UberCubeX4- The MSP430 based benchtop LED Cube

I recently made a led cube. It is a project i was dreaming to fiddle with for quite a while(~~years~~). I finally managed to make one. Here is the complete video of the demonstration.Its basically a 4x4x4 Led Cube with various patterns programmed into it. I made it during Diwali-The Indian Festival of lights. The entire build procedure is documented in the video.

Want to build your own?

Keep watching this place and i will bring a complete tutorial in while!

Cheers,

IndianTinker

Update:

Featured on DP and LedFreaks
See it on Instructables
Won: TI India Diwali Contest
Won: University level “Open H/W” competition

The source code is available on github .

Unboxing Sunday: Renesas GR-Sakura Board

I recently got a cool new development board by participating in a competition by India`s premier Electronics Magazine- EFY or Electronics For You. The board is a Renesas Rx-63N microcontroller based developement board that has been coloured quite interestingly. It has a ‘PINK’ solder mask. Thats quite rare color for the solder mask. The word ‘Sakura’ means Cherry Blossom which is probably pink in color and hence the justification of pinkish tone of the board.

GR Sakura Board Box

Delivered/Facilitated/Distributed by Element14

So Lets not waste any time and see what we have inside this tiny little package!

Opened! 🙂

The first thing you see is the getting started card with text in both English and Japanese. The box is about 2.8 X 2.4 inches and nicely done.

Here`s what the getting started slip has to say!

Plug and Play!

Hmm,Pretty straight forward! (will cover the entire process in the next post) It has been made by Wakamatsu Tsusho Co. Ltd and yeah.. Made in Japan! 😀

Here comes the angel!

We can see the pin map and the board has an Arduino form factor. Behind we have the SakuraBoard in a bluish bag, probably ESD Proof. Some pins are 5V tolerant and are indicated in white color.

Box Contents!

We have a USB host connector for our USB needs. It hasn`t been soldered as that would make the board uneven from the bottom and hence, difficult to pack!

Here`s what the USB connector bag has to say:

Now lets unwrap the blue bag and meet our new Sakura Board!

Ah! Beauty..

RX63N uC @96Mhz

The ammo on board is a 32bit RX63N 100-pin (R5F563NBDDFP) micro-controller running at 96Mhz. It has :

1 Mb Flash
128Kb RAM
Tons of communication interfaces like: USB (host/function), Ether-MAC, I2C, SPI, CAN, IEBus
16 bit and 8 bit Timers and a separate WDT
12/10 bit ADC with DMA(Direct memory Access) [what it means is that data can be fetched easily from the ADC]

This was what the massive guy has inside it.

Top View:DC Jack (5V only), USB for flashing, Ethernet for communication, LEDs,Regulator and Rx63N all in an arduino-like form factor

Another View!

Bottom View: SD Card for data storage,Un-populated XBee Connectors and tons of solder bridges to customize!

Bottom View:
SD Card for data storage,Un-populated XBee and USB Connectors and tons of solder bridges to customize!

This is probably the prettiest board i have seen.The pads,holes and vias are done very beautifully in ENIG to make them last long. There are mounting holes at same spots as Arduino Duemolive. The R5F563NBDDFP controller is in the LQFP form and probably machine soldered.

On board we have tons of features and the best part is that most of the board is Arduino Compatible not only in Hardware and well as software, this means you can use Arduino type IDE for Sakura Board too, better its web based ( will talk about it in the next post) and most of the arduino shields are compatible. Thats the WoW Factor!

Lets see what the board real estate looks like:

▶USB function pins (mini-B）: Download by USB mass storage (write)

//Means you can just compile code and drag and drop the .bin file into the device when it enumerates on the USB as a Mass Storage, Voila programming Done!

▶EtherNet (RJ45) pins : LAN such as Web server and remote download available

//On Board Ethernet connector and ability to work as a server and client ( #IoT guys will love it)
▶ USB host pins (A)： applicable to Android-ADB-ADK

//On Board USB host.. WoW.. You ‘might’ be able to connect you keyboard,mouse and other USB devices.
▶ MicroSD jacket: possible to share data with PC

//There is an MicroSD card which can be used to log data and can be used to run music files etc.
▶ XBee ready pins: mount XBee module for wireless remote download

//There are unsoldered XBee Pads to connect your own XBee.
▶4 User LEDs and 1 User Switch..

That`s equivalent to an Arduino+Ethernet shield+SD cardAdapter+XBee Adapter+USB Host Shield.

On the whole, Its a pretty nice board and has tons of features meant for a beginner and advance users.They are several domains where it can be used, be it data logging, SCADA Applications,Remote Monitoring, IoT,Music Playback,and lots and lots of projects. The possibilities are huge! 🙂

If you need more information about the board, you can see this.

Hope you like the unboxing post. If you want me to try anything on this or if u have any questions, feel free to comment. If you made a dev board/shield and want it to be un-boxed/reviewed you can contact me here as well.

Stay tuned to see what happens when we play around with the web IDE for the board.

Till then,

さようなら(Sayōnara)(Bye in Japanese)

IndianTinker

Open Agitator

After a somewhat woeful week at college that shook my belief in several sectors.. I mustered up my courage to realize an old project they knocked the door every time i used to Etch PCB boards. Since, the solution i use has already done close to 20 boards of small size one has to really keep shaking/stirring/Agitating the solution for a fairy long time.. ( ya 7-8 mins of man power is fairly long time 😛 )

The idea came to me when i visited my brother in Bangalore earlier this year. He was generous enough to give us a tour of his world class Biotechnology lab in India.. He showed us stuff and things/instruments which were difficult to pronounce in one go but they all had a thing in common- They ended with syllables like –‘-izer’,-‘ator’,’-ation’.

