Home of the generic nerd

Arduino Mood Light Controller v3

2011-12-14T21:44:00.001+01:00

I finally go some time and some inspiration to update the source code of my Arduino Mood Light Controller. I'll just try to keep it short ...

Code cleanup:
All the light modes have been moved to separate functions.
Replaced a couple of "If, then..." with "Switch, Case", makes the code somewhat easier to read.

New features:
Added two light modes - cycleColor and lightMyFire.
Speed of pulsateColor and cycleColor now controlled via potentiometer.

Download the source code here.
Source code formatted for blogger by: formatmysourcecode.blogspot.com

/* 
  RGB LED controller
  4 modes: off, color select, color pulse and random cycle/pulse
  By Markus Ulfberg 2009-05-19
  
  Updated to Version 2 - 2010-01-13 (Not publicly released)
  Updated to Version 3 - 2011-12-14

  Thanks to: Ladyada, Tom Igoe and 
  everyone at the Arduino forum for excellent 
  tutorials and everyday help. 

  TODO: 
  1. Use millis for debounce instead of delay. 

*/

// set the ledPins
int ledRed = 10;
int ledGreen = 9;
int ledBlue = 11;

// color selector pin
int potPin = 1;
 
// lightMode selector
int switchPin = 2;

// light mode variable
// initial value 0 = off
int lightMode = 0;

// LED Power variables
byte redPwr = 0;
byte greenPwr = 0;
byte bluePwr = 0;

// Variables for lightMode 2
// variables for keeping pulse color
byte redPulse;
byte greenPulse;
byte bluePulse;
int pulseSpeed; 

// Set pulse to down initially
byte pulse = 0;

// floating variables needed to be able to pulse a fixed color 
float redFloat;
float greenFloat;
float blueFloat;

// the amount R,G & B should step up/down to display an fixed color
float redKoff;
float greenKoff;
float blueKoff;

// Variables for lightMode 3
// set the initial random colors
byte redNew = random(255);
byte greenNew = random(255);
byte blueNew = random(255);

// Variables for cycleColor
int truColor = 0;

// misc interface variables
// potVal store the value of the potentiometer for various needs 
int potVal;
// value from the button (debounce)
int switchVal;
int switchVal2;
// buttonState registers if the button has changed
int buttonState;

void setup()
{
  pinMode(ledRed, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(ledGreen, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(ledBlue, OUTPUT);
  
  pinMode(potPin, INPUT);
  
  pinMode(switchPin, INPUT);
  buttonState = digitalRead(switchPin); 
  
  // serial for debugging purposes only
  Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop()
{
  switchVal = digitalRead(switchPin);      // read input value and store it in val
  delay(10);                         // 10 milliseconds is a good amount of time
    
  switchVal2 = digitalRead(switchPin);     // read the input again to check for bounces
  if (switchVal == switchVal2) {                 // make sure we got 2 consistant readings!
    if (switchVal != buttonState) {          // the button state has changed!
      if (switchVal == LOW) {                // check if the button is pressed
        switch (lightMode) {          // light is off
          case 0:
            lightMode = 1;           // light is on and responds to pot
            break;  
          case 1:
            lightMode = 2;           // light pulsates in the latest color from pot
            break;  
          case 2:     
            lightMode = 3;           // light cycles thru colors
            break;
          case 3:
            lightMode = 4;           // light changes randomly
            break;
          case 4:
            lightMode = 5;           // simulated fire
            break;  
          case 5:     
            lightMode = 0;             // light is off        
            break;  
        } // END switch (lightMode)    
      } // END if (switchVal == LOW)
    } // END if (switchVal != buttonState) 
      
    buttonState = switchVal;                 // save the new state in our variable
  } // END if (switchVal == switchVal2)

  /*
  // Debug
  Serial.print("lightMode: ");
  Serial.println(lightMode);
  */
  
  switch (lightMode) {
    case 0:
      lightsOff();
      break;
    case 1:
      colorControl();
      break;
    case 2:
      pulsateColor();
      break;
    case 3: 
      cycleColor();
      break;
    case 4:
      randomColor();
      break;
    case 5:
      lightMyFire();
      break;  
  }

} // END loop()


// lightMode 0
void lightsOff() {
  redPwr = 0;
  greenPwr = 0;
  bluePwr = 0;
  colorDisplay();
}

// lightMode 1 
void colorControl() {

   // read the potentiometer position
   potVal = analogRead(potPin); 
 
  // RED > ORANGE > YELLOW
   if (potVal > 0 && potVal < 170) {
     redPwr = 255;
     bluePwr = 0;
     greenPwr = map(potVal, 0, 170, 0, 255);
   }
 
   // YELLOW > LIME?? > GREEN 
   if (potVal > 170 && potVal < 341) {
     greenPwr = 255;
     bluePwr = 0;
     redPwr = map(potVal, 341, 170, 0, 255);
   }

    // GREEN > TURQOUISE
    if (potVal > 341 && potVal < 511) {
      greenPwr = 255;
      redPwr = 0;
      bluePwr = map(potVal, 341, 511, 0, 255);
    }
 
   // TURQOUISE > BLUE  
   if (potVal > 511 && potVal < 682) {
     bluePwr = 255;
     redPwr = 0;
     greenPwr = map(potVal, 682, 511, 0, 255);
   }
 
   // BLUE > PURPLE 
   if (potVal > 682 && potVal < 852) {
     bluePwr = 255;
     greenPwr = 0;
     redPwr = map(potVal, 682, 852, 0, 255);
   }
 
   // PURPLE > RED
   if (potVal > 852 && potVal < 1023) {
     redPwr = 255;
     greenPwr = 0;
     bluePwr = map(potVal, 1023, 852, 0, 255);
   } 
   
   redFloat = float(redPwr);
   greenFloat = float(greenPwr);
   blueFloat = float(bluePwr);
   
   redKoff = redFloat / 255;
   greenKoff = greenFloat / 255;
   blueKoff = blueFloat / 255;
   
   redPulse = redPwr;
   greenPulse = greenPwr;
   bluePulse = bluePwr; 
   
  /*
  // Debug 
  Serial.print("redFLoat: ");
  Serial.print(redFloat, DEC);
  Serial.print(" redPwr: ");
  Serial.print(redPwr, DEC);
  Serial.print(" greenFloat: ");
  Serial.print(greenFloat, DEC);
  Serial.print(" greenPwr: ");
  Serial.print(greenPwr, DEC);
  Serial.print(" blueFloat: ");
  Serial.print(blueFloat, DEC);
  Serial.print(" bluePwr: ");
  Serial.println(bluePwr, DEC);
  // End debug
  */
  // Display colors 
  colorDisplay();
}        

// lightMode 2
void pulsateColor() {
  
    // get colors from colorControl
    redPwr = int(redFloat);
    greenPwr = int(greenFloat);
    bluePwr = int(blueFloat);
      
    // Read speed from potentiometer 
    pulseSpeed = analogRead(potPin); 
    pulseSpeed = map(pulseSpeed, 0, 1023, 0, 255);
  
    //display the colors
    colorDisplay();
    
    // set speed of change
    delay(pulseSpeed);
    
    // pulse down
    if (pulse == 0) {
      if (redFloat > 10) {
        redFloat = redFloat - redKoff;
      } 
      if (greenFloat > 10) {
        greenFloat = greenFloat - greenKoff;
      } 
      if (blueFloat > 10) {
        blueFloat = blueFloat - blueKoff;
      } 

    // If all xFloat match 10 get pulse up
    if (byte(redFloat) <= 10) {
     if (byte(greenFloat) <= 10) {
      if (byte(blueFloat) <= 10) {
       pulse = 1;
      }
     }
    }
  }
  // Pulse up
  if (pulse == 1) {
    if (redFloat < redPulse) {
      redFloat = redFloat + redKoff;
    } 
    if (greenFloat < greenPulse) {
      greenFloat = greenFloat + greenKoff;
    } 
    if (blueFloat < bluePulse) {
      blueFloat = blueFloat + blueKoff;
    }
   // If all Pwr match Pulse get pulse down
  
    if (byte(redFloat) == redPulse) {
     if (byte(greenFloat) == greenPulse) {
      if (byte(blueFloat) == bluePulse) {
       pulse = 0;
      }
     }
    }
  }
  
  /*
  // Debug 
  Serial.print("redFloat: ");
  Serial.print(redFloat, DEC);
  Serial.print(" redPulse: ");
  Serial.print(redPulse, DEC);
  Serial.print(" greenFloat: ");
  Serial.print(greenFloat, DEC);
  Serial.print(" greenPulse: ");
  Serial.print(greenPulse, DEC);
  Serial.print(" blueFloat: ");
  Serial.print(blueFloat, DEC);
  Serial.print(" bluePulse: ");
  Serial.print(bluePulse, DEC);
  Serial.print(" pulse: ");
  Serial.println(pulse, DEC);
  // End debug
  */
  
