John Baumann's Project Blog

Seismic2D

2011-08-02T05:23:00.000-07:00

Been off my programming game for some time now - decided to get back into things by reviving this old project http://code.google.com/p/seismic2d/ . I've uploaded a good bit of source code already, though there's nothing useful going on in the demo, yet.

As the google page says - the projects main goal is to wrap 2d rendering and input in a portable container with the goal of becoming multi-platform. A generic side-scroller game will be developed along-side.

DOSBox for Android

2011-01-03T10:10:00.001-08:00

While it's still in early stages, the project ~~does show promise~~. http://androiddosbox.appspot.com/

Seems this project went inactive a while ago :(.

New Year

2011-01-02T21:19:00.001-08:00

Howdy all. Been a while between posts but that's how it goes. Been playing lots of Forza 3 and toying around with my new phone.

I'm working on a calculator which should be useful in Forza and other racing simulators. The main feature I'm proud of is a gear ratio calculator for fine tuning transmissions. You supply some bits of info about the car; tire dimensions, drive type, rpm power range and redline - and the program will calculate gear ratios tuned for optimal power. Project is temporarily on hold due to a dead laptop, should get a chance to recover my files soon.

The new phone is a Samsung Captivate(AT&T) running a custom ROM - Phoenix Reloaded 1.5(http://www.phoenix-hq.com/). NunHugger over on the xda-developers forum made a great custom boot animation. I mixed up the colors for a different look - check out my blue and green versions here. Check out the wallpapers below. Thanks to Drakonite for additional help.

Xbox 360 Extra Fans

2010-05-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

I wanted to cool my Xbox 360, but went the DIY route instead of wasting some $20 on fans and plastic, especially since I already had everything I needed. Pretty basic, hooked some fans up to a switch and a 12v wall power supply.

I made some small hooks from pipe cleaners after burning the cotton from them.

Xbox 360 Controller hack details

2010-05-19T02:08:00.000-07:00

You'll need a voltmeter, soldering iron, and a wire stripping tool

USB Cord - I salvaged mine from an old web cam
3.0V - 3.3V Voltage Regulator - I'm told the controller may accept 5v+, but I'm unable to confirm.
Thin wire - I used 28 AWG
Heat shrink tubing of various sizes
Electrical tape
2 dead AA batteries - the inspiration for this hack

The negative(black*) and positive(red*) are soldered to the corresponding leads on the regulator, a ground wire for the controller, and the voltage output. Test the cable and make sure you are getting a good voltage. Cover everything up with heat shrink tubing and leave a few inches of wire for the negative and positive connections.

*Could be different, test with voltmeter.

Trim the end of your wires and wrap a bit into the battery springs. Positive is on the left and negative on the right.

Next, take your AA's. Using a sparing amount of electrical tape, cover the negative side of one battery, and positive on the other. Insert the batteries in the pack so that the taped ends are showing. Insert the battery pack and make sure the wires stay on the terminals. A small piece of tape on the back of the pack will help keep the wires out of the way.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11709980@N05/sets/72157623931619963/

http://skitchin.blogspot.com/2010/05/xbox-360-controller-hack-cont.html
http://skitchin.blogspot.com/2010/05/xbox-360-controller-hack.html

Xbox 360 Controller hack cont.

2010-05-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

Full details here: http://skitchin.blogspot.com/2010/05/xbox-360-controller-hack-details.html
Original Post: http://skitchin.blogspot.com/2010/05/xbox-360-controller-hack.html

The mess of tape was a bit of an eye sore so I went ahead and cleaned things up. To start, I got rid of some excess wire and covered the regulator and splices up with white heat-shrink tubing to make it look nice. I decided to use the original back, so I made dummy batteries by putting tape over 2 AA's, which hold the - and + leads in place. A single piece of tape on the back keeps the wires out of the way. New setup should be much more durable.

I should point out that I am using a voltage regulator that is three-tenths of a volt over what two AA cells produce, which seems to be within the threshold of the controller's components. Also know that the controller is still communicating wirelessly, it is simply using USB as a power supply.