One thing that they used for not allowing things/particles to sediment was called a shaker. It would be great if i could get one for myself that will take the work out of etching. When i returned i made an over-killed 3D model of the agitator that i had in mind. It would just be a 1-axis CNC with a stepper motor and belt, That was doing a lot for the task..

Here are some pics of the model:

Looks Cool Though..

Freewheel mount and stepper motor

Realizing the overkill design, I went on to an easier one earlier this month ( actually previous month ) when a relative who was ‘demolishing’ his old PC gave me some old CDROMs that didn`t work. The mechanics did work though..

So, I just ‘damaged’ the tracks around the main feed motor and attached my own custom circuit based around the MSP430 micro-controller and majority of TI parts as they can be shipped to anyone with an address making it very easy to re build yourself.

Here is a proof-of-concept video i posted a while back where the Etchinator ( now Open Agitator after i realized it could do a lot more like cooling hot milk 😀 ) was etching its own control board :

I used a L293D H bridge motor controller to control the forward and backward movement of the cradle with an adjustable speed by giving a PWM on the Enable Pin . People who had made LFR`s in the first/second year know its a child`s play.

After running the aforementioned set up for a while i noticed that the cradle would shift to the farther end where the gear was slightly worn out. So, when loaded the cradle would :

1. Latch on to that part and stay stuck.
2. The whole system would move a bit forward each time and latch on the wrong part.

So, an end-stop detection was required which would keep the cradle in the fixed portion.. some what similar to the ones i had seen in the CNC`s which tell them their legitimate playing fields.

The answer was using the old mouse push button that came with the CD-ROM. Its softer and probably made to withstand greater number of press-cycles than a standard SPST Tactile switch.

So , now the logic would work like, whenever the button/EndStop is pressed, the direction will be reversed for a fixed time and then reversed again.. So, the cycle keeps on going.. .. .. ..

Here is the final schematic i came up with:

Schematic

Since, i did`nt wanted to leave any pins un-used i included 3 LED`s which show the different states of the agitator.

The power supply needs special mention as it converts from a standard 12V DC adapter to 5V for the logic of the bridge (L293D) and again an LDO LP2950-3.3V for the MSP430. The LDO can be sampled from TI and 7805 is available locally with every tinkerer.

Even the driver i.e L293D can be sourced from Ti. The brain of the device is a MSP430G2231 also sampled from TI and programmed from the MSP430 Launchpad. So, This project was indirectly sponsored by TI 😀

The next came the board layout.. I designed it to have the least number of vias (They can be a pain sometimes) while fitting at the back of the CD-ROM. Here is the one with just two vias.

Board!

Since, the position of motor/EndStop switches were flexible they eased out the routing a bit. You can also add a DC Jack to it if you like. The files are available on github here.

Here are pictures of the final build i managed to pull off.

The EndStop

Shiny Copper Board

All in Place

Scratchy Soldering

Power Test Complete

Fixed to the back of the CDROM

The next thing that was left was to give it a sturdy base. I choose two planks of wood that were lying around. It was essential to leave it without any base on the middle section as if ‘ever’ there is a chemical spill that can be cleaned without unscrewing the entire assembly!

So, Here is the final build :

Final Build

You can fork the complete code and design from my git.

Here is a video of me explaining the build.. Please ignore the following :

Bad camera quality
Some goof-ups with the IC names.. Keep an eye on the Sub Titles/Captions
Background Noise (if any)

Hope you like it and build one for yourself..
Cheers,
IndianTinker

😀

Edit: Please vote for this project on instructables here !

See another make of my project by a reader on instructable:

(Thanks for sharing Aleš )

The Ice-Cream Stick ‘Choorie'( Knife in English)

I participated in a something-from-nothing competition a while back..where we were required to make something from the given “not so” junk materials provided in a very short amount of time. I made an ice cream stick based knife which eventually got me the third prize as the organizers liked a water filter which makes water even more poisonous than it would have been earlier. So here is my entry that i made in 10 mins flat as i had to attend a lecture that day.

Its a ‘choorie’ or a Rampuri as popularized by Hindi Movies. There is a trigger in this kind of knife that actuates a spring mechanism and makes a naive piece of wood into a potentially dangerous weapon.. My one does`nt do anything except from cutting a few papers.. 🙂

All you need is two morning-newspaper-rubber-bands

Some tasty-ice-cream-sticks

blown-out-match-stick

A blade(Shaving One) or an old and broken paper cutter one!

There is no How-To here, Its pretty obvious when you look at the two pictures that are to follow!

The Dormant State!

When the lower part (south of the red/pink band) is pressed it raises the lower stick, which releases the trapped upper part and the blade comes out ! The rubbers are wrapped around tiny grooves cut at those parts to arrest them in place!

When the trigger is pressed!

Cheers,

Have A Good Day Ahead!

Tutorial:How Much I`ve got Left- The MSP430 Way

Ah.. Battery. The Best thing about MSP430 uC is that one doesnt need to give a second thought as far as powering the controller is considered. This guy accepts almost everything below 4V (when nicely put and harshly i have used it at 4.2V which is Voc of a 3.7 Li-ion battery used in Cordless phones in this part of the world). Added to it, one can exploit the low power modes to conserve the battery power.