} // pulsateColor END 

// lightMode 3
void cycleColor() {    // Cycles through colors

  switch(truColor) {
  // RED > ORANGE > YELLOW   
   case 0:
     redPwr = 255;
     bluePwr = 0;
     greenPwr++;
     if (greenPwr > 254) {
       truColor = 1;
     }
     break;
   
   // YELLOW > LIME?? > GREEN 
   case 1:
     greenPwr = 255;
     bluePwr = 0;
     redPwr--;
     if (redPwr < 1) {
       truColor = 2;
     }
     break;

   // GREEN > TURQOUISE
   case 2:
     greenPwr = 255;
     bluePwr++;
     redPwr = 0;
     if (bluePwr > 254) {
       truColor = 3;
     }   
    break;
    
   // TURQOUISE > BLUE  
   case 3:
     greenPwr--;
     bluePwr = 255;
     redPwr = 0;
     if (greenPwr < 1) {
       truColor = 4;
     }
     break;
     
   // BLUE > PURPLE 
   case 4:
     greenPwr = 0;
     bluePwr = 255;
     redPwr++;
     if (redPwr > 254) {
       truColor = 5;
     }
     break;
     
   // PURPLE > RED
   case 5:
     greenPwr = 0;
     bluePwr--;
     redPwr = 255;
     if (bluePwr < 1) {
       truColor = 0;
     }   
     break;
 }
  // START SPEED 
  pulseSpeed = analogRead(potPin); 
  pulseSpeed = map(pulseSpeed, 0, 1023, 0, 255);
  
  //display the colors
  colorDisplay();
  // set speed of change
  delay(pulseSpeed);
  // END SPEED
  
}  // END cycleColor 


// lightMode 4 
void randomColor() {     // randomize colorNew and step colorPwr to it
                          
  if (redPwr > redNew) {
    redPwr--;
  } 
  if (redPwr < redNew) {
    redPwr++;
  }
  if (greenPwr > greenNew) {
    greenPwr--;
  } 
  if (greenPwr < greenNew) {
    greenPwr++;
  }
  if (bluePwr > blueNew) {
    bluePwr--;
  } 
  if (bluePwr < blueNew) {
    bluePwr++;
  }

// If all Pwr match New get new colors
  
  if (redPwr == redNew) {
   if (greenPwr == greenNew) {
    if (bluePwr == blueNew) {
     redNew = random(254);
     greenNew = random(254);
     blueNew = random(254);
    }
   }
  }
  
  // display the colors
  colorDisplay();
  // Set speed of change
  delay(20);

} // END randomColor 

// lightMode 5
void lightMyFire() {
  
  // Flicker will determine how often a fast flare will occur
  int flicker;

  // set flicker randomness
  flicker = random(800); 

  // Set random colors, 
  // constrain green to red and blue to green
  // in order to stay within a red, blue, white spectrum
  redPwr = random(220, 240);
  greenPwr = random(180, 200);
  // when flicker occur, the colors shine brighter
  // adding blue creates a white shine 
  if (flicker > 750) {
    redPwr = 254;
    greenPwr = random(200, 230); 
    bluePwr = random(0, 50);    
  } else {
    bluePwr = 0;
  }
  
  // display Colors
  colorDisplay();
  
  // Set speed of fire
  delay(20);  

} // END lightMyFire

// Displays the colors when called from other functions
void colorDisplay() {
  analogWrite(ledRed, redPwr);
  analogWrite(ledGreen, greenPwr);
  analogWrite(ledBlue, bluePwr);
}

How I fixed a rattling laptop fan

2011-10-27T06:45:00.000+02:00

So my laptop fan started rattling recently. First I thought it might be my hard drive that was about to give up, so I was kind of glad it was "just" the fan. Until the noise of the fan started to drive me slightly insane. My first attempt of silencing the fan was a failure. I opened up my laptop and cleaned out all the dust in the fan and the vents. I also checked if there any loose pieces of something in the fan, but didn't find anything. After putting the laptop back together again it didn't take long for the fan to start making noise again.

So yesterday evening I opened up my laptop again, about a month after my initial try. I took it one step further this time, I removed the fan completely and disassembled it up til the point where I had the fan blades removed from the housing. After cleaning everything as good as possible I put a drop of oil (for sewing machines) on the spindle where the fan blades sit. When I had put everything back togheter I could verify that my laptop now indeed was quiet as a mouse. And yes before you ask, the fan i still working.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of this but hopefully it's quite easy to understand anyway. If you don't please just ask and I will try to give you an answer.

Hiatus

2010-09-08T10:00:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since my last post. The reason is quite simple I've had my focus somewhere else. Late december 2009 my wife gave birth to our daughter and since then I've spent most of my free time with my two girls.

Anyway I'm still alive and both new and old projects are in the pipeline, however as of now there's simply not enough time to get things flowing again.

Super simple rsync howto

2010-03-23T14:14:00.002+01:00

This little howto contains pretty much everything you need to use rsync to back up and or synchronize two folders locally. I decided to do this writeup after after reading this article on lifehacker. I wasn't completely satisfied with the article so I did some digging to get the answers I needed. I know there's alot of rsync tutorials out there but I wrote this for my own personal use and also I tried to keep it as short as possible while explaining what's being done.

Oh, by the way rsync is really powerful and this only scratches the surface of what rsync can do. But you don't need more info to do local back ups.

Syntax:
rsync -options /source /destination

Compare two folders
This command uses the "-v" and "-n" option to do nothing. Instead rsync prints out what would have been copied from a source folder to a destination folder. To delete files from the destination folder see notes on "--delete" below.

rsync -rvn /source /destination

-r, --recursive recurse into directories
-v, --verbose increase verbosity
-n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made

Back up one folder to another
This is all you need to back up a source directory to a destination directory. If unsure try it out with the "-n" dry run option first. To delete files from the destination folder see notes on "--delete" below.

rsync -av /source /destination

-a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
   -r, --recursive recurse into directories
   -l, --links copy symlinks as symlinks
   -p, --perms preserve permissions
   -t, --times preserve modification times
   -g, --group preserve group
   -o, --owner preserve owner (super-user only)
   -D same as --devices --specials
   --devices preserve device files (super-user only)
   --specials preserve special files

Additional tips n tricks

Test with the "dry run" -n option first to see what files would be deleted and copied.
-n, --dry-run perform a trial run with no changes made

Delete files in the destination folder that does not exist in the source folder.
--delete delete extraneous files from dest dirs

Exclude files that you don't need for instance system files.
--exclude=PATTERN exclude files matching PATTERN
example: --exclude '.DS_Store'

Compress files during transfer to save bandwidth
-z, --compress compress file data during the transfer

Credits

rsync - man page

lifehacker.com - Geek to Live: Mirror files across systems with rsync

techgage.com - Backing Up Your Linux

Working with files and folders that has spaces in their names

2010-03-23T13:37:00.000+01:00

I was in OSX's terminal yesterday trying to cd into a folder with a space in the name. That usually works really well with tab-completion but in the same place in the directory tree there were another folder with the same name but without the space.

Here's a little illustration to clarify what I just wrote.

root--+

+--Folder1

+--Folder1 With Space

So I want to cd into "Folder1 With Space" but I can't use tab-completion or type:

cd Folder1 With Space

However I can use \ as the escape character:

cd Folder1\ With\ Space

I can also use quotes, 'normal' or "double" (useful if the folder uses either one in it's name).

cd 'Folder1 With Space'

cd "Folder1 With Space"

Although I haven't tried it I'm pretty sure this works in any *nix terminal.

Arduino game: Zombie Showdown with graphics

2010-01-30T08:57:00.001+01:00

Shortly after I wrote a post about Zombie Showdown at the Arduino forum, Bart had a suggestion on how the game could evolve with graphics. My original idea wasn't really to make a game with graphics but rather with physical input and feedback, but I admit I got a bit tempted to try graphics out. But before I got around to, Bart did. Here's the result of my game with Barts graphics.

Attacking Zombie!

Killed Zombie.

Gameplay video.

Dowload the code (.pde) here.
Formatted for Blogger with: formatmysourcecode.blogspot.com.

/* 
  Zombie Showdown
  By Markus Ulfberg 2010-01-12
  
  'Graphics' ;) added by Bart Lammers 2010-01-22
  
  More Arduino stuff and future updates of Zombie Showdown at:
  http://genericnerd.blogspot.com

  Description:
    A small game using an 16x2 LCD and a pushbutton.
    The game presents a start screen and awaits player input. 
    If the player presses the button the game starts.
    
    After a random number of milliseconds a Zombie will 
    appear. It will have a random strenght of 1-5. 
    The strenght of the Zombie is equal to how many
    buttonpresses it takes to kill it. 
    
    If the player fails to kill the Zombie within a random 
    timeframe the Zombie will kill the player.
    
    If the player manages to kill the Zombie the game will
    continue and a new Zombie will soon attack. 
    
    When the player dies a Game Over screen is presented
    also displaying the score of the player. 
    
    There is no "beating" this game since in the Zombie apocalypse
    eventually everyone will die. 

