I picked up a few of the new Microchip MRF24J40MA ZigBee modules (chip, antenna, etc all FCC certified). Has anybody done work to get this chatting with an Arduino? The module has an SPI interface, so the trick will be in writing some routines for initialization and message send/receive, I think.

[Although eagle is a bit of a pain to learn]

... Although eagle is a bit of a pain to learn...

I disagree, Eagle is not a bit of a pain to learn. It's the worst pain you will ever go through learning to use a popular software package. I don't want to put people off completely, many people manage to do useful things with Eagle. But go into it knowing that it is extraordinarily unintuitive so there is a steep learning curve.

Yeah, Eagle's UI could definitely stand some work, but after going through a short tutorial web page, and playing with it for a couple of hours, I'm able to generate simple schematics and board layout, etc.

OTOH, the lite version is free, and has a *LOT* of functionality. CadSoft should be commended for making it available that way.

Microchip has a 2.4Ghz ZigBee compatible SMT radio transceiver module (already FCC certified) that is ~$10 each. Looks like a SPI interface.

http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1335&dDocName=en535967

Seems like a very good alternative to the more expensive XBee and Nordic modules. Has anybody interfaced these with an Arduino yet?

Thanks!

Cool, glad to see at least one other face around here.  :-)

That would be slick if some of the experienced folks could do a talk. Given the Arduino activity on campus, perhaps somebody from the UW would sponsor the event so we could use campus facilities.

I'm totally strapped for time these days (kids, job, etc)...no way I could organize something like this. Any suggestions on how to stir up somebody to run things? Sounds like there is fertile ground for an event...

I'm in the Seattle area, and am wondering if there's any interest in a workshop / hackfest here? Either an Arduino 101 session, or getting folks together for a hacking session...maybe with flash talks, etc.

Anybody? I know there some robotics folks around here, at at least one person playing with a RepRap...

Man, that is darn cool! The bees knees, of course, would be to add a USB interface so you cold do everything from a computer...or at least capture/log data.

-Pete

Any thoughts of doing a surface mount version of the board?

I found a python serial modual which gives me all sorts of scripting capabilities that I didn't think of before, I'll report back if I have any success.

You can also easily do serial I/O from perl on the Mac. I have been logging some data from my Arduino with the code below. I based it heavily on a snippet I Googled...

Code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use Device::SerialPort 0.12;

$LOGDIR    = "/Users/peterl/Projects";              # path to data file
$LOGFILE   = "plant.log";            # file name to output to
$PORT      = "/dev/tty.usbserial-A20e1evB";          # port to watch

# Serial Settings#
$ob = Device::SerialPort->new ($PORT) || die "Can't Open $PORT: $!";
$ob->baudrate(9600)   || die "failed setting baudrate";
$ob->parity("none")    || die "failed setting parity";
$ob->databits(8)       || die "failed setting databits";
$ob->handshake("none") || die "failed setting handshake";
$ob->write_settings    || die "no settings";

# Send a string to the port
$pass=$ob->write("AT");
sleep 1;

# open the logfile, and Port

open(LOG,">>${LOGDIR}/${LOGFILE}")
    ||die "can't open smdr file $LOGDIR/$LOGFILE for append: $SUB $!\n";

open(DEV, "<$PORT")
    || die "Cannot open $PORT: $_";

select(LOG), $| = 1;      # set nonbufferd mode

# Loop forver, logging data to the log file
while($_ = <DEV>){        # print input device to file
      $theTime = `date`;
      chomp($theTime);
    print LOG $theTime . " - " . $_;
}

undef $ob;