That all been said..One question still persists in every battery powered device is “How Much I`ve Got?”. This question has been answered by the designers of the chip by incorporating an internal voltage sensor into the chip,whats better is that the output can also be read as ADC input which opens a lot of great possibilities of voltage processing to disable certain voltage related features on a product/project.

Now lets get digging . A closer look at the user`s guide page no.-561 :

So, the 11th channel is (Vcc-Vss)/2. Vss is GND or 0V . Hence, What the ADC will return will eventually be Vcc/2 .

Thats pretty much, now you need to just code and read this value from the internal channel always or upon request. But there still is a catch.. Internal reference is required because if you choose the default Vcc and Vss reference which will pretty much fall as you use your gadget so measuring the voltage will be a lunatic idea in this case. For the purpose , we have two voltage references in the device i.e. 1.5V and 2.5V. Its obvious that we will choose 2.5V as if Vcc=3.7V , then the ADC output incase of 1.5V ref will be 3.7/2=1.85 .So, the value will ride on 1023 all the time , hence , we choose the 2.5V reference.

However, there seems to be another draw back of 2.5 V reference, which is that at the 2.2V point or voltages below 2.5V , the reference will not be generated. But that can be neglected as most hobby parts dont work at such low voltages. A more robust strategy can be adopted as follows: Whenever the voltage falls below/nears the 2.5V point, we can quickly stop the ADC and change the reference to 1.5V

Further, on design pov , battery status need not be always read, it can be triggered by suppose a button press and indicated by LED flashes this is when you require the minimalist hardware in place for this task.. Of course we can use LCD displays to display exact voltage but thats usually an overkill as Battery is perceived better as a level than a value.

Now lets get started and code the application, i wont cover the idea of switching the threshold/reference as far as code is concerned

The code is available on my git here. This is a threshold one only!

Here is the code to blink the LED based on the voltage levels:


//Coded by: Rohit Gupta on 16th June`13 at 0127hrs

#include<msp430g2553.h>

#define SWC BIT3
#define LED BIT0
volatile float voltage;

void blink(int t)
{   int i;
    P1OUT=0;
    P1DIR|=LED;
    P1OUT|=LED;
	for (i=0;i<t;i++)
	{
	P1OUT|=LED;
	__delay_cycles(500000);
	P1OUT&=~LED;
    __delay_cycles(500000);

	}

}
void delay_ms(unsigned int ms ) //Delay_MS
{
      unsigned int i;
      for (i = 0; i<= ms; i++)
        __delay_cycles(5000); //Built-in function that suspends the execution for 500 cycles
}
void main()
{
	WDTCTL = WDTPW + WDTHOLD;
	 BCSCTL1 = CALBC1_1MHZ;
	 DCOCTL = CALDCO_1MHZ;
	P1DIR&=~SWC; // Input
    P1IE|=SWC; // Interrupt Enabled
    P1REN|=SWC; // Internal Pull Ups On // Do not use internal pull ups on Launchpad V1.4
    P1OUT|=SWC; // Yay! Its a pull up!
    P1IFG&=~SWC; //Clear Flag if not set!

    __bis_SR_register(GIE);

	while(1)
	{

	}
}
#pragma vector=PORT1_VECTOR  //ISR Sub-routine
__interrupt void Port_1(void)
{   unsigned int value=0;
	if(P1IFG&SWC)
	{
		ADC10CTL0=SREF_1+REFON+REF2_5V+ADC10ON+ADC10SHT_3; // Using internal reference of 2.5V
	    ADC10CTL1=INCH_11+ADC10DIV_3;   // Internal Voltage
	    __delay_cycles(1000);                   // Wait for ADC Ref to settle
	    ADC10CTL0 |= ENC + ADC10SC;             // Sampling and conversion start
	   while (ADC10CTL1 & BUSY);             //waiting for conversion to finish
	        value = ADC10MEM;                    //fetching adc value
	       ADC10CTL0&=~(ENC+ADC10ON);
	        voltage=(value*2*2.5)/1023;           // Converting To Legit Voltage Values in Volts

	  if(voltage>=3.5)
	  {
		  blink(5);
	  }
	  else if (voltage>=3.0 && voltage<3.5 )
	  {
		  blink(4);
	  }
	  else if (voltage>=2.7 && voltage<3.0)
	  {
		  blink(3);
	  }
	  else if (voltage>=2.2 && voltage<2.7)
	  {
		  blink(2);
	  }
	  else
	  {
		  blink(1);
	  }

	  P1IFG&=~SWC;	 //clear flag
	}

}

The video grab when you run the code and “do the watch expression thing” to see the value of voltage variable is as follows:

PS: This method is applicable only when you are measuring battery directly connected across the power pins of the MSP430 not thru a regulator. For that case, you will need to use the resistor divider+snubber circuit into an ADC Channel externally.

Here is a detailed video from compiling the above code to running it and pressing the button. You can certainly test by bread-boarding the MSP430 and apply different voltages as i did with my bread board power supply

Cheers,

Rohit Gupta

Making your own Alligator Probes

Its awesome weather here in Delhi. Vacations coming to an end and college is expected to start soon.(Coughs)

I did a quick hack previous week, when i wanted to measure current through a circuit as the load varied naturally. The current was measured as a drop through a 3W resistor. It was hard to hold those tiny pointed probes at the right point over the circuit for a long time. So, i thought of making something that can ease me of the labor of holding the probes and do something useful like watching TV and waking up in ad breaks to take the reading.