  Planned expansion:
    1. Use a vibrator to signal Zombie attack.
    2. Use randomizer to make 
  
  Credits:
    This game uses example code from 
    Debounce and the LiquidCrystal library.

*/


// include the library code:
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>


// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd(7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12);


// Set the text strings used in the game
char* gameText[]={"Zombie Showdown",// 0 Title 
                  "Kill to Start",  // 1 
                  "Let's go!",      // 2
                  "Zombie!!!",      // 3                  
                  "You killed it.", // 4
                  "You are dead.",  // 5
                  "Game Over",      // 6
                  "Score: "         // 7
                  };         

// Custom characters for the zombie graphics
byte zombie_head[8] = {
  B00000,
  B00110,
  B01111,
  B11101,
  B11111,
  B11100,
  B11011,
  B11110,
};

byte zombie_body[8] = {
  B11100,
  B11111,
  B11111,
  B11100,
  B11100,
  B11100,
  B11100,
  B11100,
};
byte zombie_arm[8] = {
  B00000,
  B11110,
  B11111,
  B00001,
  B00000,
  B00000,
  B00000,
  B00000,
};

byte zombie_head_expl[8] = {
  B00000,
  B00000,
  B00000,
  B00000,
  B00000,
  B01000,
  B11011,
  B11110,
};

// Button variables
const int buttonPin = 2;

// Two values for debounceing
int buttonState;
int lastButtonState = LOW;

// the following variables are long's because the time, measured in miliseconds,
// will quickly become a bigger number than can be stored in an int.
long lastDebounceTime = 0;  // the last time the output pin was toggled
long debounceDelay = 50;    // the debounce time; increase if the output flickers

// Stores value of button 1 = pressed 0 = released 
int buttonPress = 0;

// Title screen blink variables
long lastBlinkTime = 0;
long blinkDelay = 500;
int blinkState = 0;

// Gameplay variables

// Zombie health a random number between 1 and 5
int zombie;

// Time since last zombie apperance
long lastZombieTime = 0;

// Randomizes between each zombie 
// Timer for next zombie apperance
// a random number between 200 ms and 20 000 ms 
long zombieDelay;

// Randomizes between each zombie 
// Countdown timer for zombie bite
// a random number between 2 000 ms and 7 000 ms 
long zombieBite;

// Status of zombie apperance 1 = zombie 0 = no zombie
int zombieState = 0;

// Total steps the zombie can take
int zombieSteps = 15;
int zombiePosition = 0;
int zombieLastPosition = 0;
int zombieSpeed = 0;

// Status of player 1 = alive 0 = dead
int playerAlive = 1;

// gameRun sets start screen or runs the game
int gameRun = 0;

// Score
int score = 0;

void setup() {
  
  // set up the LCD's number of rows and columns: 
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  
  // DEBUG ONLY
  Serial.begin(9600);
    
  // Set up the button
  pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
  buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin); 
  
  // Use unconnected analog input pin
  // to generate a random seed for the random generator
  randomSeed(analogRead(0));
  
  // Generate zombie characters
  lcd.createChar(0, zombie_head);
  lcd.createChar(1, zombie_body);
  lcd.createChar(2, zombie_arm);
  lcd.createChar(3, zombie_head_expl);
  
  // The timeframe where a new Zombie appears 
  // this first Zombie will have a shorter random time frame 
  zombieDelay = random(200,10000);
  
  // The timeframe for the first zombie bite
  zombieBite = random(2000,7000);
  setZombieSpeed();
  
}

void loop() {
  
  // Start sequence
  gameStart();
   
  // Gameplay
  gameExecute();
  
  // GameOver
  gameOver();
  
} // loop end

void gameStart() {
  
  while (gameRun == 0) {
    // Set the cursor
    lcd.setCursor(0,0);
    
    // print the name of the game
    lcd.print(gameText[0]);
  
  
    // Pause for blink
    if ((millis() - lastBlinkTime) > blinkDelay) {
    
      // If blinkState is OFF turn it ON
      if (blinkState == 0) {
      
        // Clear the LCD and set the cursor
        lcd.clear();
    
        // move the cursor down 
        lcd.setCursor(0,1);
        // print the blinking text
        lcd.print(gameText[1]);
    
        // Set the cursor for non blinking text
        lcd.setCursor(0,0);
    
        // since blink cleared the whole LCD
        // we need print the name of the game again
        lcd.print(gameText[0]);
      
        // set blinkState to ON
        blinkState = 1;
      // If blinkState is OFF turn it ON
      } else {
      
        // Clear the LCD and set the cursor
        lcd.clear();
    

        // Set the cursor for non blinking text
        lcd.setCursor(0,0);
    
        // print the name of the game
        lcd.print(gameText[0]);
      
        // Set blink to OFF
        blinkState = 0;
      
      } // END: else 
    
      // store the new blink time
      lastBlinkTime = millis();
    

    } // END: if ((millis() - lastBlinkTime) > blinkDelay)
    
    // Check if button is pressed 
    if (button() == 1) {
      // If so start the game
      gameRun = 1;
      playerAlive = 1;
      
      // reset score
      score = 0;
    } // END: if (button() == 1)
    
  } // END: while game start    
} // END: void gameStart 

void gameExecute() {
  // check wether button is pushed to run game
  while (gameRun == 1) {
      lcd.clear();
      lcd.print(gameText[2]);
      // small delay to get ready
      delay(2000);
 
      // Check if a zombie is here
      if (zombieState == 1) {
        // tell the player that a zombie is here
        lcd.clear();         
        // lcd.print(gameText[3]);
        // Put the zombie in position 0;
        drawZombie();
       
        // Set the strenght and speed of of the zombie
        zombie = random(1,5);
             
         // Resets the zombie timer 
         // this one is for the speed of which the zombie attacks 
         lastZombieTime = millis(); 
       
        // The action part
        while (zombie > 0) {
         // Find out where the zombie has to stand
         zombiePosition = ((millis() - lastZombieTime) / zombieSpeed);
         
         if (zombiePosition != zombieLastPosition) {
            // If it moved, redraw
            zombieLastPosition = zombiePosition;
            drawZombie();
         }
         
         /* // DEBUG 
         Serial.print("Str: ");
         Serial.print(zombie, DEC);
         Serial.print(" Time: ");
         Serial.print(zombieBite);
         Serial.print(" Bite: ");  
         Serial.println((millis() - lastZombieTime));
         */ // END: DEBUG
         
         // Check if button is pressed 
         if (button() == 1) {
           // If so remove 1 health from zombie
           zombie--;
         }
        
         // check if the zombie bites
         if ((millis() - lastZombieTime) > zombieBite) {
            
           // player is bitten and killed
           // Print information on death
           lcd.clear();
           lcd.print(gameText[5]);      
           delay(2000);
            
           // Make sure all loops are exited
           gameRun = 0;
           zombie = 0;
         }
          
       } // END: while zombie > 0
     
       // Add score, first check if the zombie was killed or 
       // it was the player who died and zombie was just reset
       if (gameRun == 1) {
         // The zombie was killed 
         zombieState = 0;
         // Add to the players score
         score++;
         //lcd.clear();
         // Print information of kill
         //lcd.print(gameText[4]);
         lcd.setCursor(zombiePosition,0);
         lcd.write(3);
         // Pause for a while
         delay(1000);
       } 
        
     } else { // END: if Zombie State and Start else 
      
       // zombieState is 0 check if enough time 
       // has passed since last zombie
       if ((millis() - lastZombieTime) > zombieDelay) {
         // A new zombie is here
         zombieState = 1;
         // reset random zombieDelay
         zombieDelay = random(200,2000);
        
         // reset random zombieBite time;
         zombieBite = random(2000,7000);
         setZombieSpeed();
         
         // reset position
         zombiePosition = 0;
         zombieLastPosition = 0;
         
       } // END: if ((millis() - lastZombieTime) > zombieDelay)
     
     } // END: else 

  }  // END: while game run 
  
} // END: gameExecute 

// Calculate the zombie speed, how many ms per step?
void setZombieSpeed() {
  zombieSpeed = zombieBite / zombieSteps;
}

// Draw the zombie on the screen in the correct position
void drawZombie() {
 lcd.clear();
 lcd.setCursor(zombiePosition,0);
 lcd.write(0);
 lcd.setCursor(zombiePosition,1);
 lcd.write(1);
 lcd.setCursor(zombiePosition+1,1);
 lcd.write(2); 
}

int button() {
  // read the state of the switch into a local variable:
  int reading = digitalRead(buttonPin);

  // check to see if you just pressed the button 
  // (i.e. the input went from LOW to HIGH),  and you've waited 
  // long enough since the last press to ignore any noise:  

  // If the switch changed, due to noise or pressing:
  if (reading != lastButtonState) {
    // reset the debouncing timer
    lastDebounceTime = millis();
  } 
  
  if ((millis() - lastDebounceTime) > debounceDelay) {
    // whatever the reading is at, it's been there for longer
    // than the debounce delay, so take it as the actual current state:
    buttonState = reading;    
            
    // If button is pressed down 
    if (buttonState == HIGH) {
      // store the state of the button
      buttonPress = 1;             
    }
    // If button is up ...
    if (buttonState == LOW) {
      // ... and was just down i.e released
      if (buttonPress == 1) {
        // Store the new state of the button
        buttonPress = 0;
        
        // also save the reading since we terminate in the next step        
        lastButtonState = reading;      
        
        // Terminate the button() function and return 
        // a positive button press
        return 1;
      }
    } // END: If buttonState == LOW
  } // END: If millis... 
  
