Hardware Projects

Programming the Atmel ATSAM4L-EK

Hello everyone, last week I took a day off in order to join the Atmel Tech On Tour 2013 in Zurich. On June 11th from 9am to 5pm, I learned how to do some SAM4L programming. We received an Atmel ATSAM4L-EK kit including a nice development board and some additional ZigBee modules to develop sophisticated IoT related solutions with the ATSAM4L-EK. The training consited of three parts: learn and deal with the Sleepwalking technology of the SAM4L Integrate FreeRTOS and see the scheduling of tasks Read data from the light sensor of the EK and transfer it over the air to a head unit which draws a chart of the values in realtime.

Preview of the K-Duino

Hello everyone, initially I was planning to use the ATmega2560, similar to the setup used on Sparkfun’s Mega Pro 3.3V https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10744 to create an Arduino Clone of my own. I played around with an ATmega644p some months ago before I created the BLE-Shield but I stopped working on it due to the lack of spare time invested into other interesting projects. Since the 2560 is somewhat expensive I found out that some people have build Arduino Clones based on the ATmega1284p 40 Pin DIP version.

BLE-Shield v1.0.0 Revision B Eagle- and Firmwarefiles v1.0.1 available at GitHub

Hello everyone, for another production run of BLE-Shields I adjusted some via distances on the PCB demanded by the assembler Seeedstudio. The resulting revision B PCB is already uploaded to my github account which can be accessed through the following link: https://github.com/michaelkroll/BLE-Shield The firmware v1.0.1 for the revision B board is similar to the revision A one including the adjusted hardware info characteristic to reflect the updated revision. So stay tuned for an slightly adjusted BLE-Shield v1.

Hardwaretools for future Board Developments

Hello everyone, after I created some prototypes for instance the BLEtherm, I decided to make a much smaller version of it, but I need to tools in order to accomplish that. What do I mean with tools? Well for instance smaller programming headers to burn an Arduino bootloader, a smaller version of the FTDI header and of course a smaller programming header for programming a BLE112 or BLE113 modules firmware.

BLEtherm - An Arduino based Bluetooth Low Energy thermometer

Hello everyone, I was dealing with small embedded systems acting as weather stations for a long time now. I created a simple setup using a Sensirion SHT15 connected to an Arduino board which was posting temperature and humidity values using a Wifi shields some years ago. A great project which has replaced my DIY solution based on Arduino was the Netatmo http://www.netatmo.com weather station I bought some months ago. I really like it.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Hello everyone, maybe you are familiar with IT-Croud and where the title for this blog post came from. It is some kind of an opener for a little story about a hardware I’m developing with a friend of mine in Zurich. A long time ago I started to play around with Bluetooth Low Energy and I ordered the BLE112 Devkit provided by BlueGiga. The first thing I did was to set a GPIO pin high and low in order to turn LEDs on and off.

Arduino BLE Shield Kickstarter Project finally ended!

Hello everyone, I’m happy to announce that the BLE-Shield Kickstarter was finished with the shipment of the second batch. We have posted the final update on Kickstarter which you can read here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rowdyrobot/arduino-ble-shield-connecting-the-ios-and-the-ardu/posts Again I wanted to thank all backers who made this project possible. See you on the next project maybe, Michael.

BLE-Shield based on Bluegiga's BLE112 Module now available

Hello everyone, the BLE-Shield v1.0.o is finally listed in Seeedstudios Bazaar: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/bleshield-based-on-bluegigas-ble112-module-p-1367.html?cPath=132_134 It will be in stock starting at monday february, 4th with a small stock. After the chinese new year we will do another production run of the BLE-Shields. Thanks for your interest in the BLE-Shield, Michael.

New Arduino BLE-Shield v1.0.0 Page added

Hello everyone, today I added a new page “Arduino BLE-Shield v1.0.0” to the “Bluetooth Hardware” section of my blog. The old page, covering the pre v1.0.0 prototype version of the Shield is still available, but since the first Kickstarter BLE-Shields has been shipped already, please refer to the new page for details, tips and tricks and compatible/tested Arduino Boards. Thank you very much, Michael.

Tag-Connect In Circuit Cables received

Hello everyone, yesterday I received my Tag-Connect In Circuit Cables. I wanted to reduce the footprint of my next Arduino or BLE112 based hardware prototypes, and reduce the BOM as well, since the programming connector for the BLE112 modules I’m using on the BLE-Shield for Arduino is only used once. There was a PCB included, where one can see the tiny footprint which is needed for the programmer. I will add an Arduino ICSP header part and a BLE112 programming header to my Sparkfun library asap.