filed it as a fail and moved on, however last night when I set about writing the RFID read function using NewSoftSerial on the RFID I was getting nothing reported back back on the AVR, not a thing coming back from the RFID Rx Pin, yet my logic analyser showed that the correct data was being presented on the correct pin of the CPU, it then got me thinking that it must be a fuse setting on the AVR.

I re-programmed it to the same settings as my wireless widget using the internal oscillator and now everything is now working.

I had assumed, incorrectly, that the AVR defaults to 8Mhz internal clock, which is the case, however it also has the divide by 8 fuse enabled by default, so reprogramming my fuses to the settings below fixed everything

L:0xE2 H:0xDA E:0x3F

The other day when playing around with different fuse settings on the Widget Board, I incorrectly wrote the wrong values, oops one bricked board   However all is not lost.

With a second working Widget Board and a simple Arduino sketch , I used the following procedure to recover from my mishap.

First I installed the following sketch onto a working Widget Board

void setup() {

  pinMode(3, OUTPUT);  

}

void loop() {

  while(1) {

    PIND |= _BV(3);

  }

}

What this sketch does is generate a 1.2MHz clock signal on the INT1 port of the Widget Board. (Click the picture below to see the the full trace )

Next I attached this signal to the XTAL1 pin (Pin 7) of the AtMega168v on the bricked board (I just held it against the crystal pin). 

While holding this connection on the pin, I then fired up AVR-DUDE and rewrote the correct fuse settings, after confirming that the fuse values could be read back I then remove the wire and everything was back to normal.

So all is not lost

Convert POV file into Eagle3D .inc file

1. In the new POV file that was created by the plug-in now needs to be saved as a *.inc in the same directory as Eagle3D component include files this is usually called EAgle3D\pov

   

2. Next we need to delete all the information not needed and will cause conflicts with Eagle3D.

      1: // Persistence Of Vision raytracer version 3.5 (or higher) file.

      2: // Exported from Sketchup 6.4.112 (en-US) through SU2POV 3.2. by D. Bur.

      3: // 04/03/2009, 16:25

      4: //-------------------------------------------

      5:

      6:

      7: // Pov-Ray includes

      8: #include "colors.inc"

      9: #include "glass.inc"

     10: #include "glass_old.inc"

     11: #include "metals.inc"

     12: #include "woods.inc"

     13: #include "stones.inc"

     14: #include "skies.inc"

     15: #include "stars.inc"

     16: #include "finish.inc"

     17: #include "rad_def.inc"

     18: #include "textures.inc"

     19: #include "golds.inc"

     20: #include "sunpos.inc"

     21: #include "math.inc"

     22: #include "transforms.inc"

     23: //-------------------------------------------

     24:

     25:

     26: // Declare section

     27: //Gamma

     28: #declare GAMMA=2;

     29: //Default finish

     30: #default { texture { finish { ambient 0.1 diffuse 0.7 brilliance 0 roughness 0.005 } } }

     31: // Finishes

     32: #declare Dull = finish {specular 0.5 roughness 0.2}

     33: #declare Shiny = finish {specular 1 roughness 0.0003}

     34: #declare Glossy = finish {specular 1 roughness 0.0003 reflection 0.1}

     35: #declare Phong_Glossy = finish {phong 10 phong_size 300 reflection 0.1}

     36: #declare Phong_Dull = finish {phong 0.5  phong_size 1}

     37: #declare Luminous = finish {ambient 0  diffuse 20}

     38: #declare Mirror = finish {ambient 0  diffuse 0 reflection 0.97}

     39: // Lights colors

     40: #declare Incandescence = rgb <1, 0.9, 0.6>;

     41: #declare Halogen = rgb <1, 0.98, 0.85>;

     42: #declare Sodium = rgb <1, 0.6, 0.2>;

     43: #declare Neon = rgb <0.9, 0.95, 1>;

     44: #declare Mercury = rgb <0.92, 1, 0.92>;

     45:

     46: #declare Lightbulb = sphere {

     47:     <0,0,0>,1.5

     48:     scale <1,1.3,1>

     49:     texture { pigment {color rgb <1, 1, 0.5>}}

     50:     finish { Luminous }

     51:     }

     52:

