Do People Create And Sell Sketches?

Robin2:
How is that going to work with a Mega?

...R

I've no idea, that's why I asked?

I plan to use the display with an Arduino Due and shield that I ordered this morning but was hoping to practice a little first using a Mega. I'm guessing by your reply your saying I can't. But THIS guy managed it.

Shadeyman:
I'm guessing by your reply your saying I can't. But THIS guy managed it.

I was just reading what you posted.

If someone has done it then s/he is the person to ask.

...R

Robin2:
If someone has done it then s/he is the person to ask.

...R

Well obviously few people have already asked him, but he hasn't replied, that's why I asked for help here.

Arduino Due was delivered yesterday but the wife put in away safely and forgot to tell me until just .. :confused:

The shield for it hasn't turned up yet, guess it will be late next week now because of Easter weekend. My plan is to get 4 or 5 cheap NodeMCU remote sensors talking to the Arduino Due and display the info on the 7 inch screen I brought. Its a huge undertaking for me but I'm guessing a walk in the park for most of you guys.

Your help (nudges in the right direction) will be most welcome ..

Sorry. I know nothing about the Due or NodeMCU.

...R

Robin2:
Sorry. I know nothing about the Due or NodeMCU.

...R

Neither do I ... :blush:

I guess we have to start somewhere and the bottom is as good a place as any ... 8)

Shadeyman:
I guess we have to start somewhere and the bottom is as good a place as any ... 8)

You may have to, but I have no immediate interest in the Due or NodeMCU :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

...R

Robin2:
You may have to, but I have no immediate interest in the Due or NodeMCU :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

...R

When I said "we" I ment it as a general term for those of us that lack the knowledge, not "we" you and I.

I'll move this thread to the Due section for you.

Thank you.

Maybe someone there has done something similar and can point me in the right direction.

Shadeyman:
Ok, I've "jumped the gun" so to speak.
<...>

Do yourself a favor and write your requirements without using terms such as "Arduino", "NodeMCU", "Zigbee" ... what you want to do is explain in writing what must be accomplished. In this case, the terms battery and wireless are critical; therefore, you must put statements into your writeup that states how long a remote sensor must last before the battery is changed (or, is it solar recharged?) In the case of wireless, what is the distance? Distance is important because BLE may be unreliable after 10 meters.

Then do your googling. If you find something similar, then how similar ... give it a rating, 10% - 90%. If you find 100%, go get a cold beer and order the device from you web-enable mobile phone.

At this point, you should have some idea of what the market has to offer and a really good idea of what you need done. You should also know if the project is beyond your ability to construct and program ... most likely it is not. But you may need help. If your project is not top-secret, try finding someone at a local maker shop to assist you. If you do have a top-secret project, you probably need to talk with an attorney to discuss how you need to proceed. You can try and find some free web non-disclosure documents, but they may not be of the best quality. Investors care dearly about such things!

Shadeyman:
<...>
How difficult would it be to have several remote battery powered sensors consisting of an XBee, Arduino Nano plus a sensor of some sort, ultrasonic, 3 axis accelerometer, camera, for example. Transmitting live data to be displayed and stored on a central battery powered device consisting of a 7 inch LCD touchscreen, Arduino Due, XBee and an SD card module? <...>

What bothers me with the above is the "camera" inclusion and the term "live data." You may want to lurk around some of the robotic sites as well as those sites that cater drones enabled with video. These technologies have grown-up recently and are quiet capable and much less expensive than just a few years back.

Ray

That's the sort of help I need. +1 Karma added, thank you Ray.

There's nothing top-secret about what I'm doing, just helping a friend and educating myself at the same time.

I'm hoping to start by having several battery powered wireless sensors, (nothing fancy, just cheap ones that come in Arduino kits, 3-Axis, Ultrasonic, temp, etc.). With a range of 50m or more (100m would be great), all linked to a battery powered hand held LCD(Touch) that displays the sensor readings. I've seen similar projects, weather stations, alarms, home automation for example. But I'd like to eventually expand on those idea's, perhaps add a camera and motor control later on.

Is the project beyond my ability to construct? Good question, I'm hoping not. I have no experience at all with Arduino or anything even remotely like it. Programming, understanding and writing code, is something I've always considered beyond my ability. As a 50 year old retired builder I guess its not the best time to start but I have some spare time so I'm giving it a go. On the plus side, I do have a little experience with batteries and plan to use 2 x 18650 cells in series(7.4v) to power everything.

I've been Googling, reading bits, trying to understand it. Have to admit, most of it means nothing to me but I read it a few times anyway, hoping something will "click" and make sense, which it occasionally does. As a result I've ordered a few parts I think are appropriate.

So you're an Arduino noob. As were we all, once, of course.

That's why I've created a series of YouTube videos which you can watch, rewatch and learn from. That's how I started with the Arduino, some years ago now.

And you definitely need to slow down; try and get one or two things properly understood and then you will realise it's not rocket science, just a lot of stuff to understand. And no-one can possibly understand it all and not within a week!

I wrote my first blink LED program in assembler and worked up from there; I'm not suggesting for one second you do that but getting the Arduino to blink, then getting it to blink twice or three times can teach you more in one session than 100 questions on here!

Anyway, have a look at my YouTube channel and if you like what you see, subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. It's specifically designed for noobs who want to get their hands dirty :slight_smile:

URL in my signature below... Good Luck!