  // save the reading.  Next time through the loop,
  // it'll be the lastButtonState:
  lastButtonState = reading;
  
} // END: void button()
  
void gameOver() {
  lcd.clear();
  lcd.setCursor(0,0);
  // Print Game Over
  lcd.print(gameText[6]);
  lcd.setCursor(0,1);
  // Print Score
  lcd.print(gameText[7]);
  lcd.print(score);
  // Pause for a while 
  delay(4000); 
  
}

Arduino game: Zombie Showdown

2010-01-12T20:03:00.002+01:00

I recently bought a 16x2 LCD from Adafruit and decided to make a small Zombie survival game as my first project.
The hardware is just the LCD hooked up according to instructions on the LCD product page and a push-button with a pull-down resistor like the one in this tutorial.

Here are som pictures and a movie from the project:

Title screen of Zombie Showdown

Entire hardware set up

Gameplay

Download the source code or read it below.
Formatted for Blogger with: formatmysourcecode.blogspot.com.

/* 
  Zombie Showdown
  By Markus Ulfberg 2010-01-12
  
  More Arduino stuff and future updates of Zombie Showdown at:
  http://genericnerd.blogspot.com

  Description:
    A small game using an 16x2 LCD and a pushbutton.
    The game presents a start screen and awaits player input. 
    If the player presses the button the game starts.
    
    After a random number of milliseconds a Zombie will 
    appear. It will have a random strenght of 1-5. 
    The strenght of the Zombie is equal to how many
    buttonpresses it takes to kill it. 
    
    If the player fails to kill the Zombie within a random 
    timeframe the Zombie will kill the player.
    
    If the player manages to kill the Zombie the game will
    continue and a new Zombie will soon attack. 
    
    When the player dies a Game Over screen is presented
    also displaying the score of the player. 
    
    There is no "beating" this game since in the Zombie apocalypse
    eventually everyone will die. 

  Planned expansion:
    1. Use a vibrator to signal Zombie attack.
    2. Use randomizer to make 
  
  Credits:
    This game uses example code from 
    Debounce and the LiquidCrystal library.

*/


// include the library code:
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>


// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd(7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12);


// Set the text strings used in the game
char* gameText[]={"Zombie Showdown",// 0 Title 
                  "Kill to Start",  // 1 
                  "Let's go!",      // 2
                  "Zombie!!!",      // 3                  
                  "You killed it.", // 4
                  "You are dead.",  // 5
                  "Game Over",      // 6
                  "Score: "         // 7
                  };         

// Button variables
const int buttonPin = 2;

// Two values for debounceing
int buttonState;
int lastButtonState = LOW;

// the following variables are long's because the time, measured in miliseconds,
// will quickly become a bigger number than can be stored in an int.
long lastDebounceTime = 0;  // the last time the output pin was toggled
long debounceDelay = 50;    // the debounce time; increase if the output flickers

// Stores value of button 1 = pressed 0 = released 
int buttonPress = 0;

// Title screen blink variables
long lastBlinkTime = 0;
long blinkDelay = 500;
int blinkState = 0;

// Gameplay variables

// Zombie health a random number between 1 and 5
int zombie;

// Time since last zombie apperance
long lastZombieTime = 0;

// Randomizes between each zombie 
// Timer for next zombie apperance
// a random number between 200 ms and 20 000 ms 
long zombieDelay;

// Randomizes between each zombie 
// Countdown timer for zombie bite
// a random number between 2 000 ms and 7 000 ms 
long zombieBite;

// Status of zombie apperance 1 = zombie 0 = no zombie
int zombieState = 0;

// Status of player 1 = alive 0 = dead
int playerAlive = 1;

// gameRun sets start screen or runs the game
int gameRun = 0;

// Score
int score = 0;

void setup() {
  
  // set up the LCD's number of rows and columns: 
  lcd.begin(16, 2);
  
  // DEBUG ONLY
  Serial.begin(9600);
    
  // Set up the button
  pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
  buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin); 
  
  // Use unconnected analog input pin
  // to generate a random seed for the random generator
  randomSeed(analogRead(0));
  
  // The timeframe where a new Zombie appears 
  // this first Zombie will have a shorter random time frame 
  zombieDelay = random(200,10000);
  
  // The timeframe for the first zombie bite
  zombieBite = random(2000,7000);
  
}

void loop() {
  
  // Start sequence
  gameStart();
   
  // Gameplay
  gameExecute();
  
  // GameOver
  gameOver();
  
} // loop end

void gameStart() {
  
  while (gameRun == 0) {
    // Set the cursor
    lcd.setCursor(0,0);
    
    // print the name of the game
    lcd.print(gameText[0]);
  
  
    // Pause for blink
    if ((millis() - lastBlinkTime) > blinkDelay) {
    
      // If blinkState is OFF turn it ON
      if (blinkState == 0) {
      
        // Clear the LCD and set the cursor
        lcd.clear();
    
        // move the cursor down 
        lcd.setCursor(0,1);
        // print the blinking text
        lcd.print(gameText[1]);
    
        // Set the cursor for non blinking text
        lcd.setCursor(0,0);
    
        // since blink cleared the whole LCD
        // we need print the name of the game again
        lcd.print(gameText[0]);
      
        // set blinkState to ON
        blinkState = 1;
      // If blinkState is OFF turn it ON
      } else {
      
        // Clear the LCD and set the cursor
        lcd.clear();
    

        // Set the cursor for non blinking text
        lcd.setCursor(0,0);
    
        // print the name of the game
        lcd.print(gameText[0]);
      
        // Set blink to OFF
        blinkState = 0;
      
      } // END: else 
    
      // store the new blink time
      lastBlinkTime = millis();
    

    } // END: if ((millis() - lastBlinkTime) > blinkDelay)
    
    // Check if button is pressed 
    if (button() == 1) {
      // If so start the game
      gameRun = 1;
      playerAlive = 1;
      
      // reset score
      score = 0;
    } // END: if (button() == 1)
    
  } // END: while game start    
} // END: void gameStart 

void gameExecute() {
  // check wether button is pushed to run game
  while (gameRun == 1) {
      lcd.clear();
      lcd.print(gameText[2]);
      // small delay to get ready
      delay(2000);
 
      // Check if a zombie is here
      if (zombieState == 1) {
        // tell the player that a zombie is here
        lcd.clear();         
        lcd.print(gameText[3]);
       
       
        // Set the strenght and speed of of the zombie
        zombie = random(1,5);
             
         // Resets the zombie timer 
         // this one is for the speed of which the zombie attacks 
         lastZombieTime = millis(); 
       
        // The action part
        while (zombie > 0) {
        
         /* // DEBUG 
         Serial.print("Str: ");
         Serial.print(zombie, DEC);
         Serial.print(" Time: ");
         Serial.print(zombieBite);
         Serial.print(" Bite: ");  
         Serial.println((millis() - lastZombieTime));
         */ // END: DEBUG
         
         // Check if button is pressed 
         if (button() == 1) {
           // If so remove 1 health from zombie
           zombie--;
         }
        
         // check if the zombie bites
         if ((millis() - lastZombieTime) > zombieBite) {
            
           // player is bitten and killed
           // Print information on death
           lcd.clear();
           lcd.print(gameText[5]);      
           delay(2000);
            
           // Make sure all loops are exited
           gameRun = 0;
           zombie = 0;
         }
          
       } // END: while zombie > 0
     
       // Add score, first check if the zombie was killed or 
       // it was the player who died and zombie was just reset
       if (gameRun == 1) {
         // The zombie was killed 
         zombieState = 0;
         // Add to the players score
         score++;
         lcd.clear();
         // Print information of kill
         lcd.print(gameText[4]);
         // Pause for a while
         delay(1000);
       } 
        
     } else { // END: if Zombie State and Start else 
      
       // zombieState is 0 check if enough time 
       // has passed since last zombie
       if ((millis() - lastZombieTime) > zombieDelay) {
         // A new zombie is here
         zombieState = 1;
         // reset random zombieDelay
         zombieDelay = random(200,2000);
        
         // reset random zombieBite time;
         zombieBite = random(2000,7000);
         
       } // END: if ((millis() - lastZombieTime) > zombieDelay)
     
     } // END: else 

  }  // END: while game run 
  
} // END: gameExecute 

int button() {
  // read the state of the switch into a local variable:
  int reading = digitalRead(buttonPin);

  // check to see if you just pressed the button 
  // (i.e. the input went from LOW to HIGH),  and you've waited 
  // long enough since the last press to ignore any noise:  

  // If the switch changed, due to noise or pressing:
  if (reading != lastButtonState) {
    // reset the debouncing timer
    lastDebounceTime = millis();
  } 
  
  if ((millis() - lastDebounceTime) > debounceDelay) {
    // whatever the reading is at, it's been there for longer
    // than the debounce delay, so take it as the actual current state:
    buttonState = reading;    
            
    // If button is pressed down 
    if (buttonState == HIGH) {
      // store the state of the button
      buttonPress = 1;             
    }
    // If button is up ...
    if (buttonState == LOW) {
      // ... and was just down i.e released
      if (buttonPress == 1) {
        // Store the new state of the button
        buttonPress = 0;
        
        // also save the reading since we terminate in the next step        
        lastButtonState = reading;      
        
        // Terminate the button() function and return 
        // a positive button press
        return 1;
      }
    } // END: If buttonState == LOW
  } // END: If millis... 
  
