I have finally managed to program an ATtiny85 to act as a RC switch! The switch will work as a "poor-man's-ESC-reverse". I bought a cheap ESC for my Ballbot Project and it has no reverse mode, it is made for RC aeroplanes, so I have to implement a relay that acts as a "polarity-switch" to be able to make a reveres motion on the motors.
Yesterday I finally continued the build of the remote control for fireCrow v2.0. It was quite some time since last I worked with the firing system now so I thought I'd better get cracking!
The remote control box with buttons, one of the two rotary switches,
a key switch (on the short side beneath the red buttons), and a vinyl sticker
Here's the alien mask when all the wires and servos fitted and mixed in the radio controller.
Check out my other post about the mask here: Animatronic mask
Finally I've managed to complete the PCB design for the fireNest v2.0 remote control.
I've been stuck with it for awhile now, projects piled up and I lost the spark!
Today I ordered the PCB's, so now I'm back in business! 😉
You can see a sneak peak of the design below:
This is a plug-in card that turns the fireCrow v2.0 into a remote control, the card is designed for an aluminum box that takes a 160x100 mm PCB card.
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I don't remember exactly how we got to the point where we came up with the idea to make it into a modular platform, but it had something to do with the ATtiny4313 I think, sounded like a good idea to make it more versatile!
Why stop at making a wireless firing system, right?! 😉
The firing system was originally designed for squibs (SFX body hits), so it's very important that the size is as small as possible to be easily concealed under the actor's clothes.
At first we were stuck with the idea of a wireless firing system, but when we found the ATtiny4313 with "a lot" more memory (4K instead of 2K) than the ATtiny2313, we started to fantasize about what could be done with all that space!
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Well, I promised you the story about the fireCrow project.
Fasten your seat belts 'cause here it goes! 🙂
It all started with an idea about making a small and secure 2 channel wireless firing system primary used for squibs (sfx body hits). I didn't thought that there was anything like that on the market, all I knew about was a single channel, made in China system that was quite expensive, lack of security and didn't have a nice form factor (if you aske me).
So i simply started to investigate how to make my own system, what kind of hardware to use and how to put it together, since I didn't have any knowledge about electronics to start with it was like a jungle for me. Continue reading
The PCB design for fireCrow v2.0 is finished, I'm just going to double check everything twice or more 😉
There also is a 4 channel plug-in card design finished.
The design is especially made after Lennart's, who's working with special effects at the Gothenburg Opera House, desires and needs.
By the way, I'm very happy to have such a great opportunity to work this close to a possible customer!
OverviewThe fireCrow is an Arduino inspired microcontroller board based on the ATtiny4313 with a modified Arduino-Tiny core. The fireCrow runs at 3.3V and 9.216MHz, it has 12 digital input/output pins (of which 3 can be used as PWM outputs), a 2-pole DIP-switch to turn on battery power and (ARM) external power, a pin out socket with included power and serial TX/RX pins, and an ISP socket. It has connections for a Lithium Polymer battery. A XBee, or compatible Bee series, socket is also available on the board.