Planet Arduino

Introduction

Some of you may be using an Arduino Leonardo board, taking advantage of the newer ATmega32U4 microcontroller for various reasons. And rightly so – there’s the extra analogue I/O, virtual USB and the microUSB socket so you can use your phone charger cable. However with the new microcontroller comes a few changes to the board pinouts – I2C and SPI have moved. So if you have a nice Ethernet shield or something using I2C – you’re basically out of luck… until now. The problem has been solved nicely by the team at GorillaBuilderz have created their LeoShield:

Use

You simply place it on the Leonardo, and then the older legacy shield on top. The LeoShield redirects the I2C pins back to A4 and A5, and also sends the SPI lines back to D11~D13. For example, our Ethernet shield:

The ICSP pins are also extended from the Leonardo to the LeoShield, for example:

however when inserting the LeoShield into your Leonardo, take care lining up all the pins before pushing the shield down. There is also the large prototyping area which has 5V , 3.3V and GND rails across the full width for convenience. The sticker on the rear of the shield is to insulate against any large items that may come in contact from the host board, however you can peel it off to realise the complete prototyping space.

Conclusion

It’s simple and it works – so if you need to use an older Arduino shield with a Leonardo the choice is simple – get yourself a Leoshield.

Disclaimer - The Leoshield was a review product received from GorillaBuilderz.

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In this review we examine the new Agilent U1177A infra-red to Bluetooth adaptor for the Agilent  U1272A DMM. You can also use the adaptor with the U1240-series DMMs with the optional adaptor. With some PC or Android device software you can monitor or log data from up to three DMMs. So let’s have a look and see what it’s all about.

Introduction

The adaptor arrives in a small box:

… with the following contents:

It was a relief to see the AAA cells included as we didn’t have any in stock. The yellow document is the China RoHS sheet, and the instructions are short but well detailed. The unit itself is quite small:

To fit the battery or reset the device, the front cover slides open revealing the innards to some degree:

and the rear:

The unit clips soundly to the rear of the DMM, however it does stick out quite a lot:

If you need to leave the meter unattended, you’ll need a level and vibration free surface, as the adaptor can be knocked out relatively easily from the top. The adaptor also blocks the hole at the back which some users may use with a hook or loop for positioning the DMM.

Software and Operation

You can use the U1177 with two platforms – Android and Windows, and we tested both. I’m sure if you have Mac Parallels, etc., that there may be some success there but I haven’t tested them. There are two applications available for Android devices – the mobile logger and mobile meter. You can download them both from the Google Play app – just search for ‘agilent‘, and the results should be

The third app is a game that is somewhat entertaining. We tried the applications on two Android devices – a HTC Velocity running Android 4.0.3 (which failed miserably, the software kept freezing) and a Motorola Xoom MZ601 with Android 3.2. I would say now that the software is marked “Beta” so caveat emptor. The data logging software worked on the Xoom but not the “Agilent Mobile Meter”. Moving forward, the logging software is quite good – you can display a graph, table or statistical value of the incoming data from up to three separate DMMs.

Below is a rough video of using the Xoom with data logging. We first make the Bluetooth connection, then measure resistance of a 1k ohm logarithmic pot, change the view to data table, then stop the logging and email the data. The app can email a .csv file which can be opened with any spreadsheet, etc. Using the app you can label each DMM feed to avoid confusion with the data files in the future.

Using the U1177A with a Windows 7 x64 machine was a lot more successful. You can download the Windows-based software from here (97 MB). After pairing the adaptor with the bluetooth connection software, the Agilent software loads but does not connect. You need to alter the data speed to 19200bps and select the COM port from the drop-down list in the “communication settings” on the left-hand side of the window, as shown below:

You can also use terminal software and AT commands to change the parameters of the U1177A, which is described in the user manual. Moving forward, once connected you can measure and log to your heart’s content. You can display a virtual meter:

Or choose a graphing display mode:

Note the short drop in value to zero as the graph increased on the far-right of the measurement in the image above. This occurs when the meter is changing range, just as the LCD will blink off then on due to the same phenomenon. Finally, you can also display the data as a table, for example:

Finally, you can export the data to a .csv file which can be opened with the usual spreadsheet or text editing software:

Using Windows OS Remote Multimeter Use Data Logging Other connection – hyperterminal etc. 

Conclusion

For data logging to a PC that is in Bluetooth range, the U1177A fits the bill. Although you can get a serial to IR cable (and early U1272A owners should have received one when the firmware update was released), the Bluetooth module will certainly be useful when moving around a worksite, or taking remote measurements from extreme temperature or NVH environments. The Android apps need to move out of beta stage – however due to the variety of devices and OS versions in the market this may be a long journey. However considering the price (~Au$52) it is inexpensive enough to keep around just-in-case.

Note – the U1177A was purchased by myself and reviewed without notice. Residing in Australia, ours was purchased from element14.com.

The post Review: Agilent U1177A IR to Bluetooth Adaptor appeared first on tronixstuff.

Hello readers

Every once in a while you have an idea for something that is quite simple in theory, yet complex to implement. Once example of this in my opinion is getting information from your Arduino to the outside world. Sure you can use an LCD, lots of LEDs, use a servo as an analogue meter, etc., but one of the best ways would be to a simple video monitor or TV. Imagine the possibilities that are available if your Arduino project could display data on a simple television screen – suddenly you could commercialise  projects and/or really have some fun.

Well now this is all possible with the Batsocks Tellymate Arduino shield! Sweet. Let’s check it out:

The developers have really made this simple. You just connect it like any other shield, run the included cable from the shield’s socket to the “video in” on the TV or monitor. The shield uses digital pins 0 and 1. There are also seven hard-wired jumpers that you can use to select carriage return attributes, PAL/NTSC output, and so on.

From a software point of view, it is also quite simple to use. Just insert Serial.begin(57600); into void setup(); and you’re away. Just use Serial.write(); or Serial.print(); and it will send the data off to the TV. It can support a resolution of 25 rows by 38 columns. Not the greatest, but for the price it does what it is designed to do. For normal use it supports the characters from code page 437, which for the older readers will look very familiar.

Sending other commands to the Tellymate is done with codes sent to it. For example, to clear the screen is ” E”. But that is not the command. Thankfully the manufacturer’s website has a detailed range of instructions and examples that you can work with to make the most out of it. Personally I just printed out the pages and made my own reference manual, which works well.

To get you up and running quickly, here is a brief sketch that is quite easy to follow. It is the temperature logger sketch from my Arduino tutorial modified to display via the Tellymate. Here is the sketch: sketch.pdf, and a video of it operating.

Unfortunately it is difficult to record the display as we  have a CRT television, but I hope you get the idea.

My next example is to recreate the binary quiz game from Chapter Five of my Arduino tutorial. Again, not too difficult. The main caveat is (as usual) to plan before programming. And this proved to be a better rendition of the game – here is the sketch,binary quiz.pdf, and some screen shots:

Finally, the video:

As you can see it is quite versatile with normal text and characters. Considering it costs under US$40, the Tellymate is quite the problem-solver. You can also define your own characters, for example to create your own symbols or game characters. Furthermore, larger fonts sizes are available (double height and width) and they can mix on the same screen with regular-sized characters.

So now you have a better understanding of the Tellymate. Unfortunately my time is currently limited, so will continue with the Tellymate and publish some more fun things soon. Subscribe (top-right) to keep up to date!

As always, thank you for reading and I look forward to your comments and so on. Please subscribe using one of the methods at the top-right of this web page to receive updates on new posts!

High resolution photos are available on flickr.

[Note - this product was purchased by myself personally and reviewed without notifying the manufacturer]