     53: //-------------------------------------------

     54:

     55:

     56: //Radiosity settings

     57: global_settings {

     58: radiosity { Rad_Settings(Radiosity_Final, off, on) }

     59: assumed_gamma GAMMA

     60: radiosity { gray_threshold 0.8 }

     61: }

     62: //-------------------------------------------

     63:

     64:

     65: // Gradient Background

     66: sky_sphere {

     67:     pigment {

     68:     gradient y

     69:    color_map {

     70:     [(1-cos(radians(0)))/2 color White]

     71:     [(1-cos(radians(50)))/2 color rgb <0.741176470588235,0.819607843137255,0.815686274509804>]

     72:     }

     73:     scale 1

     74:     translate -1

     75:     }

     76: }

     77: //-------------------------------------------

     78:

     79:

     80: //-------------------------------------------

     81:

     82:

     83: //-------------------------------------------

     84:

     85:

     86: // Camera

     87: camera {

     88:     perspective

     89:     location <2.25145468567195,1.60043897233161,-1.06394822934727>

     90:     look_at <-0.466904134380124,-0.965594533672687,1.31022929677542>

     91:     right <1.3333,0,0>

     92:     up <-0.436428953203423,0.815008198675065,0.381171096619603>

     93:     angle 63.7985225255377

     94: }

     95: //-------------------------------------------

     96:

     97:

     98: //-------------------------------------------

3. Copy and paste the following code into the very beginning of the file.  replace ‘inc_MRF24J40MA’ with the name of your component, e.g. inc_YOUR_COMPONENT.

   #ifndef(inc_MRF24J40MA)
   #declare inc_MRF24J40MA=true;
   
   #ifndef(inc_testmode)
   #declare inc_testmode=true;
   #include "tools.inc"
   #undef inc_testmode
   #end

4. Now scroll down until you see the start of the object definition

      1:

      2: // LEVEL 0 #<Sketchup::ComponentDefinition:0x3e508c0> MRF24J40MA

      3: #declare MRFceJeaMA = union {

      4: mesh2 {

      5:     vertex_vectors {

      6:       4,

      7: <7.000109088,4.98688000008518e-006,1.35>,

      8: <7.000109088,0.32000498688,1>,

5. insert the component macro declare statement (line2 below) into the file.  The macro name needs to be the name of your component (in this case ‘MRF24J40MA’)

      1: // LEVEL 0 #<Sketchup::ComponentDefinition:0x3e4f8b8> MRF24J40MA

      2: #macro  MRF24J40MA()

      3:

      4: #declare MRFceJeaMA = union {

6. Scroll to the very end of the file and delete lines 3,4 and 8 as shown below

      1: //-------------------------------------------

      2:

      3: #declare MODEL = union {

      4: } // End of MODEL object declare

      5: //-------------------------------------------

      6:

      7:

      8: object { MODEL }

      9: //-------------------------------------------

     10:

     11:

     12: #object {MRFceJeaMA

     13: matrix < 0.1,0.0,0.0,

     14: 0.0,0.1,0.0,

     15: 0.0,0.0,0.1,

     16: 0.0,0.0,0.0>

     17: }

     18: //-------------------------------------------

     19:

     20:

     21: //-------------------------------------------

     22:

     23:

7. Finally insert all of the following to the very end of the file.  Replace MR24J40MA() with your component macro name.

   #end //end of macro  
   
   /**********************************************************************
   Testing
   **********************************************************************/
   #ifndef(inc_testmode)
   
   //Size of the Grid Plane (+/- span)
   #local XYZ_span=20;
   
   //Orientation axes
   cylinder{<-XYZ_span,0,0><XYZ_span,0,0>0.1 pigment{Blue}}    //X
   cylinder{<0,-XYZ_span,0><0,XYZ_span,0>0.1 pigment{Red}}        //Y
   cylinder{<0,0,-XYZ_span><0,0,XYZ_span>0.1 pigment{Yellow}}    //Z
   
   // Useful GRIDS:
   #local XYZ_step= 1 ;          // axis increment
   #local XYZ_cnt = 0;           //  loop counter
   #local xyz_thick = 0.05;     // grid line thickness
   
   // GRID PLANES: Remove comment begin/end to activate & select PLANES:
   #while (XYZ_cnt <= XYZ_span)
   
       cylinder{<-XYZ_span,0,XYZ_cnt><XYZ_span,0,XYZ_cnt>xyz_thick pigment{Blue}}        // Positive Z-Lines
       cylinder{<-XYZ_span,0,-XYZ_cnt><XYZ_span,0,-XYZ_cnt>xyz_thick pigment{Blue}}    // Negative Z-Lines
   
       //cylinder{<0,XYZ_cnt,-XYZ_span><0,XYZ_cnt,XYZ_span>xyz_thick pigment{Red}}        // Positive Y-Z Plane Lines
       //cylinder{<0,-XYZ_cnt,-XYZ_span><0,-XYZ_cnt,XYZ_span>xyz_thick pigment{Red}}    // Negative Y-Z Plane Lines
   
       //cylinder{<-XYZ_span,XYZ_cnt,0><XYZ_span,XYZ_cnt,0>xyz_thick pigment{Red}}        // Positive Y-X Plane Lines
       //cylinder{<-XYZ_span,-XYZ_cnt,0><XYZ_span,-XYZ_cnt,0>xyz_thick pigment{Red}}    // Negative Y-X Plane Lines
   
       cylinder{<XYZ_cnt,0,-XYZ_span><XYZ_cnt,0,XYZ_span>xyz_thick pigment{Yellow}}    // Positive X-Lines
       cylinder{<-XYZ_cnt,0,-XYZ_span><-XYZ_cnt,0,XYZ_span>xyz_thick pigment{Yellow}}    // Negative X-Lines
   
       #local XYZ_cnt = XYZ_cnt+XYZ_step;
   #end
   
   camera
   {
       #local tt = 40;                //let's you change the distance easily
       location <-tt,tt,-tt>
       //location<0,5,-50>            //alternate location
       look_at <0,0,0>                //best to select the approximate centre of the object
       angle 30
   }
   
   light_source { <100, 100, -100> White}
   light_source { <-100, 100, -100> White }
   light_source { <-100, 100, 100> White }
   light_source { <100, 100, 100> White }
   //light_source { <-tt,tt,-tt> White }
   //light_source { <-tt,tt,-tt> White }
   //light_source { <-tt,tt,-tt> White }
   background{Grey}
         MRF24J40MA()
   #end
   
   #end
   //End of Macros

8. Now test the inc file by rendering the component.  This will test to make sure the macro and file are all working.  A grid and the actual component will now be rendered.
9. UPDATE: You also need to copy any surface map graphic files across to the same directory as the new component file.

If you have successfully converted the file we next need to add it to Eagle3D

Jans Gentsch has made his compact version of the Strobit Triggr available to the community, his version, the Strobit M08 based on AVR design can be found here.   Please note that there are a couple of things that need doing to the PCB, if you get a chance to implement Jans design, please post back any changes to me so I can make them available.

Hello Stephen,

I’ve attached the Eagle-Design-Data as well as the source code. I haven’t found time to do anything on those since my post, so the are not in the best state. There are a few Problems with the board design:

Transmitter – There is a connection missing between the processor and NIRQ of the transmitter-module (the transmitter module doesn’t have a fifo, so that the nirq-line is needed to clock out the data). I just added a piece of loose wire during assembly.
Receiver – NIRQ isn’t connected as well, so I am constantly polling, not really a power saving design. however I am still running on the first set of batteries so it’s not like they are being drained empty immediatly.
IO-Board – Thr optocoupley was meant to sit on the bottom side but I got confused. It has to sit on top now.

Getting everything into the housing was a major challenge.

The source code has been developed using avr-gcc and the eclipse ide.
As it stands only the most basic function, tiggering, is working. The control flow will have to be reworked in order to add the rest of the functionality. And of course my “magic” trigger id should be changed.

Have fun!

Alle the best
Jan

Files

You will need Eagle PCB to view/edit the schematics and PCB files, found here -http://www.cadsoft.de/

The firmware is written using winavr found here – http://winavr.sourceforge.net/

• strobit_mega8.ZIP
• sm8rxtx.zip