Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Started writing the actual software

Alpha version of the hardware has been a little bit cleaned-up.
Started to write the real software. All previous software was just about testing hardware. I'm now writing the application as I want the application, re-using the previous test classes.

Looking nice ! Keyboard is working; i'm able to make the difference between short and long keypresses. Accuracy of the MPR121 is actually (after some tweaking) very good.

Connected the light to the keyboard events; i'm now able to control the (RGB) Leds; PWM dimming !
Radio (FMReceiver and Amplifier) is also connected to these keyboard events. Coded some shortcuts, but i'm able to control the volume of the amplifier.

Next:

  • Add more features to the Light: slow startup of the light intensity (wakeup with light). Manual power on and off; make it less abrupt (need some sort of fast dimm off, dimm on.
  • Clean-up the radio & amplifier code
  • Connecting the display classes ...
  • Actual writing the alarm settings & processing....
  • ....

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Just created this blog, and already some news: The first prototype of my alarm clock is ready. It is still an early prototype, but almost all hardware is present:
  • Raspberry Pi
  • RGB PWD control (PCA9685 + ZXLD1362)
  • I2C bus extender (P82B96)
  • Radio circuit (Si4730)
  • Audio line buffer (DRV612)
  • Amplifier (TPA0172)
  • LCD Display (Newhaven Display NHD-16032AZ + MCP23017)
  • Light sensor (TSL2561)
  • Touch button sensor (MPR121)
As you can see; everything is working ! But still; lots of work to do:
  • Create all PCB's
  • Actually writing the software
  • Testing... lots of testing....
  • Add an extra IO Expander (driving relay's)


Rgbclock blog created !

Started the first blog entry of my Raspberry Pi project