Compass Module & JeeNodes Pressure Plug Launched

February is moving fast and I have a few updates to the store to announce.

The new Compass Module is in the store

I’ve added a fully integrated compass module in the Modern Device store. It’s good for gaming, robotics (dead-reckoning navigation) say, home-brew virtual reality stuff, or even hiking, if you want to wrap it up with an Arduino and an LCD. The Compass Module combines the Honeywell HMC6352 2-axis magneto-resistive sensors with the required analog and digital support circuits, microprocessor and algorithms for heading computation.

Turns out that it’s pretty good at sensing your engine block and other big hunks of iron too, as you might imagine with a compass. This was a discovery we made when proving the module out on the road in front of the shop. The heading changes depending on whether you’re in the driver’s side of the car or the passenger side. we brought it back and coded up a calibration routine that’s supposed to account for magnetic anomalies. It’s all wrapped up in a the library.

The Liquidware guys have more information over on their Antipastohw blog.

There is a LibCompass library up at Github, so you can get coding with your Arduino quickly. The library is also built into the Antipaso Arduino IDE.

JeeNodes Pressure Plug is in the store

The JeeNodes modules keep coming! Just added here at Modern Device is the JeeLabs Pressure Plug, a small board containing the Bosch BMP085 barometric pressure and temperature sensor. This tiny sensor communicates directly over I2C, and is sensitive enough to capture changes in just a foot change in altitude.

Jean-Claude and I are working on packing up some of the digital smoothing routines that have been languishing in the Arduino Playground. Some of you might know I’m a bit of loud mouth on the Arduino developers list – but I’ll save the rant for a later more lengthy post on all the amazing code that the Arduino guys ignore on a regular basis. In any case some useful functions for taking the jitter out of sensor data.

The Pressure Plug was released in November, but I’m glad to have it here now.

Happy programming,

Paul

Written by Paul Badger on February 20, 2010 [permalink]

Temperature Sensor added to the Store

Well, it’s been a little over a month since the new website went live. That makes it time for a product update!

In December the Wind Sensor was added to the store. For the new Temp Sensor we worked with the guys at Liquidware. You can see the results below, an Arduino-attachable instant thermometer, plugging directly into Arduino Duemilanove Analog Pins 2-5.

You also don’t have to use it in the analog header is you don’t want to use up most of your analog inputs. It just turns out that the native Arduino I2C hardware is analog pins 4 & 5 – and the sensor requires so little power that the other analog pins can be used (in digital form) for power, enabling an easy application. However the sensor will work fine with the Arduino wire library on any pins you care to use. Or even with any other microController for which an I2C interface has been written – so basically everywhere.

The TMP421 chip is a 12 bit I2C chip that works from minus – 40 to 125 degrees C, so the sensor is able to resolve .04 degrees C per bit. The absolute accuracy is guaranteed to be +/- 1 degree C. The relative resolution should make the sensor useful for a range of high resolution activities such as sniffing out drafts around windows.

This board also has remote temperature sensing abilities and a ready-to-load Arduino library on the Liquidware App Store.

We’re still hard at work on a pile of other sensors, and lots of work is going on behind the scenes.

Another quick announcement: We added a search box on Modern Device, something I’ve always wanted! Give it a spin and send us know what you think, or send us other website feature requests at hello.moderndevice@gmail.com.

As always, happy programming,

Paul

Written by Paul Badger on February 10, 2010 [permalink]

Welcome to the New Modern Device

It took a while, but I finally got the new site up and running. It’s an actual web-shop now, which should make lots of things easier, and also streamline shipping. Note the new live shipping quotes and credit-card checkout, things I always wished for on my old site. There are many more things we would like to do and we’re working with a great IT/web person to make it happen.

Please let me know what you like, and what you don’t. I’m still tweaking the visual template, so your opinions are welcome. I’ll be improving things over the next couple weeks, so I apologize if navigation or anything else changes suddenly on you.

Lots of new developments are happening behind the scenes with lots of code and hardware development. I have the first JeeLabs products up and will be bringing out a bucket of others in coming weeks. Also the new Wind Sensor is up, which I think is the first of its kind.

Here’s wishing all my MD customers a great holiday and as always, happy programming!

Send feedback to hello.moderndevice@gmail.com or straight to me: pbadger@verizon.net

Written by Paul Badger on November 23, 2009 [permalink]