I made what i call – Alligator Probes. You can attach them to the wire while making long term single point measurements and also measurements that can be hazardous like measuring AC voltage in non-isolated environments. They come pretty handy and can be built with little effort.

So, all you need is this:

2x Alligator Clips (Black and Red)

Solder

Soldering Iron

Sand Paper

Heat Shrinks

Old/New Probes

Wire Cutter

Matchstick/Lighter

I had an old pair of pointed probes lying around as a friend of mine tried to measure voltage of a 48V Battery Pack while in continuity mode. The ground electrode almost melted. So, they were of no use, but with a habit of not throwing things away just like that, i kept them in my drawer. They came handy for this hack.

Its pretty easy to make, many might have guessed it already.

Take out the clip from the alligator clips, sand it from the part, where you need to solder the wire for probes.

Solder ‘Em Up

Cut out the part of the ‘original’ probe that you don`t need and then slide down the part of heat-shrink before you solder it. Then, solder the clip and slide up the insulation sleeve and pull up the heat shrink from the other side and heat it to firm up the joint between the probes and the clip.

Heat Shrinks!!

You are done! Hope you like it, Please share the pictures of your build too. You can comment here.

Cheers,

IndianTinker

Mysore Galore-Mysore Unraveled!

With mini Godzillas in our stomach craving for some Lunch.. we wanted to eat at some decent place ASAP. Then like the Oasis in sight of a thirsty traveller we stumbled upon a small joint with pictures of everything except Dosa and Sambhar on its hoarding.. There were puris , bhatures etc.. We were all delighted to feast on some chole puris. We asked the driver [Srinivas] to drop us there and he parked at a nearby parking lot. We entered the restaurant and saw the Menu.. Aha! Chole Puri and a variety of North Indian Dishes. Some were so horribly spelt that they almost sounded like abuses which compelled [Jassi] to click a picture..

We asked the waiter to serve us 4 chole puri. He nodded and said ‘Sorry!’ . That sorry was really a ‘HeartBreak’ for all four of us. I mean why do you write when you can`t serve. He said ‘Sir! This is breakfast..Served till 12.. Now its 12:45.We don’t serve breakfast so late’. We again reconciled our forces and thought of ordering the ‘Dal Makhani and Paneer’ and some naans. He went inside and talked with the chef and returned and said ,’Not Available!’. I asked ,’What do u have then?’.

He replied modestly , ‘South-Indian-Dosa, Idli, Vada’. We were Trolled!

We ordered some Idli and Vada`s and some juice as he didn’t stock cold drinks as he owned a side fruit juice shop. The sambar and vada/idli came. The sambhar was utterly diluted, but tasted fine. The juice was pretty good. We took some water bottles, paid the bill and moved ‘somewhat’ disappointed to our car.

As we moved to our destination ‘ Chamundi Temple’ several other tourist spots passed on the way like the St.Philomonia Church, The Mysore Zoo etc.. Soon we suddenly started gaining altitude.. Hills! Hills! And those curves on the roads that swayed each one of us into an Oscillatory mode.. I must confess it was deliberate sometimes.. Haha.. Fun!

Chamundeshwari temple

The entire Mysore city can be seen from a point . It was so good. But the weather was sultry hot. Soon ,we reached the parking lot and the driver told us that you need to climb ‘some’ stairs to reach the temple. We agreed and that ‘some’ was well a bit more than 500! As we reached near the temple we could see the houses of local people . They were pretty old and some even had an asbestos slanting roof probably for the rain. Panting, we crashed into a local shop and bought some water bottles and moved on.. On the next left turn, we entered the temple premises. The temple was just huge. All painted yellow complementing the sun. It was made by the Maharajas of Mysore as goddess Durga was the Royal Goddess!

Chamundeshwari temple- Through the Sun

We feared the huge queue at the temple entrance. If we enter the temple we won`t have enough time to visit other spots. We went to the main temple area where all the shops were located. Since we had a ‘sumptuous’ breakfast. We were hungry. [Jassi] and [Shank] noticed a stall serving ice-ed cream. They went on to buy them but i refused to buy as i didn`t like the colour of the ice cream. It seemed artificially prepared with colours like ‘Alien-Green’. But my judgement was correct. They threw them away later.

We all moved to a corner where we could enjoy the magnificence of the temple. The premises were pretty neat and well maintained. Glancing over the entire scene, i stopped on a joint that looked like a typical Mother Dairy stall ( in North). I couldn’t stop my legs to proceed and enquire if they stocked my favourite ‘ Butter Milk’. And Yes ! Yes! They did. The joint was called ‘Nandi’ South –Indian Mother Dairy! Butter Milk was awesome! Others bought the Ice-Cream too!

The Scene from the Nandi Store

We then decided to exit and started our way down. Since, parking is not permanent meaning; we won’t get the car where we parked it. We called [Srinivas] and he brought the car near the stairs. The parking was built around a dried up a kund or a pond! Probably people would bath first and then go upstairs!

Our next destination was the temple of the god who`s joint served us ‘Butter Milk’- ‘Nandi Temple’. Although there was a stair path from Chamundi Temple to the temple too. This is the best thing about [Srinivas] he kept the element of surprise. We all used to keep guessing ‘What`s Next?’.