XBOX 360 Controller hack

2010-05-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

Update: http://skitchin.blogspot.com/2010/05/xbox-360-controller-hack-cont.html

I've been burning through AA batteries playing Forza 3 so I used what I had and threw together this controller hack.

I haven't prettied it up yet but it works great. Circuitry is overly simple. A 3.3V voltage regulator is connected to a USB cable's 5v supply and ground, VOut and GND are wrapped around the battery coils. Everything is then secured with heat shrinking and electrical tape.

Photos

2D Project

2010-02-23T13:14:00.000-08:00

I've been busy working on my long term project of making a 2D side-scrolling game. So much in fact that I haven't progressed on any of my other projects, such as my RGB Light bar, which has hung up on the wall since I got it all working.

Up until now, I'd been referring to my game simply as "2D Framework". An inside joke led me to choose the backronym 'Seismic', in jest of a friends project(it doesn't actually stand for anything yet). Originally, I had planned to implement the level editor in-engine, but I finally decided to look towards the open source community for something to modify. I found a pretty basic map editor and got it using my file format after an awkward introduction to C#. I'm aiming to reach Milestone #2 in my project by March 7, 2010, which will include: Player/sprite animation, proper player movement(gravity, tile blocking etc), at least one enemy being spawned, and a level with an end point. I'm just sort of taking what I can get for sprites and textures at the moment. Here's the most recent progress shot:

Ghetto Serial Loopback

2010-01-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

DO NOT TRY THIS. You can mess up your computer trying this. Like it won't work anymore mess up. If you know what you are doing, you should know the precautions to take and as such, I am just going to say DON'T DO IT for the rest of you.

A while back, I needed to test a serial port out at a remote site. Lacking the tools, I improvised a quick solution. I used a paper clip and an ink tube from a pen. I just came across this picture so I'm posting it now. Please note, it is recommended you use a small resistor between the pins.
Basically, I chopped two snippets off the end of the ink tube and used them to couple the pins with the paperclip.

I was curious what other people had tried, here was another interesting solution I came across in my search where a small key ring is used:
http://interface.centraltreasure.com/computer-hardware-article-diy-comport-test.html

Also, light bar hardware is about done minus some cleanup work. Pictures to come when my EyeFi card stops acting up...

SparkFun Free Day - My picks

2010-01-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

Think I've pretty much figured out what I'll try to order tomorrow during SparkFun Electronics's Free Day. Judging by the amount of lag I received on the site both the day of the announcement and at this very moment, I expect the sale will not last. How long? Well I have anti-luck, so I'm not even submitting my guess. But for the record, my guess is 9:03 AM.

Here's what I'm going to try and nab.

USB miniB Cable - 6 Foot: $3.95
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=598

FTDI Basic Breakout - 5V: $13.95
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9115

Arduino Pro Mini 328 - 5V/16MHz: $18.95
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9218

Wire Strippers 30AWG: $4.95
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8696

SparkFun Pint Glass - $9.95
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=8405
Total: $51.75

Minus the Wire Strippers and Pint glass, all parts will go to my RGB Light Bar project. I'll be a bit too preoccupied to update as I just built a new PC and picked up a copy of Left 4 Dead 2, so the LightBar hardware should be completed and wall mounted by the next post.

Light bar

2010-01-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

Above is a shot of my lightbar resting ontop of my monitor. This shot is without the LED lenses.
Going to try and nab an Arduino Pro mini during SparkFun Electronics's free sale this week. Hardware's been done for a while minus the pro mini, and I won't be able to put her up on the wall until then. It does not look like the IR receiver is going to be making it into this project, at least until I find more time.

2D Engine/Game

2009-12-29T14:02:00.001-08:00

This is sort of the highlight of my sad sad day, so I had to post this. I've been working on a 2D game, but at the same time, abstracting as much of the API specific code I could. For simplicity, I started out with SDL. Now I have OpenGL working, minus alpha blending. The best part is that the rendering engine can be switched by changing only one line of code(a few letters at that). I'm still fairly new to OpenGL, but I'm already glad I went that route, as the drawing is MUCH faster than SDL. 300FPS faster in the comparison above. Note that the tilesheet is being drawn 1 32x32 tile at a time.

C++ Code snippets

2009-12-23T12:08:00.000-08:00

I said earlier that I would post some C++, so here we go.

Feel free to use my code in any way you see fit. I'd be curious to know if my code gets put to use, so leave a comment on here or something.

The following code is designed to run in a Win32 environment.

DataLogger.h / DataLogger.cpp - http://pastebin.com/f3a5eae52
Log to file - singleton class interface, various modes/levels of logging.

GameTimer.h / GameTimer.cpp - http://pastebin.com/fd99d76d
Timer - class interface

FontPrint.h / FontPrint.cpp - http://pastebin.com/f562ab8
On-screen debug output - drawing implemented using abstract drawing interface. Here's the 2-bit 8x8 font I use - http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2583/4209666632_c5da74397b_o.gif

And that's all I've got for now, the rest is still pretty well in active development.

Project list update

2009-12-14T14:42:00.000-08:00

Been working on a lot of random stuff the past few weeks but had not posted anything to my blog, so here we go.

Still haven't worked out the kinks on my RGB Lighting project. I'm really not getting the results I want with Software based PWM, at this point, I'm getting ready to ditch the integrated IR receiver I had originally planned, in favor of actually finishing the project. I might be able to use some code posted on Lucas Eckels Blog, called IRMon. Check out his original post here. I haven't had a chance to test it yet, and some calls to delay will need to be changed to non-blocking routines, but there is a slim chance it will work for my purposes.

I've also started working on my 2D side-scroller once more. I'm working on making a Mario clone for right now, but the real purpose of this project is to develop some modular 2D framework. Nothing worth putting in pictures yet, but I will be posting bits of code later which I'm hoping others can make use of.

Light bar build log - Snag

2009-11-30T11:30:00.000-08:00

Well things were going quite smoothly - I found some IR receiver code on the Arduino Forums written by PlastBox, mapped some buttons and had full functionality of the remote control, started hooking some LED's up to test when I ran into a bit of a problem. It turns out, the NEC IR code uses an internal timer on the Arduino for callback functions or something rather, which is very bad, as this disables the use of certain digital pins for PWM. I'm not certain which pins exactly, but none of that matters as I refuse to make the sort of sacrifice. I'm pondering my options currently.

The way I see, I have three options worth considering:

Rewrite the remote control receiver code to not use timer - able to time receiver accurately enough?
Use a PC serial-based IR receiver, arduino connected via USB - Would require additional circuit board, but would open more control options such as a color chooser running on my PC. Lose remote control functionality when PC is off.
Write a software PWM controller for LED's - way less precise control.

Option # 1 would be best since the rest involve the loss of functionality, though I haven't really studied the IR code enough to know how it works. If anyone reading this could suggest something better I'd really appreciate it.

Light bar build log

2009-11-23T19:23:00.001-08:00

Have been very very busy, finished a good bit of work and hadn't had a chance to update my log.

Finished with soldering until I program my Arduino LED driver software, at which point I'll be switching to an Arduino Pro Mini. Here's the most recent shot I took of the power supply stuff...

I got frustrated with solder trails, and since I had snipped the resistor legs, I decided to try with some small lengths of wire. I've since flipped the heat-sink on the regulator...apparently that's backwards up there ^. I decided to use 4 pin header connectors for connecting the LED's to the resistor board.
The mess of wires was making me nervous, so I have not done too much testing. Additionally, I screwed up the red diode on one light in the process of soldering without a heat-sink. I don't yet have the mounting for the LED's quite figured out, but I already have some new modules, so I don't believe a wall mounted test is too far away.

I ordered an IR receiver module and played around with it a bit. Time to get cracking away at some code.

RGB Light bar mod cont.

2009-11-16T15:45:00.000-08:00

Parts from Futurlec haven't shown up and now I remember why I hate ordering from anywhere in Asia... Anyhow, I realized I screwed up and bought the transistors in the wrong package(TO-39 instead of TO-92 like I thought), so I went ahead and went up to "the shack"(LOL XD) and grabbed a pack of 15 for fairly cheap - PN 276-1617. Still a bit of soldering work to do, but I got my fair share of solder fumes for a few days. Remember to work in a well ventilated area, like I didn't! All that's left is the series of transistor emitter wires.

I mounted the DC wall plug and wired up some basic quick connects. Two standoff posts are screwed into each-other through the my main board, which is built onto one half of a Dual Mini Board from radioshack, PN 276-148. The board is then mounted with two screws through the front of the light bar.

Detachable keyfob

2009-11-12T14:10:00.000-08:00

It's hard to tell with the St. Louis weather, but the cold really is coming(it's nearly 60F out)

I've been looking for a way to make my key fob easily detachable so that I can lock my keys in the car while it's running in the morning.

I came up with this little abomination on my lunch break. It's not finished, as I don't really like how long it turned out - overall, it adds right around 3 inches between the key fob and keyring. Of course, this is all just a cheap circumvention to remote start anyhow. Maybe I'll come across something cheap that does what I'm looking for. I'm sure there's something out there - I'm just not much of a knickknack shopper.

On the topic of my car, it's getting older, and therefore harder to find parts for. My spoiler mount brake light is on the fritz, and apparently it's been rigged with makeshift wire brackets just to get it this far:

From what I can gather, they don't make this part anymore. I'm debating between another LED project and visiting a salvage yard at this point.

My headlights are another annoyance - when they burn out, I have to replace the entire lens assembly, as the bulb is sealed. I broke the seal and removed the bulb, and from what I can tell, I should be able to use a 9005 or 9006 style bulb as a direct replacement. I don't want to reseal the bulbs - which will allow some moisture to get in, so I may have to drill a couple small vent holes to alleviate this. Waiting for my paycheck to hit the bank, so this adds to my list of delayed projects...

Supplies supplies

2009-11-12T10:49:00.001-08:00

My order from AllElectronics.com arrived today - got the wires I'll need, as well as a 12V 1 amp DC Power supply + panel mount 2.5mm power jack. Still waiting on my stuff from Futurlec(Asia) to arrive, but I should be able to get started on my internal power supply at this point. Turns out the wall wart IS voltage regulated, and that I only made more work for myself. Good news is that the power supply cable is in fact long enough, juuuuust barely.

Light bar modification

2009-11-07T20:31:00.000-08:00

I took apart and played with my light bar today, looks like I'll have even more room to work with than I thought - could fit an arduino pro mini long ways vertically and still have room to spare.

The sockets are attached to a mount, which is attached to the fixture by two screws.

I took two PCI slot covers and put an additional 90 degree bend on each to mount the LED Modules.

Need to run out for wiring supplies some time, but so far so good.

LED Fun

2009-11-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

Started on my controller software, Arduino website is going slow as usual(an offline reference would be nice). powering LED's undercurrent - and they're still painful to look at - think I'd be blind[er] if not for the focuser on each module. The RGB Modules look brilliant even with a simple paper diffuser - tried plugging in color code from my background - looks better than that crappy cel phone pic I swear.

I've got some basic serial control through hyper terminal - need to make an RGB color chooser, as well as come up with various color effects. I'm starting to get a better feel for doing I/O w/ my Arduino - definitely giving me a brainstorm of idea's to tinker with.

Light bar modding is next, stay tuned.

Getting settled in

2009-11-05T08:37:00.000-08:00

This blog will now be my main spot to post my projects and such, tweets just weren't cutting it. I'll still try to post snippets and less relevant stuff @ http://twitter.com/skitchin

I've recently decided to try my hand at electrical engineering, so I went ahead and did the obvious and bought an Arduino. The first project I've decided to tackle is an RGB LED light bar, which I've wanted for some time now. There are already manufactured versions of these, but they're just not exactly what I want. For one, you only get to pick between 15 colors. Also, the IR sensor is mounted so that the light must face you to some degree, which won't work, since I want them shining on the ceiling and walls, not my retinas. Ofcourse, Arduino should let me do some pretty intense light shows.

I ordered two RGB LED modules from a local supplier, SuperBrightLEDs. I'm still waiting on my resistors and transistors to arrive from Futurlec.

When all is said and done, I plan on doing some sort of fit into a 120V lightbar I own. Two RGB LED modules, 6 diodes, which will be controlled individually via Pulse-Width modulation. Still need to figure out the IR receiver bit - as far as remote, this remote from ThinkGeek looks perfect.