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construction phase

The alpha 1 build was soldered up and was a bundled mess with individual wires comming from the lcd. also the breadboard was not secured putting the stress on the solder joints to the arduino pin.

Refinements in alpha  2

Cut down a ribbion cable. down to 20 rows for size reasoning, there are only 16 pins on the lcd but by having the extra 4 it provides extra width to reach the outter pins more easily also provides some redundancy in case of faliure of a lane. the awesome part about ribbion cable is its flat and can be folded into shapes

To solve the issue of the intermidary pcb between the arduino and the elements i have ordered a arduino protosheild which is a pcb with the pin headders lined up to slot into the arduino, this will be a project that will likely be a basis for repeated useage. and it will be nice to just have to plug it in and go. without the frailty of a bread board and jumper pins....

The case is the packaging a 2nd gen ipod nano came in.it fits nicely a arduino and a 9v battery on end.

camera timer controler

I semi need a timer remote, but woundn't use one enough to justify puchasing one. all my EOS cameras lack a abilty to take a picture longer than 30 seconds without human manualy doing it


User Interface:
the UI will consist of a Basic 16x2 Character LCD - White on Black 5V
this wil be the first time using this, it takes up 11 of the pins on the arduino. It is able to display characters and numbers, and will allow the viewer to understand whats going on. this will be my main focus on the project due to the learning required and the excess of code to run it.
buttons will consist of a raise and decrease time. maybe a lcd backlight on of trigger and a on off switch. 
likely it will mount onto the hotshoe of the camera


Simple 5 volt spst DIL Reed Relay to trigger the shutter mechanisim linked to a sterio male cable (with af pin unutilised do to it being unessary). plugged onto my female sterio 3.5mm jack -> canon N3 connector


milestones.

/1/     "hello world" acheived with arduino intefacing the screen.
/2/     work out how to update the screen within the program.
/3/     working breadboard build of design.
/4/     function complete version of program
/5/     build contained unit.

Planning (delayed indefinitly due to expensive)

The interface for the ?sequencer? is going to be a grid of buttons. The intended effect is that you could tap in a beat, and it records the pattern and timing. and then play it in a loop autominiously. I intend to use arduino to control this segment of the instrument. as the requirement to implement would be minimal and would a 9v battery to power it. the only possible issue will be the speed of it descerning input. and the subsequent fine tuning of playback.

this will trigger a parrallel switch with a reed relay to shut the circuit.

During playback, led's will light up on the corresponding button. 4 leds to indicate what status the module is in idle, recording, playing, and stalled (when both activation switches are engadged).

Summer Holiday Project 2009-2010 : Keytar version X.x

I have been looking around at circuits that make noise. and how to make them from scratch.
I intend to have a beat element that is able to be triggered in a loop. (using arduino and reed relays?)

A futher refined shape and layout, and a well thought out paint job.... a post project aproach to the unit.

It would be cool to have plugs that could allow the easy recircuiting of the primary circuit. you can change the combonations at will.

maybe effects pedals, either with resistors or parts of circuits...... (circuit bent doorbell????)
potentiometers and switches to control the sound level mixing, or possibly multiple audio outputs....


The first check is to see if it is possible to play a pattern with a button and have it play the beat back with a single input.

conclusion exhibition. suspended animation

For the concluding presentation I decided to go with my favorite project of the studio paper 2, my |«EYTAR

I spent a day painting her up in black and red, tidied up some of the wiring, and suspended her in the center of the room. by 4 wires tied to the roofing.  theres a fun contrast prevalent in the studios and hallways theres all these flat posters of projects on the wall with a 3d object on the ground by the wayside,  and then theres mine not touching the wall or the ground (except a audio cable going to the speaker).  levitating and taking a physical space. you walk around it not past/through it. like a bombast hair metal preformer descending from the roof via a wire crew.

The aucoustic element has been omited from the presentation due to damage to reeds and the risk of putting the foot pump on causing instasbility. 

For the open evening I intend it to be playable by the patrons. you rock up to it, its the normal playing height (sorry short people), its laying midair in a state of suspended animation, and you have a play.







there are 4 pages of supporting material and my notebooks. I wanted to keep this quite simple.