The Nandi Temple has a magnanimous Idol of Nandi. Probably the biggest I had seen. It was even bigger than a real bull. The temple was open, there was no garbagriha. Just an Idol of Lord Shiva`s vehicle Nandi in open , with people taking customary parikrimas and some carrying out pujas. We went on to seek his blessings unaware of the fact that some fire walking was awaiting us!

The Nandi Temple

As soon as we removed our shoes and socks and stepped on the floor.. It was like standing on a burning coal pit. We gathered our forces and ran through the parikrima and came back looked at our feet and then without a thought wore back the socks and shoes. #Spiritual

Next on cards, was visiting the place Mysore was for- ‘The Epic Mysore Palace’. We parked our car in the parking. Moved on to the Ticket Booth and paid 40 bucks entry fee. One thing I noticed was that the entire periphery was studded with ‘Bulbs’ to light the palace on nights. It must look pretty nice when hundreds of bulbs would glow at night just on the door itself. But it pissed me off as an Electrical Engineer! #PowerWastage

Through the Leaves

Soon, after the queue moved, we entered the palace. It was stunning.. maroon coloured domes studded the palace. Probably, some renovation was being carried out as half palace was painted.

The Palace!

Unfortunately, camera`s and shoes were not allowed and we had to be ready for another ‘fire-walk’. There was also arrangement for speech guided tours in multiple launguages.We deposited our stuff and moved on to witness the legacy of the Wodeyars. It was Grand! As we enter the palace we saw the gifts the King used to get from around the world. Later on we see, the plates they ate in, the chairs they sat on, the beds they slept on, the paintings they got made of themselves. Then we entered the ‘Darbar’; where the king used to interact with the people. It seemed like a large parliament. There was also some nets towards the site from where the king used to see his people from the balcony. They were probably for suicide prevention.

After the visit, we exited the palace, to notice that apparently there was an older palace too which was made majorly in wood. [RKS] and [Jassi] didn’t want to go the second palace, so I and [Shank] proceeded to the next palace, where we had to pay an extra 35 bucks for that.

It was a small and ancient palace(as compared to the main one),but the essence of the place was still intact. As you enter the palace, you will be escorted to a square shaped veranda, whose inner periphery is guarded and displays things like palkis, horse saddle, dresses , utensils etc which were preserved from that era. It seemed that this particular old palace didn’t have many visitors as it was particularly not well maintained. There was a small balcony made in wood, that was about 6-7ft from the ground and 3ft high that kept me thinking what would that be used for as its impossible to stand in it, Probably the veranda was a centre for some cultural activities and people used to sit cross legged in that veranda?

As you enter the next floor, you will witness the armours and shields the warriors of Mysore used to use in wars. There were also some pistols from that time. The first floor was small and got finished very soon but surely left us amazed. With our shoes locked near the main entrance and no way to go around , we had to make some distance in the “Fire-Walk”, believe me, it was unbearable.

After walking a few steps jumping, we would give up and sit near the park fencing wait for the pain to damp out and then try again. We were thankful to [Jassi] and [RKS] who bought us shoes back on time. 🙂

Mysore is famous for its sandal. So, why not get some sandal products? We shopped for some ‘authentic’ Mysore incense sticks and went back to our car. On the way to the parking lot, feeling thirsty, hungry and bored of drinking water, we sighted another Nandi Outlet. Ahh! The yummy milk shake..

Next on cards was some lunch, we asked [Srinivas] to take us to a good restaurant. As asked , he took to a Hotel Siddhath , which is probably the best in Mysore. We had a sumptuous lunch, same old Dosa but it was different and it was good enough to call me back when i come to mysore again. The lunch was concluded with lemon soda and a few wickets of Mumbai Indians.

It was 4:30 already, and [Srinivas ] wanted us to visit another place, we were drained out, near our DOD, but out of the spirit of travelling,we gladly agreed. At about 5:30 we reached, the beautiful Brindavan Gardens, which are located in/near the Krishnarajasagara Dam. It was beautiful from the outside and water seemed to be flowing from everywhere… But sadly, due to huge queue , and late show timings of the musical fountain, we had to vote out our plan to visit these Gardens. Later, as we were heading on the way back , Google Image Search regarding the gardens was carried out and we perhaps missed the most beautiful gardens we could ever visually relish..So do plan to see them!

Brindavan Gardens- Krishnarajasagara Dam

As we were heading back, thinking about the palace, the luxury of the kings ,the sangham and the beauty of Karnataka..i dozed off in these thoughts..

Hope you enjoyed Reading this post.. But if u miss the technical stuff which i haven’t been writing about lately, I will write about the several interesting projects i have been doing lately which includes Power Supplies, wearable gadgets, MSP430, Arduino, a Few tutorials and of course PCB `s!

Cheers

IndianTinker

Mysore Galore-Srirangapatna

Finally the exams got over! This is a semi-concluding part of the recent Bangalore-Mysore Visit and also a suggested itinerary for someone who wants to cover most of the Mysore and return to Bangalore the same day.

There are many ways tourists can reach Mysore from Bangalore. The two most popular ones are either taking a Tourist Bus Package from KSTDC that will cost you under 1000 bucks.This option is suggested if you are either travelling alone or in groups of 2-3 . Another possible way is to hire a car.That might cost you more but its a lot more flexible as you can wander freely without the fear of being left out. So, We hired a car from a local car hire group.

It is also suggested to leave as early in the morning as possible to avoid the office goers rush in the city. The taxi driver [Srinivas] came to our hostel at about 5am in his silver Indica and we were ready to go.I as usual occupied the front seat with the driver with the list of places we would love to visit and the others [Jassi], [Shank] and [RKS] occupied the back seats.

