Greetings to all!
I have been perusing this forum for a few weeks (usually in search of clues whenever I got stuck with my Uno board), so I figured it was time to get set up with an account and say hello.
My name is John Atkinson, and I just stumbled upon the world of microcontrollers a few months ago. I was about midway through the tutorials on my Basic STAMP when I started hearing about the Arduino platform. The water looked fine, so I climbed out of the Parallax pool and dove into the Arduino.
I am an artist/animator/filmmaker/photographer, so my first couple of projects have been photography-oriented. Like so many others, I am currently working on a timer/sound-activated remote shutter release for my camera. But my first project was building an LED wand. It's a single row of 11 LEDs, but I programmed it to flash in patterns--so that when you wave it around during a time exposure in the dark, you see streaks and patterns. I think it's easier to show than to describe, so here it is (I hope that using a link to my Flickr account works):
Someday I hope to get the LightBrush off of the protoboard and into a more permanent (and ergonomically better) enclosure, but for now I am pressing ahead with my remote shutter release. It is my hope to make it respond to voice commands, so that I don't have to fumble around in the dark looking for my release cable!
Wow--that's great! I definitely see a flash triggering project in my future, and your sketch and layout will be a big help!
What I have been designing up to now is a device that activates the shutter on my Canon Rebel--using a relay (since I found out that the remote shutter release is basically just a switch). So this device will help with bulb, remote, and time-lapse photography. I've already got the time-lapse working, and I just got my mic and audio pre-amp stage in the mail today. My goal is to be able to work the shutter with vocal commands. This comes after my first few sessions with the LightBrush, where I had to stumble back to the camera in the dark and fumble around to find the shutter release to terminate the bulb exposure. I just want to be able to tell it "shutter open" to start an exposure, and "shutter close" to end it. That way I can stay in front of the camera and keep shooting.
Arduino is a great platform for photographic twiddling.
I would however suggest that instead of a relay, you use an optocoupler. It will be faster, draw less power, and be generally a cheaper design too. Pretty much any NPN optocoupler would work.
I've done triggers based on light and sound, and should also point out that you can avoid the wire entirely and use the Arduino camera control library that uses an infrared LED, if you preset the exposure time.
Feel free to hit me up with any questions, and welcome to Arduno.. The water's fine...
Very cool--I had heard of optocouplers but had no idea what they did. I will get me a few of those and try them out!
It's amazing how much has changed in the 30 years since I studied electronics in my first year of college. If it had been as much fun then as it is now, I might not have washed-out of the program! XD (I only just learned that microcontrollers existed a few months ago, so I've got some catching up to do!)
Splinesmith:
Very cool--I had heard of optocouplers but had no idea what they did. I will get me a few of those and try them out!
It's amazing how much has changed in the 30 years since I studied electronics in my first year of college. If it had been as much fun then as it is now, I might not have washed-out of the program! XD (I only just learned that microcontrollers existed a few months ago, so I've got some catching up to do!)
I just got my opti-coupler (4N26JP from Jim-Pak) up and running (two of them will be used in my version of a camera trigger). To save you some time from googling, and looking at some sites with really poor, unfocused images, here is the wiring setup I've been using:
There is a dot on my 4N26JP and that indicates pin 1. Going counter-clockwise, the pins are:
Pin 1, signal pin from the Arduino, anode
Pin 2, ground from the Arduino, cathode
Pin 3, unused
Pin 4, power pin from the device
Pin 5, unused (you could use pin 5 instead of pin 6)
Pin 6, signal/ground from the device
In this particular example, the Arduino and the breadboard with the LED on it don't share a common ground.
