M5Stack Projects

Finally found time to work on some of my #M5Stack projects.

I2C Servo Unit.

The I2C Servo Unit is almost a clone of M5Stacks official Module but instead of it being a stackable module, the I2C Servo Unit is a plugin unit that connects to the M5Stack I2C port.

The above image is how the official one looks. I have not been able to purchase one and as the circuit and code is open source, I built my own.

Sorry for the bad picture, the human holding the camera wasn’t stable.

I designed this using through hole components as a beginners kits for people wanting to learn how to solder a basic kit. This is the Revision 3 board and unfortunately has some mistakes (the data connector that is on the underside, should be on top!) it works and I’m powering it from two 18650 cells rescued from an old laptop battery.

 

My next project I have working is Photography turntable. The #M5Stack is used to drive the stepper motor and trigger the camera.

Here I am using a cheep cable remote trigger connected to the M5Stack Relay module. the screw in the trigger is a temp conductive bridge as the first two contacts need to be together in order to fire the Sony SLT A58.

This all was coded using M5Stack UIFlow programming environment and the code is as follows

Yes it is that simple!

 

Black Rock Shooter: The Game.

Black Rock Shooter: The Game.

I have a nice shiny new PSP battery so I can play my old games (Well blaze blue and 13ths Birthday) But Have had a new one turn up

Black Rock Shooter: The Game.

Until the Vita port is released in English (May or may-not happen) I have to dig out my old PSP’s ready.

In this box you get the Japanese UMD, a music CD and a Figma White Rock Shooter (which along was worth the £60 price tag)
. I’ve yet to play the game as it for my Birthday but can’t wait.

On the PS Vita side…. its a nice console but atm there is very little to do. I’m Playing Wipeout and Assassins creed III:Liberation and that’s about it. I tryed the free Fireworks AR game and got very board so Haven’t touch the other free AR Games. So far I’ve had to use the built in recovery menu 3 times as it keeps crashing. Not a good buy, I sould have picked up a PS3 and saved some money!

Free Ultraviolet copy!!

Free Ultraviolet copy!!
This is a joke Sony, you say just to register for free account with UV then you go installing crap I don’t need or want this you decide that you want me use use faulty software to download the movie.

Again your a joke why don’t you piss off and stop pulling shit like this on your users!

I want a refund on all these (so called) free UV digital movie copies I brought!

Media Streaming Part 1

Media Streaming Part 1

With Modern technology it seams wrong not to setup media streaming in your house.
The following is what I have learnt fighting with my setup. Currently my setup consist of
Server = Windows 7 laptop
iPad2,
Sony Erricson SK17i.

Software
iTunes
WMP
Cyberlink Powerdvd 11
Skifta
Cyberlink power dvd remote.

The Phone is advertised as DLNA which is supposed to be even easer then UPnP and its taken me all this time to get this working.
What was the culprit I hear you ask?
The Firewall!
I’m currently running ESET 5 and I had to disable Windows Firewall (a must if you install another proper firewall) then I had to reset Esets rules then rebuild them in interactive mode! but that still didn’t work (loosing hope at this time).
1st up go into Windows and set iTunes to share on a network, go into Cyberlink and set what you would like to share,then go into windows explorer and set which folders you want to share (Plenty of guides on the interwebs for that)
After a visit to google and youtube I found out first I have to connect the phone to the house’s wifi (Well duh I hear you say) but there is another step, Hidden in the setting is the media server!
If your on the same phone as me then you need to go to “connected Devices”, select a name and connect to a server which should be you PC.
Mine wouldn’t work at first so I had to wait for 10 mins how ever while I still had the windows explorer opened I went to the network folder and opened that. This folder shows what it can see on a network and for a while my phone was not recognised, after 10 mins it appeared and flicking back to my phone it also showed my pc and connected to it!
Step 1 down!
At this point go back to the phones home screen and select the photo/video icon, find a video and hold your finger on the video’s icon untill a green tick appears.
Click on the setting button then click share, now find “Play on device” in the next screen click on a Player device in none appear start up windows media player
at it should appear on the phone with a play button under it.
Click “Play” and wait till it starts playing on the computer.
Good 1 Application down !
Next, time for Cyberlink!
Load up Cyberlink on the pc, click music then click DLNA and your phone should appear!
Now click on device and you shouldn’t see anything except requests from the firewall, Start the Cyberlink app on your phone and you need to accept all firewall requests from the Cyberlink application and the phones IP address (Obtainable from the network devices menu of windows explorer)
If all worked then again your server should appear on the phone click it and it will take you to the apps media menu which will allow you to chose which part of Powerdvd you want to control. If your still with me all the better.
Next to get media from the pc to the phone, if the above is all working this will be easy.
First download and install “Skifta” to your phone,
Click on the little arrow of step one to select a server,
Click on the little arrow of step two to select the media player of choice on your phone
Click on browse and play media
The select the media you want to watch/listen to on phone!.
Told you it was easy.

Now for iTunes and Airplay.
That’s it for now as I have to go and win an auction for an airport express!

Arduino Mega ADK and Sony Erricson Xperia Mini Pro X17i works (well sort off!)

Arduino Mega ADK and Sony Erricson Xperia Mini Pro X17i works (well sort off!)

Well After all the banging, thumping and moaning I have managed to get the Xperia Mini Pro X17i to communicate with the Arduino Mega ADK!

First was patching of the Arduino code aka firmware, that took a lot of work mostly due to running the 1.0.1 version of the Arduino  programming environment. After editing loads of it then replacing the Google ADK files with the ones from http://www.circuitsathome.com/category/mcu/arduino/usb-shield I got the code to compile and upload but still couldn’t get the Xperia Mini Pro X17i to recognize it (well the phone charged but that’s it) I hit on an idea of using the Xperia live dock!
Powering everything up (mega using separate adapter) I connected the phone to the dock and “Unsupported accessory” message popped up, Yes its at least reading it in the liveware manager app.  After looking back through the arduino code I found the answer in AndroidAccessory.cpp

The following lines

#define USB_ACCESSORY_VENDOR_ID         0x18D1
#define USB_ACCESSORY_PRODUCT_ID        0x2D00

Needed to be changed but to what I hear you ask? The VENDOR_ID and PRODUCT_ID are incorrect (this is stated but I just ignored it causing some of the grief) After a bit of google I worked out how to get my ID code in Windows 7.

Once I had my codes I changed the lines to this

#define USB_ACCESSORY_VENDOR_ID         0x0FCE
#define USB_ACCESSORY_PRODUCT_ID        0x0166

Recompiled and now it’s recognized as Supported Hardware! (This is just for the Sony Erricson Xperia Mini Pro X17i)

Now I need to learn how to modify the Android demo app to make it work!

Note to get the demokit app to work I had to edit the manifest file (see previous file) which solved the errors then I cheated and just suppressed/ignored the warnings and it compiled, unfortunately there a bug in it which is preventing the app from displaying properly or recognizing the board!

I hope this information will be helpfull to you out there also venturing into this field.

つづく

New toys !

My old S5000 died at christmas (bless its digital soul) so I went out to buy a new camera. After 30mins in the camera shop I’m £512 down.
Why? well I treated myself to a new Sony A230 DSLR (18-55mm kit lens) with a Tamaron 75-30mm lens, spare battery and a new bag.
When I got home I nearly had a heart attack at the price.
After visiting various sites I’m told I need a 50mm F1.8 lens but these are hard to find and the old Minolta f1.7 AF is rare as gold (not good) remembering I had a 35mm slr I rummaged through the bag and thought I struck lucky, I found a minolta 50mm F1.7 MD.
What’s MD? well its the old manual lens and the MD mount is much smaller, back on the interweb (or more particularity ebay) and adapters are available for the lens but most people say they are not good 😦 oh well back to the drawing board.
Oh well heres a test shot taken over at the local village church.

The old school I spent my infancy in