What a nice weather it was that day in the morning, Cool Breeze was blowing through the half opened window of our car running at 90kmph on the state highway[deafening]..I also enabled Google Maps on the cell phone ,to make sure we never missed any Interest point.

On the way we passed through several small cities which were named( or mentioned) in a pretty odd fashion . They were namily, City Of Silk, City Of Toys and City of Sugar. A quick google search on the way, helped me understand why!

Soon, we reached our first stop, Srirangapatna, about 20-25 km before Mysore.

From the outside as we entered the gate of the town, It seemed like pretty cultural town, with some what old homes and dhabas/restaurants on the side of the village that faced the Highway. Soon, As i was looking around from the window, we were parked in the parking of one of the most majestic temples i had ever seen. It seemed pretty old and probably being repaired.It was the Ranganatha temple .

Ranganatha Temple- Repair Mode

We were out of the car and approached the temple, removed our shoes, washed our feet in the little cement trough with flowing water and entered inside the temple. Wow! What a beauty it was, It was not allowed to click pictures inside the temple premises. As we entered the temple , we saw an idol of Lord Vishnu( Actually Lord Ranganatha who is a manifestation of Lord Vishnu) in the quite different pose. Inside of the temple was all made of stone, with Fans installed by the Trust. As we waited in the line, we wondered how old could it be.. Soon, our turn came and we seeked Lord`s blessings and went on to explore other parts of the temple. There were other idols of Hindu Gods as well, but i guess we reached a bit late and the doors to their garbagriha`s were closed.

Ah! Beauty!!

As we came to the end, we bought some ‘prasada’ Ladoos and left the premises. As, we were tying our shoe laces, we saw an information plate besides the temple, which read that the temple was built in 849AD thats about 1164 years old. Nobody won the bet! 😀

Bitten by the fury of the sun god, on what seemed to be nice cool weather, it was smoking hot, now in the noon. We rushed to the tender coconut stall and quenched our thirst, we were later joined by [RKS] who bought some silvery bangles for god knows whom, when we asked “why, this kolaveri di?”. He said he wished to support the local community.

After having the coconut, we moved on to our car and anticipated our next stop, which turned out to be the tomb of Tipu Sultan. It was about 2-3km from the Temple. The temple is on the Right side of the highway while going from Blore to Mysore, while Tipu Sultan`s Tomb is on the left side.

As we reached the tomb entry, we parked our car in the designated parking slot and went inside the beautiful tomb where the ‘Tiger Of Mysore’ Tipu Sultan was buried. Architecturally,It was somewhat similar to many other Islamic tombs. But what was different was along with Tipu Sultan most of his kin was buried near the same tomb hall. His ministers and his military commanders were also buried nearby. Inside the main tomb, Tipu Sultan was buried with his mother and father. We removed our shoes, paid the ‘shoe rediscovery insurance money’ and entered the tomb.

The Info Sheet

The gumbaz was painted in yellow color and the place was pretty well maintained. We paid our homage to Tipu Sultan and his parents and left the tomb. The tomb from the inside was all made of wood with a square shaped ‘offset’ for people to walk. As we made an exit, we could see the graves of Tipu`s relatives. Then, we marched towards the parking back, so that we could go to our next stop, Sangham, which is an amalgamation of three holy rivers of Southern India, Kaveri, Hemavati and Kabini.

One can reach the place by travelling further into place on the state highway. We were stopped at a place near the sangham, with what seemed to be a locally made stop. The driver asked us to pay the ‘toll’. I said what ‘toll’? He said the local people maintain this road and hence, they collect a toll from every car that passes. So, we gave the toll and entered the parking. The place was beautiful. One can easily see the three rivers merging. People were taking ceremonial baths near the ghats and some were organising pujas at the temple. We also saw some circular boats which were available for a ride and the best part was that the owner of the boat did have the life jackets although the water was not very deep.

The boat ride was 120 bucks for 4. The boats are required as some people need to do pooja at the exact amalgamation point, which is a few meters from the main ghat. We boarded the boat ( that rhymes 😉) . It was quite a dumb and cheaply built boat as what separated us and the water was just a few bars of bamboo and some plastic sheets. The boat ride seemed a pretty adventurous one as the boat was fairly unstable but a bit of adjustment of people around the circumference, and we were ready to go!

The ‘boat-man’ was a pretty nice person who could feebly understand Hindi. He was probably judging our ride based on our facial expressions. He took us to the sangam point and told us what rivers came from where. We could understand only the nouns and that pretty much served the purpose. Then something interesting happened.

The ‘boat-man’ turned lunatic and started rotating the boat near the sangam much like the merry go round. Seeing our smiling faces, he started to rotate even more. We had to ask him stop! Stop!
He then escorted us to the ghat and we paid him the money and he asked us to pay him more for the “lunatic-merry-go round”. Ah! We paid him 10 buck and fled the scene. The natural beauty of the scene can be felt the pics below. It was pretty cool place but due to the practice of dumping things near the ghats which happens predominantly at all such sites has destroyed places like these.

By the time we finished exploring the place , mini Godzilla`s had already started to crave for food in our stomach but any good place to eat was still a distant dream.

We left Sriragapatna for Mysore after visiting the sangam.

In the next part of this stretched travelogue series, i will be covering Mysore! Please give your comments on the same in comments box below!! Stay Tuned!