  // save the reading.  Next time through the loop,
  // it'll be the lastButtonState:
  lastButtonState = reading;
  
} // END: void button()
  
void gameOver() {
  lcd.clear();
  lcd.setCursor(0,0);
  // Print Game Over
  lcd.print(gameText[6]);
  lcd.setCursor(0,1);
  // Print Score
  lcd.print(gameText[7]);
  lcd.print(score);
  // Pause for a while 
  delay(4000); 
  
}

How to start Kazehakase in full screen mode

2010-01-06T20:03:00.006+01:00

The long story:
I've been thinking about changing my Digital Picture Frame / Twitter frame to use/be browser instead. Partly to be able to get a useful outlet while practicing PHP-coding but also to be able to use services such as Twitter and Tom Scotts Star Wars weather.

My browser of choice is Kazehakase, a small foot print browser that can use either the Webkit or the Gecko rendering engine. It can handle alot more than Dillo but uses way less resources than Firefox. I found out about Kazehakase while reading the blog of K. Mandla.

However there is a problem. Kazehakase is not a very well documented browser. In it's manual there is a reference to using "Actions" with the browser, but the actions themselves aren't documented. Luckily enough I found out how to start Kazehakase in full screen mode by some trial and error.

The short story:
kazehakase -a "ToggleFullScreen" your_url_here

Software tips: Ninite - excellent tool for installing multiple freeware apps

2009-12-16T08:50:00.006+01:00

My harddrive started to make lot's of wierd noises the a while back so I took the preemptive decision to buy a new one. And luck has it I was following Macegrs twitter-feed, where he tweeted about how terrific Ninite was when he had to reinstall Windows 7. I gave it a shot yesterday and I can do nothing more than to agree with him. I got all my apps installed quickly and effortless - just as advertised.

Wireless issues on Macs

2009-12-08T07:11:00.000+01:00

Problem: My coworker had some issues with her wireless network at home. Her Macbook running OS X 10.5 Leopard would connect to their home network without any problems. But her husbands Powerbook and their older stationary Mac would not connect at all. There were no hardware problems with the Powerbook, in fact it worked without a hitch at her husbands job. And ofcourse they had tried retyping the password a million times.

Solution: While helping another friend of mine with his AirPort Express I came across a couple of posts in different forums that suggested using WPA2 Personal encryption (AES) instead of WPA1 Personal encryption (TKIP). We tried that and it temporarily solved the issues he had, but it there were other problems in that network. However, when I told my coworker to change her encryption from WPA1 (TKIP) to WPA2 (AES) it worked like a charm and all the computers in the network got connected right away.

Short version: If you have wireless issues (inability to connect, dropping connection) on Macintosh hardware give WPA2 (AES) a try it might work.

DIY ambient tv light inspired by ME!!

2009-12-03T08:56:00.003+01:00

Szymon took my Arduino powered mood light to another level. Check out his DIY ambient TV light. Me myself and I are very proud to have inspired such a project and really happy to see stuff I've created evolve in other peoples hands.

Trying to recover data from a failing hard drive

2009-12-02T19:42:00.002+01:00

My brother in-law asked me to take a look at his girlfriends computer (a laptop) that wouldn't boot up. Quite soon it stood apparent that the computer failed to find a bootable hard drive. I had a similar issue after trying to install Fedora 11 on my laptop.
This issue, I found out, had something to do with the SATA controller being set to AHCI- or Legacy-mode. I got my drive bootable again by fiddling with this setting a couple of times and rebooting the computer. When I got the drive to boot again, I set it to AHCI-mode which is the default.
But that was my fully operational drive, not the one in question here.

Trying it on another computer
This drive wouldn't even show up in BIOS. Since it is a laptop there's really not much I can do but remove the drive and hook it up to another computer. So I bought a SATA/IDE adapter kit from Deltaco, a small device that let's me connect any 2.5" and 3.5" PATA or SATA drive to a USB-port.
I hooked the drive up and connected it to my own laptop. I could hear the drive spin up and make some other noises before it showed up in both Windows Vista (not as a regular drive, but visible in the administrative tools disk management) and Ubuntu Linux. Since it's far easier to find freeware resuce applications under Linux I went with Ubuntu.

Tools of rescue
From what I found from googling hard drive resuce under linux there seemed to be two main applications to use. GNU ddrescue and TestDisk both available in the default Ubuntu repositories under the names gddrescue and testdisk.
First it gave TestDisk a try, but since it didn't even list the drive I resorted back to a tutorial on the TestDisk site on how to recover data from a damaged hard disk using GNU ddrescue. But unfortunately this seemed to have quite little effect. All I got was that the rescue was done but no data what so ever was copied. I tried fdisk, cfdisk and gparted to access the drive directly but all of them reported failure. As I'm writing this I'm starting to wonder wether or not the "visible" drive is in fact the USB-controller and not the drive itself? (edit: It is!)

The last resort: Stick it in the freezer
So now I was stuck with the quite annoying feeling that the drive was broken beyond my ability to resuce it. And I wanted so to be the hero here and let the others bask in my geeky glory. However after a good nights sleep I started to recall another more unorthodox way of getting data from a failed drive by sticking it in the freezer.
Again I went to the great oracle of google and found many different success testimonials using this procedure. The important part seemed to be to protect the drive from moisture by bagging it in a zip lock bag before sticking it in the freezer. There were also some methods involving sticking the drive in the oven to dry it out then freezing it again, but that seemed a bit to tedious.
To protect the drive from static I first put it in a anti static bag then in a plastic freezer bag (I guess that's the swedish equivalent to a zip lock bag, minus the zip lock) then I sucked all the air out of the bags, just like my mother tought me to do when freezing freshly baked bread. Then I took another freezer bag and put the bagged drive in and sucked the air out of that one too. Then it was freezer time for the drive. My freezer is set to - 18 °C and the drive will be in there for about ten hours before I do the first test.

Conclusion
Well the freezing didn't help. My guess is that it is a mechanical problem and the only hope now is to pay the big bucks to get a specialized disk recovery firm to take a look at it.

Twitterframe

2009-10-20T12:32:00.000+02:00

I got kind of bored of my digital picture frame, like i normally do when a project is finished. So I wanted to do something else with it. One of the things I wanted to try to use was the command line interface instead of X. The idea was to get some nice scrolling text on the screen. An IRC-frame sounded like a nice idea until I realized I really want the system to be automatic and since IRC sometimes requires you to interact I decided to go with twitter instead.

I surfed around and found that PTT (Python Twitter Tools) seemed to be what I needed. To install PTT in Debian (I guess the same goes for all other debian derivatives like Ubuntu and so on) you first need to install the packages python-twitter and python-setuptools, and their respective dependencies.
To do this simply type the following in a console/terminal:
sudo aptitude install python-twitter python-setuptools

Then install installed PTT with:
sudo easy_install twitter

Now it's just a matter of either using the proper command line options to get PTT to do your bidding. To get an idea of what you can do simply type:
twitter -h

Since I like config-files I created one in my home dir called .twitter (this also happens to be the default config file PTT looks for. This is what my .twitter file contains:

[twitter]
email: myemailadress@someplace.com
password: mytwitterpassword
format: verbose
format: ansi

The email and password options are pretty self explanatory if you have a twitter account. Format however is the way twitter presents itself on your screen.
format: verbose | Prints out the full twitter post rather than just one line as per default.
format: ansi | Uses ansi coloring on the different usernames.

Since .twitter contains your password it can be a good idea to only allow your user to read it:
chmod 400 .twitter

Now that I had PTT working the way I wanted I simply added "twitter -r" to my .bash_profile to have it automatically launch after my system boots up. The "-r" causes PTT to continue running and updating the twitter feeds every five minutes.