Shadeyman:
<...>
I'm hoping to start by having several battery powered wireless sensors, (nothing fancy, just cheap ones that come in Arduino kits, 3-Axis, Ultrasonic, temp, etc.). With a range of 50m or more (100m would be great), all linked to a battery powered hand held LCD(Touch) that displays the sensor readings. I've seen similar projects, weather stations, alarms, home automation for example. But I'd like to eventually expand on those idea's, perhaps add a camera and motor control later on.
<...>
I do have a little experience with batteries and plan to use 2 x 18650 cells in series(7.4v) to power everything.

Age 50 is a good time to start a 2nd hobby... things have changed lots from when I started building Knight Kits back in the 60's at age 12. Just think about all the stuff you do not have to unlearn because it is practically needless unless you are repairing old tube radios :o

So, 18650 really does not tell me anything other than the size of the battery... what one really needs to know is the true mAh rating (note that the Chinese manufacturers have a nasty habit of making outrageous claims about battery mAh ratings; but the true figure is more likely 3000mAh to 5000mAh.)

I'm going to assume for a moment that you just want to put out a sensor/sender and receive the data. 100 meters is beyond the best Bluetooth range, so you need to look at other RF technology. WiFi is a possibility, but I'm going to let you do the research since the price range is broad. When you do your investigation, consider two things: WiFi (2G/5G) is microwave and you need line-of-sight and secondly antennas can be built/purchased that are not omi-directional and can produce "gain" by directing the RF energy.

The next thing you need to know about RF senders is that the battery drain is significantly increased during the transmit event. The more often you transmit, the higher the average drain and the less battery time before a recharge is necessary. (Also, Lithium batteries must not totally drain ... the low-water mark is different for different chemistry makeup.) RF bands are controlled by the country and in the U.S.A. that would be the FCC. The unlicensed bands have strict power output maximums: read-up on this topic. RF bands also have a lots to do with range and data bandwidth, but other than video, the stuff you are talking about is low-bandwidth.

Sending video is a very specialize use and you really need to read-up on this topic. Slow-scan can be done with a microprocessor, but getting realtime (27 - 30 frames per second) will significantly cost you: power consumption, hardware costs, battery current draw, etc. Again, lot of model and robot makers are into video and the area is very specialized.

I want you to look over a couple of RF+Arduino clones and read about performance, range, issues:
Moteino: http://lowpowerlab.com/blog/category/moteino/
JeeNode: http://jeelabs.net/projects/hardware/wiki/JeeNode

The reason for reviewing those links and doing some research is to determine if such inexpensive technology will work as packaged. If not, the project must document why and move on to looking for a better fit. Why is this necessary? Well, simply to understand what "special sauce" will be necessary to create a perfect fit. Finding the right widget means often eliminating the wrong widget... more specifically, narrowing down the must-have specifications.

A couple of years ago, I took a look at the RF12B units with the idea of using them around the house. I have since decided to use the ESP8266 as a separate network un-bound to my home WiFi.

As far a programming, you are alive, right? Then you can program. It will take a bit of time to work up to proficiency, but it is certainly not impossible or even hard. What can be difficult sometimes is weeding through the noise to find an approach... or, an approach that you can understand. One of the great issues with programming is how flexible approaches can be; which is to say there will likely always be individuals that will scream, "It could be done so much more efficiently!"

Good luck,

Ray

Ralph_S_Bacon:
...

And you definitely need to slow down; try and get one or two things properly understood and then you will realise it's not rocket science, just a lot of stuff to understand.

...

Unless of course, you strap one onto a model rocket. Then it IS rocket science.

ChrisTenone:
Unless of course, you strap one onto a model rocket. Then it IS rocket science.

Can you send me the sketch for that, I want to try that one out!!! The first Arduino Uno in orbit sending back space data via I2C over a 433 Mhz radio link, now that WOULD be something!

Oh, you weren't being serious. Damn, I feel stoopid now :kissing: :smiling_imp:

Arduino Pig-O-Scope

Mornings guys, thanks for your replies.

Well, I've spent the last few days trying to familiarize myself with the basics. I've brought a few bits, Mega 2560, Nano, NodeMCU, XBee, LCD's, Sensors etc and been trying example sketches.

I'm still waiting for the Due LCD shield to be delivered, so while I'm waiting I've managed to blink the LED on the Nano and the Mega and change the speed at which it blinks.

I've also manged to get a 3 axis, gyro, accelerometer and temp to output via the serial.

I then "upped my game" and managed to get demo's to play on a 320 x 240 display and another demo playing on a 320 x 480 display.

I'm now looking at the demo sketches for the things I manage to do and trying to understand what each part of the sketch does. I've managed simple stuff like increasing and decreasing the size of the coloured boxes in the demos, changing the size of text and altering what the text says to something rude just to amuse myself. :o

I'm hoping doing this basic stuff helps prevent me asking too many daft basic questions here on the forum and boring you guys to death.

A pair of 18650 batteries are wired in series and give me 7.2v and 2500mAh. If I need more capacity I'll add more pairs.

All this while keeping my 2 sons(8 and 9) and 2 grandsons(5 and 8 ) amused, my head hurts .. :slight_smile:

Shadeyman:
Mornings guys, thanks for your replies.
...
All this while keeping my 2 sons(8 and 9) and 2 grandsons(5 and 8) amused, my head hurts .. :slight_smile:

Sounds like you're having fun.n :o :wink:

The next thing to learn is Arduino's form of concurency - timing by millis, and banishing delay and other ways your code will sit waiting. Using millis will let you use any kind of input and any kind of output without waiting for anything to finish running.

Take a look at this thread. It's a clear tutorial on correct timing technique.

WOW! :o

I think I may died of old age before I fully understand what that thread is about. :confused: