Future Project IdeasThere are some good sources on the web for PICAXE ideas. If you go to PH Anderson PICAXE web site and click the Applications Notes link at the top of the page you will find a number of helpful articles on various PICAXE projects. Television Alert BoxDescription:This is a very cool project because it addresses a real need that I think a PICAXE 08M can handle. Cindy's mother is in her 80's. She is hard of hearing, so when she is watching TV she can't hear the door bell or the phone. I need 2 sensors, one to sense when the doorbell rings and one to sense when the phone rings. The PICAXE will be in a box on top of the TV. When it senses either the doorbell or the phone it will flash a light bar and write to an LCD either "DOOR" or "PHONE" (probably large character on a backlit 4 line display. An alternate would be to output "door" or "FonE" to a four digit, seven segment LED display. The hard part will be the sensors - probably watching for a voltage change on the doorbell and the phone line. Opto isolator may be right choice for the phone. Data LoggerDescription:This project is about logging sensor reading to an EEPROM and then retrieving and displaying what was stored, basically take a PICetSat and log all the frames to an EEPROM as well as transmitting them through a TX433. Then have a means of extracting the data such as an LCD. One way to write to an EEPROM is to use the I2C, Inter-Integrated Circuit bus. The X series of PICAXE chips has I2C commands (i2cslave, writei2c and readi2c). The X series include the 18X, the 28X and the 40X PICAXEs. Progress:For this project I have received the following from PH Anderson:
Morse Keyer Interface Project - Pete W3GVXDescription:I've been thinking about a morse keyer interface between computer and transmitter. Type on your keyboard and the PICAXE keys (in morse) your transmitter. I will need to modify the development board to provide a jumper block for switching the serial connector input between the programming input pin and another input pin. I need to investigate how data buffering and handshaking is performed between the computer dumb Terminal program and the PICAXE. Progress:I was experimenting with serial out and had characters being displayed in HyperTerminal. I did buy another 9-pin connector for a serial port to use with HyperTerminal. Should try it out by the end of the week. I'll try to make a keyer that accepts input from the computer (e.g. HyperTerminal) and keys a transmitter. I got the PICAXE to key as you type on the keyboard using Hyperterminal (Windows accessory, but not supplied with Vista). It works well. That is, until you try to type ahead of the character being sent. A buffer or FIFO is needed so the computer stores the characters as the PICAXE generates morse. The only way to type ahead is to tell Hyperterminal to pause a second or two between characters being sent to the PICAXE. That way the PICAXE is ready to accept the next character after the morse has been keyed. I attempted to use XON/XOFF to control character flow to the PICAXE. That is, once the PICAXE has received a character, the PICAXE sends that character back to Hyperterminal for display, followed by XOFF. After the PICAXE has generated morse for that character, it sends an XON to allow Hyperterminal to send the next character. I suspect Hyperterminal does not respond to XON XOFF even though it is configured for XON/XOFF flow control. You have to play with the various terminal emulations to get the XON and XOFF symbols to not display. Maybe XON/XOFF is intended to control character flow to Hyperterminal, not from. I also discovered that using the USB serial port adapters can cause additional timing problems. So, to make this work practically, a different program is needed to output characters to the PICAXE. I tried Putty but it had the same problem as Hyperterminal. Actual Temperature Project - Pete W3GVXDescription:Another potential project is a thermometer that sends the actual temperature in morse. I read in the literature how a small look-up table may be used in conjunction with interpolation to determine the actual temperature in Fahrenheit (or Centigrade) degrees. This makes use of the thermistor provided in the development kit and the PICAXE ADC capability. "Mighty Mouse" PICAXEDescription:The NEXUS web site. shows a great way to recycle old computer mice. They create mice-bots out of them based on the PICAXE 08M. The hardest part will probably be getting the motors. Do you use stepper or DC - stepper is too heavy. There is also a lot of action if you google "micromouse". I think Mighty Mouse is a PICAXE takeoff on a micromouse. |