Determine if user is logged in remotely or locally

2009-09-22T13:23:00.004+02:00

Since I do all the maintenance on the digital picture frame via ssh I don't want the same login scripts to run when i log in remotely as when I log in locally. Well to be more specific I don't really log in locally but the user I have created logs in automatically when the DPF is turned on and from there on a number of things start. Needless to say I don't need to run "startx" everytime I log in via ssh.

So I wrote a small script to help me determine whether or not I was logged in locally or remotely (via ssh). The script is in its bare form here, I use it in my .bash_profile but you might find another use for it.

Important note: This script doesn't really determine if a user is logged in locally or remotely but rather using a tty or pts although the latter usually means that the user is logged in remotely, but not always. ;)

#!/bin/sh

#
# tty-vs-pts.sh
# tty vs pts checker by Markus Ulfberg 2009-09-22
# Inteded use is running different scripts wether
# the user logs in remotely or locally.
#

# Get the name of the tty the user is on.
FULL_USER_TTY=`tty`
# strip everything but tty or pts from the string that "tty" produces.
USER_TTY=${FULL_USER_TTY:5:3}

# Check if it is tty or pts.
if [ $USER_TTY == 'tty' ]
      then
              echo "You are logged in locally using: $FULL_USER_TTY"

      else
              if [ $USER_TTY == 'pts' ]
                      then
                              echo "You are logged in remotely using: $FULL_USER_TTY"
      else
              # Return failure if it is neither.
              echo "Failed to establish type of tty"
              fi
fi

Formatted for blogger using: formatmysourcecode.blogspot.com

Waking up a sleeping printer

2009-06-17T08:40:00.002+02:00

The printer (a Canon CLC 3220) at my office takes quite some time to warm up and calibrate after waking up from sleep mode. Anyone who wants to print out something at the beginning of the work day knows this. And it can be quite stressful if you have to get something out for an early morning meeting.

Currently sleep mode is activated after four hours of inactivity. A quite reasonable time I think. So instead of fiddling with the sleep setting I added the following line to the crontab of our server:

   0    7    *    1-6,8-12     1-5    echo | lpr

This line prints an empty page every morning at 7 each workday, except in july when the office is closed. Thus the printer is calibrated and ready to go when people start arriving at the office around 8 in the morning.

Our server is an Xserve running OSX and for this to work I had to install the printer drivers on the server. Also setting the printer to default helps I think (though I didn't have to since we only use one).

Arduino Mood light controller

2009-05-19T13:06:00.002+02:00

UPDATE: New source code and videos here.

Background
I love black and white, especially white. But I also love color, however I tend to change what type of color I like ALOT. So when saw the concept of coloring a surface with light I knew I had to try it at home.

The hardware I decided to use my new found love the Arduino micro controller to control some sort of light. At first I thought about using IKEAS DIODER but as MikMo pointed out the RGB LED strip from Deal Extreme is quite a much better deal. A little over $16 and free shipping from Hong Kong.

What I wanted to achive

Select a specific color

Pulsate the specified color

Random color swash i.e. go smoothly from color to color.

Controlling the colors

I decided to use a ULN2003 with the Arduino to control the DX RGB LED strip. It can handle enough amps to drive the LED strip and it's also alot neater than multiple transistors.

Arduino control of LED strip via ULN2003
RGB LED strip 400 mA @ 12 V

R1 = 10K Potentiometer (Color selector) R2 = 100 Ohm (Pin protector)
R3 = 10K Ohm (Pulldown resistor) S1 = Switch (Mode selector)

One potentiometer to rule them all

When I first started out mixing RGB colors I used three potentiometers, one for each color. This ofcourse gives you a high resolution but also three different knobs. So inspired by the Philips LivingColors, I decided to streamline my color control using only one potentiometer connected to an analog in pin on the Arduino.

As you can see in the picture below the value 0 on the analog pin is full red and then changes through the color circle back to red as the value reaches 1023.

Note: I used Adobe Illustrator to create the image above, to help me think, but when using gradient fill in Illustrator some colors take up more space than others. At least it looks like that if you space them evenly. I don't know if this also is the case with my color mixer, but I haven't really bothered to figure that out.

At first I used alot of steps before I realized I could remove some of them. Orange for example is produced when you have more red than green on your way to yellow (full red and full green). But purple requires both full red and full blue. Hence some I could remove some steps and had to keep some of them.

Videos

Button presses in the video

Filmed in broad daylight, hence the colors don't really come out too well.

1. On - Select a color with the color selector.

2. Pulse - Pulsate the selected color.

3. Random/Cycle - Cycle randomly through the palette.

4. Off.

Pulse Mode

Filmed in a dark room with the RGB-strip hidden behind the laptop screen.

Random/Cycle Mode

Filmed in a dark room with the RGB-strip hidden behind the laptop screen.

Source code

UPDATE: New source code and videos here.

The finished code with four modes, also available as a download here.
Formatted for Blogger with: formatmysourcecode.blogspot.com

/*
RGB LED controller
4 modes: off, color select, color pulse and random cycle/pulse
By Markus Ulfberg 2009-05-19

Thanks to: Ladyada, Tom Igoe and
everyone at the Arduino forum for excellent
tutorials and everyday help.

*/

// set the ledPins
int ledRed = 10;
int ledGreen = 9;
int ledBlue = 11;

// color selector pin
int potPin = 1;

// lightMode selector
int switchPin = 2;

// light mode variable
// initial value 0 = off
int lightMode = 0;

// LED Power variables
byte redPwr = 0;
byte greenPwr = 0;
byte bluePwr = 0;

// Variables for lightMode 2
// variables for keeping pulse color
byte redPulse;
byte greenPulse;
byte bluePulse;

// Set pulse to down initially
byte pulse = 0;

// floating variables needed to be able to pulse a fixed color
float redFloat;
float greenFloat;
float blueFloat;

// the amount R,G & B should step up/down to display an fixed color
float redKoff;
float greenKoff;
float blueKoff;

// Variables for lightMode 3
// set the initial random colors
byte redNew = random(255);
byte greenNew = random(255);
byte blueNew = random(255);

// misc interface variables
// potVal keeps the value of the potentiometer
int potVal;
// value from the button (debounce)
int switchVal;
int switchVal2;
// buttonState registers if the button has changed
int buttonState;

void setup()
{
pinMode(ledRed, OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledGreen, OUTPUT);
pinMode(ledBlue, OUTPUT);

pinMode(potPin, INPUT);

pinMode(switchPin, INPUT);
buttonState = digitalRead(switchPin);

// serial for debugging purposes only
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop()
{
switchVal = digitalRead(switchPin);      // read input value and store it in val
delay(10);                         // 10 milliseconds is a good amount of time
switchVal2 = digitalRead(switchPin);     // read the input again to check for bounces
if (switchVal == switchVal2) {                 // make sure we got 2 consistant readings!
if (switchVal != buttonState) {          // the button state has changed!
if (switchVal == LOW) {                // check if the button is pressed
if (lightMode == 0) {          // light is off
lightMode = 1;             // light is on and responds to pot
} else {
if (lightMode == 1) {
lightMode = 2;           // light pulsates in the latest color from pot
} else {
if (lightMode == 2) {
lightMode = 3;           // light changes randomly
} else {
lightMode = 0;             // light is off 
}
}
}
}
}
buttonState = switchVal;                 // save the new state in our variable
}
if (lightMode == 0) {      // turn light off
analogWrite(ledRed, 0);
analogWrite(ledGreen, 0);
analogWrite(ledBlue, 0);
}
if (lightMode == 1) {        // set fixed color

// read the potentiometer position
potVal = analogRead(potPin);


// RED > ORANGE > YELLOW
if (potVal > 0 && potVal < 170) {
redPwr = 255;
bluePwr = 0;
analogWrite(ledRed, redPwr);
greenPwr = map(potVal, 0, 170, 0, 255);
analogWrite(ledGreen, greenPwr);
analogWrite(ledBlue, bluePwr);
}

// YELLOW > LIME?? > GREEN
if (potVal > 170 && potVal < 341) {
greenPwr = 255;
bluePwr = 0;
analogWrite(ledGreen, greenPwr);
redPwr = map(potVal, 341, 170, 0, 255);
analogWrite(ledRed, redPwr);
analogWrite(ledBlue, bluePwr);
}

// GREEN > TURQOUISE
if (potVal > 341 && potVal < 511) {
greenPwr = 255;
redPwr = 0;
analogWrite(ledGreen, greenPwr);
bluePwr = map(potVal, 341, 511, 0, 255);
analogWrite(ledBlue, bluePwr);
analogWrite(ledRed, redPwr);
}

// TURQOUISE > BLUE
if (potVal > 511 && potVal < 682) {
bluePwr = 255;
redPwr = 0;
analogWrite(ledBlue, bluePwr);
greenPwr = map(potVal, 682, 511, 0, 255);
analogWrite(ledGreen, greenPwr);
analogWrite(ledRed, redPwr);
}

// BLUE > PURPLE
if (potVal > 682 && potVal < 852) {
bluePwr = 255;
greenPwr = 0;
analogWrite(ledBlue, bluePwr);
redPwr = map(potVal, 682, 852, 0, 255);
analogWrite(ledRed, redPwr);
analogWrite(ledGreen, greenPwr);
}