Cheers,

IndianTinker

Travelogue: Bangalore

Bangalore! Bangalore!!Bangalore!!! . Twice i have missed chances to go there.. The last missed chance was when i had invested a full weekend in planning out the probable travel outings after my presentation ends.. But due to unforeseen reasons.. I missed that opportunity.
Being a an Engineering Student and that too in the Electrical Engineering School , one never gets time to visit places too often ( Thing only an Engineer can understand ).

Long story short, I and my friend [Jaspreet] had made a project for TI-ADC 2012-2013 which ultimately got selected as ‘Consolation Prize Winner’. You can see the project video that we submitted here . Basically it was initially developed to log the data from our solar car and display it on the GUI wirelessly. Not only that we can switch many loads inside the cars like fans and lights but also we can monitor and control everything except the driver! We scaled up the project into a multi-nodal sensor system. The use of it is that we now don`t need to wire these units physically. The GUI does that entirely!

Micro-Nodes!

As consolation prize winners we had to present the paper at TIIEC-2013 and demonstrate the project at NIMHANS Convention Centre,Bangalore! At about the same time, another college team of [Shashank a.k.a Shank] and [RohitKrSingh a.k.a RKS], our juniors also made it to the Consolation stage with their Autonomous Ship Navigation System. It was great!! Now we all had to reach bangalore. The possible ways was by train or air! Train took a hell lot of time ( almost 2 days) and plane took just 2 hours. So we booked Air Tickets and We were soon on board Spicejet SG-211 !

All the participants will be grateful to TI as they had arranged accommodation for two in an awesome IBIS Hotel,Hosur Road , All meals, all travel and were even reimbursing us train tickets.. In the mean time ,since we had planned to visit and roam around in Bangalore and maybe visit Mysore we need accommodation for an extra 2 days.. Since we wont be staying in the hotel after the conference we needed some alternative place.. I ringed some relative and cousins in Bangalore and finally got us an accommodation for the next 2 days! I also made some city roaming plans in my little diary. I had heard that Public Transport connectivity is pretty good in Bangalore and one should refrain from taking the “AUTOS” . So , i noted all the major route and at least 3 alternative routes with bus numbers in case Google Maps ditched me! ( more on this later)

Sambhar Dosa- Not like the one we get here in Delhi.Chutney and Sambhar served in equal qty.

Conference was great! We talked with a lot of like minded people from across our country and made new friends , learned some “Marathi” from the team we shared our booth with. Their description of the marathi songs we heard in some TV shows was enlightening !

It was the best exhibition i had attended and the best part was that our booth was the first of all, nearest to the gate. So , everyone would first come to our booth. [Jaspreet] did all the explaining most of the time. I was mostly roaming here and there, asking others exhibitors about their stuff ( Courtesy: Restlessness ).
I would be great to bring the fact that the Conference was inaugurated with an electronic lamp which is a project i was involved in.You can read about it here!

In between the conference after the day got over, i had to make a quick run to my aunt and the case was same for [RKS]. Apparently the route was pretty much the same. We had planned that all four of us will go, but that did`nt panned out . So, only two of us were going at their respective aunts. We walked to the Bomanahalli bus stand waited for like 40 mins. It was 9pm and none of the buses google said i could get, were coming.. Further, the place where my aunt stayed was kadubesanalli. I repeatedly kept saying it to the drivers/conductors and they all made faces like ” What the hell?? Is that a place , in around here? “.I found out i was pronouncing it very badly. Finally at 9:15 pm a bus came and a passenger said that go to the “Silk Board” and catch the bus. No bus goes directly from here.

We went to silk board and got the bus!
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! The buses were great, very clean and with an air conditioner that was really effective! Reaching at my aunts place was not difficult after that. We returned at about 12 that night and crashed on the bed to go to the conference the next day!
I presented my first paper and then the next day was the Awards night!
Now, we had planned to roam around for the next two days! The IBIS Hotel offered us extended luggage vault this saved us a lot of miles else we would have to run to my brother about 20km away and that would cost us quite a part of the day.

As suggested, we took the One Day AC bus Pass ( Which i have secure in my ‘Ticket Collection’ ). As planned we would go to Banerghatta Park to watch some animals, then go to a couple ( which ultimately came down to one! ) museums. It was Saturday and roads to park was packed! The AC bus driver was playing local songs in Kannada ( i guess). The other passengers were enjoying it.. It was alien to me but i enjoyed the tune..
The bus conductor dropped us about 1.5km before the entrance of the park. I still don`t know why as the bus was there at the park when we reached. As we walked towards the entrance, we saw a group of “Art Of Living” volunteers on a cleaning mission, we shopped some drinks and local “namkeens” (which i am really fond of tasting where ever i go) and at last reached the gate. Then, i turns out there are several options and ways to browse the park, we went with the most common one that is normal bus with cage like windows! If somebody happens to have been to Borivali National Park, the bus is pretty much the same! But the catch is that you have to occupy the seats in order of your entry to the bus and they are hell strict about it.The Park is very well maintained and its not allowed to take any plastic stuff inside the park and the guard on the gate packed all the “namkeens” i had bought into separate paper bags!

