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