// PURPLE > RED
if (potVal > 852 && potVal < 1023) {
redPwr = 255;
greenPwr = 0;
analogWrite(ledRed, redPwr);
bluePwr = map(potVal, 1023, 852, 0, 255);
analogWrite(ledBlue, bluePwr);
analogWrite(ledGreen, greenPwr);
}
redFloat = float(redPwr);
greenFloat = float(greenPwr);
blueFloat = float(bluePwr);

redKoff = redFloat / 255;
greenKoff = greenFloat / 255;
blueKoff = blueFloat / 255;

redPulse = redPwr;
greenPulse = greenPwr;
bluePulse = bluePwr;

/*
// Debug
Serial.print("redFLoat: ");
Serial.print(redFloat, DEC);
Serial.print(" redPwr: ");
Serial.print(redPwr, DEC);
Serial.print(" greenFloat: ");
Serial.print(greenFloat, DEC);
Serial.print(" greenPwr: ");
Serial.print(greenPwr, DEC);
Serial.print(" blueFloat: ");
Serial.print(blueFloat, DEC);
Serial.print(" bluePwr: ");
Serial.println(bluePwr, DEC);
// End debug
*/

}

if (lightMode == 2) {     // pulse fixed color

// display the colors
analogWrite(ledRed, redFloat);
analogWrite(ledGreen, greenFloat);
analogWrite(ledBlue, blueFloat);

// add delay here for speed control
delay(5);

// pulse down
if (pulse == 0) {
if (redFloat > 10) {
redFloat = redFloat - redKoff;
}
if (greenFloat > 10) {
greenFloat = greenFloat - greenKoff;
}
if (blueFloat > 10) {
blueFloat = blueFloat - blueKoff;
}

// If all xFloat match 10 get pulse up
if (byte(redFloat) <= 10) {
if (byte(greenFloat) <= 10) {
if (byte(blueFloat) <= 10) {
pulse = 1;
}
}
}
}
// Pulse up
if (pulse == 1) {
if (redFloat < redPulse) {
redFloat = redFloat + redKoff;
}
if (greenFloat < greenPulse) {
greenFloat = greenFloat + greenKoff;
}
if (blueFloat < bluePulse) {
blueFloat = blueFloat + blueKoff;
}
// If all Pwr match Pulse get pulse down

if (byte(redFloat) == redPulse) {
if (byte(greenFloat) == greenPulse) {
if (byte(blueFloat) == bluePulse) {
pulse = 0;
}
}
}
}
/*
// Debug
Serial.print("redFloat: ");
Serial.print(redFloat, DEC);
Serial.print(" redPulse: ");
Serial.print(redPulse, DEC);
Serial.print(" greenFloat: ");
Serial.print(greenFloat, DEC);
Serial.print(" greenPulse: ");
Serial.print(greenPulse, DEC);
Serial.print(" blueFloat: ");
Serial.print(blueFloat, DEC);
Serial.print(" bluePulse: ");
Serial.print(bluePulse, DEC);
Serial.print(" pulse: ");
Serial.println(pulse, DEC);
// End debug
*/
}

if (lightMode == 3) {  // randomsize colorNew and step colorPwr to it
if (redPwr > redNew) {
redPwr--;
}
if (redPwr < redNew) {
redPwr++;
}
if (greenPwr > greenNew) {
greenPwr--;
}
if (greenPwr < greenNew) {
greenPwr++;
}
if (bluePwr > blueNew) {
bluePwr--;
}
if (bluePwr < blueNew) {
bluePwr++;
}

// If all Pwr match New get new colors

if (redPwr == redNew) {
if (greenPwr == greenNew) {
if (bluePwr == blueNew) {
redNew = random(254);
greenNew = random(254);
blueNew = random(254);
}
}
}

// display the colors
analogWrite(ledRed, redPwr);
analogWrite(ledGreen, greenPwr);
analogWrite(ledBlue, bluePwr);
delay(20);
}
}

Backing up a system on Compact Flash

2009-05-18T13:14:00.000+02:00

If you have a system on Compact Flash, for instance a digital picture frame. There's a really neat way to work on the system without having to write to the disk more than once, and still do alot of updates or other changes.

What you do is that you make a disk image of the Compact Flash media and then run that image in a machine emulator like Qemu for Linux and Windows or Q - [kju:] for OSX. Once the image is booted you can, work on the system and do all sorts of changes and when you're done all you have to do is write that image back to the media it came from. Ofcourse, if you're only doing minor changes this might be unecessary but for bigger system updates or just testing out new software before going live it's really nice.

How it's done

Hook up your CF-card to your host system make sure the disk is not mounted, unmount it if necessary. But before doing that find out the path to the disk i.e: /dev/sdb, /dev/hdb or something like that.
Then run dd to copy the whole disk to an image.
Warning!
The dd command can cause irreversible damage to your system. If you're not sure what you're doing, don't do it.

Syntax: dd if=path_to_disk_to_backup of=outfile
Where if stands for "Input file" and of for "Output file"

For my system I use the following command:
dd if=/dev/sdb of=lappy586.bin conv=noerror,sync
The added option conv=noerror,sync makes sure that the copy will go on even if there are errors.
The copy might take a while depending on the size of the image you try to copy.
After the copy is done you can run the image with qemu like this:
qemu -hda path_to_diskimage

Qemu has alot of options, if things don't work out for you the first time have a look at the manpages and other documentation. I got lucky and had everything working without any need for extra configuration when running Qemu from Debian but not so lucky when trying to run the same image from Windows Vista.
Finally, to write the backup back to disk just reverse the paths in the dd command:
dd if=lappy586.bin of=/dev/sdb conv=noerror,sync

Useful parts to keep in stock

2009-05-15T11:18:00.000+02:00

I thought I'd put together a little list of parts one might need when starting to fiddle with the Arduino and electronics in general. Why, well I would have liked one when I started out. It would have saved me alot on unnecessary shipping.
The list is partly my own, borrowing some from Tom Igoes Making Things Talk (a book I highly recommend) and a thread over at the Arduino forum I started.

Bread boards: I thought I would only need one or two. By experience I know better and if you're like me, working on multiple projects, it's nice to have a few. It saves you the trouble of deconstructing and reconstructing half baked projects.

Jumper wire: For the breadboard. There are alot of different models. I've used solid core wires that were labeled for use with bread boards. I don't really care for them, however I don't have any other recommendations.

DC adaptor: The Arduino uses a 2.1 mm center positive plug. However since you never know what you might need it's quite good to get one with interchangeable plugs in different sizes. Preferably with variable voltage aswell.

Connectors:

DC 2.1 mm jack
Useful when using a separate power source to your projects.
DC 2.1 mm plug
Useful when powering from battery.
9V battery connector
Same reason as above but for the other end.
Headers female and male.
Alot of different uses. Especially when it comes to connecting wires to a breadboard.

Resistors:

100 Ohm
220 Ohm
470 Ohm
1 k Ohm
4.7 k Ohm
10 k Ohm
22 k Ohm
100 k Ohm
1 M Ohm

Variable resistors:

CdS resistor: 2-5 k Ohm
Works as a light sensor if you hook it up to your micro controller of choice.
NTC resistor: 4700 Ohm
A.K.A. thermistor, like the above but senses heat instead.
Potentiometer: 10 k Ohm
Extremely useful when working with micro controllers.

Capacitors:

0.1 uF ceramic (sometimes labled as 100 nF)
1 uF electrolyte
47 uF electrolyte
10 uF electrolyte
100 uF electrolyte

ICs:

H-bridge: L293D
Useful for controlling DC motors and stepper motors. Allows you to switch polarity of the outputs.
Darlington array: ULN2003
Useful for controlling bigger loads such as stepper motors and LED-strips.

Transistors:
These are pretty much generic transistors that my supplier had in stock. If you can't find a specific transistor, just swap it out for one with similar specs.

2N2222A TO-92 NPN 40V 800mA 300MHz
BC547B TO-92 NPN 45V 0.1A
BC557B TO-92 PNP 50V 0.1A
TIP120 TO-220 NPN Darlington 60V 5A
IRF540 TO-220 N-ch MOSFET 100V 28A
2N3906 TO-92 PNP 40V 200mA

LEDs:

Red 5 mm dim
The most basic of LEDs.
Red 5 mm clear super bright
Together with the green and blue below it's what you need to do color mixing.
Green 5 mm clear super bright
Blue 5 mm clear super bright

Diodes:

1N4004 DO-41 400V 1A
Zener BZX55C3V3 DO-35 3.3V

Voltage regulator:

LM317T TO-220
Variable voltage regulator, with two resistors you can get output voltages from 1.2 V to 37 V.

Automated notification of updated of external IP

2009-05-13T22:24:00.004+02:00

For my DSL line I get a dynamic IP address. On the inside it's quite easy to find out what the external IP is, but on the outside damn near impossible to find out what the IP might have changed to.
To get around that problem I wrote a little script that checks the external IP and sends me an e-mail if there has been any changes.