Phew! We happened to be at the last one and we got the back seat and also there were lesser people so, we could choose, Right or Left??
We ended up on the Left Side ( which was an awful choice as it turns out later ). The bus started, everybody got their shooters out . There are separate areas( bigger than those as in Borivali National Park ) for lions, tigers,bears, deers and elephants! The bus driver would stop at every place from where we could see any animal. This time we were in the cage and animals were in open. You can check out the pictures below and have a look at all the animals we saw. The bad thing happened on that particular day all the animals choose to come on the right side and we could hardly see then with all the people busy finding their niche in those 7 windows of the bus ! . But thankfully [jaspreet] and [rks] chose the right side and they could click some pics which we rejoiced later!It was pretty hot that day, most of the animals were either in water or near water .

After the bus ride got over, we were left like in the middle of nowhere , A walk with the other people on the bus, ended up at the ButterFly park! It is a good place to visit and has a lot of nasty butterflies roaming inside the specially prepared bio-dome for them which creates the right amount of humidity for them to survive. There is also a museum about the butterflies which we quickly breezed through. We saw a lot of people bringing macro lens clad DSLR to click those tiny restless butterflies. Wonder how they (butterflies ) felt about the photo session (Random Thought !) 😀

Here are some we manage to catch in our CMOS-CCD!

Having spent the day, in such a wonderful way was just great! To make it better, we wanted to go it HAL Museum which was pretty far. So, we boarded the Bus , which dropped us at Richmond and then we boarded another bus to HAL Museum. The stomach was ringing hunger bells but it can be ignored for a while as the museum entry closed at 5pm and it was already 4pm. We had to hurry! Fortunately the bus came in about a minute and we were on the way to the HAL Museum. But this time again, even after mentioning to the conductor that we needed to go to the “MUSEUM”. He dropped us 2.5km before. With the time not on our side and no bus stop near we had to walk..walk..walk..walk. During, the walk we saw some great labs (from the outside ) like Shape Memory Alloy Lab and Metal Workshops also. Being students of engineering the very sight of “Textbook” words written on laboratory doors was pretty spell-bounding and assuring that what we are studying is not fiction.

So, we reached the Museum all drenched in sweat and thankfully the doors were open. We got in.. We saw a PSLV Heat shield (used/recovered/prototype ) in which the satellites are protected during the launch!

Heat Shield Inside!

There are several real models of planes used in Indian Airforce and they are pretty well presented. Apart from that there is a whole museum of circularly arranged chambers which show Indian History as far as Aeronautics is concerned. We were blessed by the presence of [RKS] who in my eyes is the mobile wikipedia of Aeronautics. The moment he say a name plate which may be of an engine , ejection system or the plane.. He would tell us about the history and specifications of the engine and all such details which none of the display boards mentioned. It is a great place for someone who is interested in seeing planes.

We spent close to an hour in the museum and then we were back at Mc`Donald`s for feasting! We then boarded the bus back to IBIS Hotel (actually a couple of buses) to get our luggage and move to JNCASR,Jakkur where my brother was waiting for me!

Ah! What a day spent after a wonderful conference!

We had plans for Mysore the next day! Catch it in the next edition i.e Travelogue: Mysore!

Stay Tuned!

FreePCB Build: MSP430F5310 Breakout Board from Dangerous Prototypes

Quite a while back, I got a FreePCB Coupon from Dangerous Prototypes. It took me a while (2 weeks to be precise ) to figure out what exactly what i might be able to build based on the limited inventory I possess. Finally, i found this gem in their FreePCB Drawer. It was a MSP430F5310 breakout board. I have been lately trying to learn to use MSP430. So, it would be a great pick. Also the IC can be sampled from TI and all other components were passives.

Plus it had quite a few other breakouts panelled together which maybe an SD Card breakout etc.

I went to the blog mentioned, to find out these were originally picked up from India 😀 World is a small place..But unfortunately coudn`t find the link to the git which i found later after a random search on DP.

This is the article and the comment by Boseji to his git repo for the project that was extremely useful in building it!

So, finally i ordered it and after a few weeks i received a mail(package) from Ian from dangerous prototypes in my mailbox.

It was a very beautiful PCB with a green solder mask, white silkscreen and all pads tinned. It seemed to be 1.6mm FR4.. Beauty!!

It was furnished by Seeedstudio`s Fusion PCB service. I then quickly sawed away the unwanted parts and filed the edges with a Dremel to extract my share out of the bounty!

In the meantime , i had already sampled F5310 from the estore now. This was probably the first( or maybe second) time i was to solder an SMD and the first time for a QFP Package. I looked up a few tutorials on youtube for drag soldering , but that didnt work for the first time.. 😦
So, i worked out a better trick i tinned the pads very finely to get some solder on it and then placed the IC, cleaned the tip,injected some liquid flux and applied some heat and pressure from my soldering iron and voila, all pads soldered correctly! Just to make everythings correctly done..i checked the continuity quite a few times .. I got a bit carried away and clicked a whole bunch of pictures! 😀

Now, came another trouble, NO SMD COMPONENTS FOUND !! The local dealers wont sell me small qty of caps or resistors! What am I gonna do with 5000 Reel and that too of the same value? (Although a bit later after completing the board somebody told me about another dealer selling them in quantities of 100 at a 10X cost) . Battling the question for a few days i found out a neat trick to bend the through hole resistors to get them to fit on the pad, the same goes for the caps!
So, here is the completed board,

Some pads are vacant as they just had some caps in place.. i used some of higher values to compensate for them! 😀

Here is the Youtube video of the blink demo running on it! The board was programmed using SBW protocol using Launchpad as a SBW Programmer!

Thanks Dangerous Prototypes for sending this through.. It was a really nice experience building one!

Cheers,

Indian Tinker!

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