Cedar Lake Instruments

This post will probably grow over time as I add suggestions from you guys. I see a lot of posts online from Arduino enthusiasts who want to build one thing or another. It’s easy to think of which Arduino version you need and the sensors, actuators, etc. The problem is that we forget all the small, incidental things and those costs can add up. When you’re making up your Bill of Materials (BOM), it helps to remember all this “extra” stuff you might not think of right off the bat so you get a good idea of what it will all cost.

So, what do makers/builders often forget?

• Power. You need a power supply if you’re not planning on keeping your project connected to a USB port. And sometimes even if you are, you’ll need extra power to drive that motor, or multiple supply voltages because you can’t/won’t use a regulator
• Enclosure. Is it going to be outside? Probably need a NEMA4-rated box. Even if it’s kept inside, a pretty enclosure is a great way to finish up your project and make it look professional.
• Wire. Yep, something as basic as wire can really add up, especially if you need multiple gauges or ratings
• Connectors. Round is better. Drilling holes is easy even with cheap tools. Making square, trapezoidal or just plain weird shaped holes is not. Well, not unless you have a machine shop at your disposal. If you do, maybe we can help each other!
• Tools. Can you drill all the hole sizes you need?

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Tablets and smartphones are everywhere and prices are dropping fast.  A tablet provides a great user interface: it’s inexpensive, has a high resolution color touchscreen and it’s an ideal method to control an embedded system.

The most straightforward way to do this is with an embedded system exposing a web  interface over Wi-Fi. In this case, the tablet only needs a browser to connect. However, smaller embedded systems may not have this luxury. Here we will look at using an Android tablet to connect to a small embedded system using Bluetooth.

We won’t get into the details of the embedded system but for clarity’s sake, let’s say it’s a small Arduino measuring room temperature and connected to a Bluetooth transmitter. It sends a reading automatically once per second.

There is a lot of information online about using Bluetooth with the Android. The problem is that it is fragmented and few sites have all the information in one place. So I figured I’d compile a set of the major points you need to know to get the Bluetooth Serial Port Protocol (SPP) working on an Android app.

First, your app needs the BLUETOOTH and BLUETOOTH_ADMIN permissions. This goes in yourAndroidManifest.xml file.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH_ADMIN" />

Now that we have given the app permission to access the Bluetooth API, let’s look at the classes that are relevant. We’ll need the BluetoothAdapter, BluetoothDevice and BluetoothSocket classes to connect to the external system.

First, we need to find and pair with the device. The following code snippet builds a collection of Bluetooth devices that were discovered by your Android device.

    BluetoothAdapter bta = BluetoothAdapter.getDefaultAdapter();
    bta.startDiscovery();
    Set deviceList = bta.getBondedDevices();

Now that we have a list of external devices, we can iterate over the collection and extract the name and address of each device like this.

    for (BluetoothDevice i : deviceList)
    {
        String name = i.getName();
        String address = i.getAddress();
    }

You can select which one you need from the list and connect to it. Selecting the device is something you can decide how to handle yourself. Connecting to the device is done using its Bluetooth address. Once you have a selected device, we connect to it by requesting the device through its address. The address is a unique 48-bit ID assigned to each Bluetooth device.
Once we have the device, then we’ll open a socket using the standard UUID for the SPP serial port protocol to indicate that we want to connect to the device as if it were a standard serial port.

    BluetoothAdapter bta = BluetoothAdapter.getDefaultAdapter();
    BluetoothDevice device = bta.getRemoteDevice(address);
    BluetoothSocket socket = null;
    if (device != null)
    {
        UUID serialID = UUID.fromString("00001101-0000-1000-8000-00805F9B34FB");
        try
        {
            socket = device.createRfcommSocketToServiceRecord(serialID);
        }
        catch (java.io.IOException e)
        {
        }
    }

Next, we’ll handle sending and receiving data from the socket.

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Sometimes you want an operation to repeat periodically. Say you are building a parts washer that circulates cleaning fluid around the dirty parts. The cleaning cycle might run for an hour and in that time you want the circulation pump to run for 10 seconds, stop for 5 seconds for particles to settle, then run for 10 seconds and repeat for an hour.

We need a timer. The type of timer that does this is called a Cycle Timer because it repeats a specific timing cycle and it’s pretty easy to build a cycle timer with an Arduino and a little bit of software programming. We’ll need an Arduino (any kind, from any manufacturer will work), a power supply, the power driver circuit, and the “load” which in this case is our pump.

Let’s get started.

// Which pin to use to control the load const int OUTPUT_PIN = 1; 
// Total number of cycles 
const int NUMBER_OF_CYCLES = 10; 
// On time per cycle in milliseconds 
const int CYCLE_TIME_ON = 5000; 
// Off time per cycle in milliseconds 
const int CYCLE_TIME_OFF = 2000; 

void setup() 
{
 pinMode(OUTPUT_PIN, OUTPUT);
 digitalWrite(OUTPUT_PIN, LOW);
} 

// Run the timer 
void loop() 
{
 int cycles = NUMBER_OF_CYCLES;
 while(cycles-- > 0)
 {
    // Turned timed output on
   digitalWrite(OUTPUT_PIN, HIGH);
   delay(CYCLE_TIME_ON);
   // Turn timed output off
   digitalWrite(OUTPUT_PIN, LOW);
   delay(CYCLE_TIME_OFF);
 }
 // Hold forever
 while(1);
}

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