The script uses html2text and ssmtp.
Unfortunately blogger doesn't handle tab intendentions very well. But if your really want those identations, you can download the script here.

#!/bin/sh

# ipquery.sh
# IP checker and updater by Markus Ulfberg 2009-05-12

# Variables
# Path where ip.txt resides or will be created if it doesen't exist already
DIR=your_path_here
# E-mail address, both from and to
ADDRESS=your_email_address_here
# E-mail Subject
SUBJECT="New IP-number"
# update interval in minutes
UPDATE_INTERVAL=15

# Check for ip.txt and create if it doesn't exist.
if [ ! -s $DIR/ip.txt ]
then
# Create ip.txt
echo "ip.txt doesn't exist. Creating ip.txt ..."
echo "0.0.0.0" > $DIR/ip.txt
else
echo "ip.txt exists. Continuing ..."
fi

# Loop
while [ 1 ]
do
# Get current IP
currentIP=`html2text http://checkip.dyndns.org | grep Current | awk '{print$4}'`
echo "Current IP: $IP"

# Read old IP from file
oldIP=`cat $DIR/ip.txt`
echo "Old IP: $oldIP"

# Compare current and old IP
if [ $oldIP != $currentIP ]
then
echo "IP has changed to: $currentIP"
# Write new IP to ip.txt
echo $currentIP > $DIR/ip.txt
# Set e-mail content to new IP
CONTENT=$currentIP
# Send the e-mail notification
echo -e "FROM:$ADDRESS\nTO:$ADDRESS\nSUBJECT:$SUBJECT\nContent-type:text/plain\n$CONTENT\n" | `/usr/sbin/ssmtp $ADDRESS`
else
echo "IP is still: $currentIP"
fi
# Wait before running the loop again
sleep "$UPDATE_INTERVAL"m
done

Converting the Toshiba 320CDS to a digital picture frame

2009-05-09T07:37:00.000+02:00

Inspired by the many digital picture frame tutorials online I decided to make one myself.
First I jotted down some goals:

Use a minimal amount of hardware and achive total silence.
Solution: Strip away, speakers, battery, CD- and floppy drive. Instead of the hard drive use a Compact Flash card with a CF-IDE bridge.
Use a minimal amount of wires.
Solution: Use wireless networking.
Design with a thin and flat formfactor.
Solution: Mount everything between two sheets of transparent polycarbonate or acrylic glass (plexi glass).
Run without keyboard or mouse.
Solution: Remote control via ssh and/or vnc.
Easy power up/down via the power button.
Solution: Autologin in console and run X and other stuff from .bash_profile
Problem: Since the Toshiba 320CDS uses an APM BIOS it cannot read events on the power button. In other words it cannot power down nicely using the power button. Any ACPI BIOS would be able to.
Display a slide show of images.
Solution: Use Feh, a very capable lightweight image viewer.
Lenghten the life of the CF card by minimising disk writes/reads after boot.
Solution: Do not use swap on the CF card, store images online, configure the system to report less.
Display a Pong Clock.
Solution: Use the pong xscreensaver.
Problem: Won't run smoothly @233 MHz

Install a minimal debian installation

Follow this excellent tutorial: wiki.dennyhalim.com/debian-minimal-desktop-installation

Additional Debian packages to use

Remote control with: ssh and x11vnc
Disable screen blanking in x: x11-xserver-utils
Wireless support: wpasupplicant wireless-tools
Image viewer: feh
Remove the mouse cursor: unclutter
Mount any ftp/sftp/... as local directory: curlftpfs

Set up wireless networking with 3Com Office Connect 11g PCMCIA

Download the correct firmware from: prism54.org
Install the packages wireless-tools and wpasupplicant
Follow this excellent tutorial: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=318539
To use multiple networks, use the following configuration to activate roaming mode:
- Edit /etc/network/interfaces:
  allow-hotplug wlan0
  auto wlan0
  iface wlan0 inet manual # this has to be set to manual, dhcp configuration is done later
  wpa-driver wext
  wpa-roam /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
  #id_str="[NAME_OF_NETWORK]" is the identifier that corresponds to the network configuration in wpa_supplicant.conf
  iface [NAME_OF_NETWORK] inet dhcp
- Create a /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf containing:
  ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
  network={
  ssid="[YOUR_SSID]"
  scan_ssid=1
  psk=[YOUR_PRESHARED_KEY_IN_HEX]
  key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
  pairwise=TKIP
  group=TKIP
  id_str="[NAME_OF_NETWORK]"
  }

Autologin in debian without starting x first
Follow one of the two examples here: www.debianadmin.com/how-to-auto-login-and-startx-without-a-display-manager-in-debian.html

Starting X after autologin:

Add startx to .bash_profile

Set up and use curlftps after autoloing:

Add your USER to the group fuse:
sudo adduser USER fuse
For this to activate you have to log in again, the easiest way to do this is:
su USER
Mount your remote directory by adding this line to .bash_profile:
curlftpfs -r -o user=FTPUSERNAME:FTPPASSWORD FTPURL DIRTOMOUNTIN
If you ever have to unmount the directory you can do this with umount as root or with fusermount -u as a user.

Start remove mouse cursor and start slideshow after starting x:

Add these lines to ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh:
unclutter &
feh --full-screen --randomize --auto-zoom --slideshow-delay 10 /home/makkan/images/ &

Disable screen blanking:

First of all make sure the bios doesn't blank the screen.
Add these two lines to .bash_profile:
setterm -blank 0
setterm -powersave off
Edit /etc/console-tools/config
Change this line: BLANK_TIME=30
To: BLANK_TIME=0
In your ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh add these lines:
xset -dpms &
xset s off &
xset s noblank &

Reduce disk writes

If you have to use swap to get things working set it to minimal use by editing: /etc/sysctl.conf
Add the line: vm.swappiness=0
In /etc/sysctl.conf also activate laptop mode by adding the line:
vm.laptop_mode=5
Activate your new configuration by typing: sudo sysctl -p
Rsyslog writes a MARK every 20:th minute, disable this by editing /etc/default/rsyslog and set:
RSYSLOGD_OPTIONS="-m 0"
Restart rsyslog with:
sudo /etc/init.d/rsyslog restart
Cron writes a report every hour/day/week and so forth. Disable this by editing:
/etc/crontab

Installing Linux on a Toshiba Satellite 320CDS

2009-04-13T21:23:00.000+02:00

I've tried a wide range of Linux distributions on this old laptop, from Slackware to Ubuntu via DSL. But I finally settled with Debian. I've used Slackware since 3.X and I originally intended to use here aswell. However that was a couple of years ago and I had alot of issues with sound and the wireless. Then Ubuntu came along and sound and wireless worked without any problems at all. But Ubuntu is not really ideal to run on a 233MHz system with only 96 MB RAM. So I tried other variants of Ubuntu like: Xubuntu, Fluxbuntu and server installations of Ubuntu. However when I was looking for a good tutorial to do a minimal installation of Ubuntu I came across a good tutorial for Debian aswell.

The reason I tried Debian is because I had alot of trouble with Ubuntu dropping out to busybox while booting the installation CD. I temporarily solved that as described below but I got really tired of it aswell.

Load ide-generic on failed boot of an installation CD.
In busybox type: modprobe ide-generic
Press: CTRL-D to continue booting.

A similar problem might arise during the installation process. Ubuntu will fail to find your CD and ask to scan for it. Before scanning open up another terminal and load the module from there.

Load the ide-generic module on a running system.
Press ALT-FX to open up a free terminal. X= 1-4
Type: modprobe ide-generic
Now scan again for the CD.

On a final note, since this problem will persist until you do something about it. After your first successful boot, before you do anything else.

Load the ide-generic module on boot.
Type: sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/modules
Add the line: ide-generic
Save and quit.
Type: sudo update-initramfs -u

The above issues does not exist in Debian and like I said before, thats why I ulitmately went with Debian. To do a minimal install with Debian just follow the above link to the tutorial and you're set.

Other stuff worth mentioning.
Wireless: 3com Office Connect 11g PCIMCA card.
The card will be detected by the kernel while installing. But it won't start since the firmware is missing. The firmware can be aquired here.
There's a really good tutorial in the ubuntuforums.org that describes how to set up a wireless card and have it working with WPA encryption from boot.
Sound: OPL3-SA2
Just run alsaconf and have it autodetect your soundcard.
Boot options: acpi=off, noapic, nolapic, vga=788
I use the above line, try to find out whats best for your setup.

One thing I should mention that might help anyone trying to find out the specs of a Toshiba laptop is that Toshiba still keeps the support site for ALL their models active.

Bring out the geek!

2009-03-18T13:35:00.000+01:00

I'm a nerd or a geek I can't really be bothered to make a difference. This place will be my outlet for geekery and perhaps serve as a good place to find information if you ever need to do something I have already done.