nbhamilt

Hi i've just been looking again at the previous version of the board and the way the battery box power functions cable supplies power. Given the lego power supply, whilst having four wires, only appears to use two of them, the two outside wires, 9v and GND/0v, why is bridge rectifier B2 required? is it simply in case someone mis-ires the plug in for protecting the circuit/ ensuring it works? i'm sure there is a good reason, but i'm also a bit flummoxed over it tbh..

I downloaded the android master and not knowing any better installed Android Studeo to compile it up to my phone and it came up with one command not recognised in the build.gradle - it was the runProguard False. Apparently in newer versions this is now minifyEnabled False so i altered it and it seemed to compile up to my Sony (run on Jellybean) phone. the board is still in production and i hope to upload drivers to it this week. the android phone has a working image, albeit the graphics are slightly misaligned with the touch sensitive areas, but as yet do not know if it will run the receiver. was there a simpler way to upload the software to my android phone that I missed that would have saved changing anything?

Well i have bought all the components (and my boards just arrived from OSH), of sorts, i wanted to check a couple of things. I did my order through Mouser, which did not have every capacitor on the list (WELL NOT THE SAME MANUFACTURERS), i made the following substitutions, but before i go ahead, i just wanted to be sure that there is no difference between manufacturers given same tolerances, voltages, etc. especially as in the diagram given C5 is polarised unlike all the other capacitors. I am also planning on using 2(o r3) molex headers (http://uk.farnell.com/molex/87437-0473/header-4pos-1row-1-5mm/dp/2334003) to enable attachment to the lego connectors to save soldering on wires or using the large plastic casing that doubles the price of the unit. I may later try and devise a new housing if this experiment works. On a separate note i came across http://highlowtech.org/?p=1695 , which seems to suggest you can use an arduino to program the attiny84, it seems pretty straigfht forward in fact and again saves buying the [programmer, is there any obvious reason thius wont work? i believe the attiny84 is safe at up to 5.5v, so the 5v output (which could be voltage divided to 3.3v if necessary anyway) so it shouldnt damage the chip (can it). sorry if these are noob questions, but this is all a new thing to me. thanks C1 CapCer0.1uF 0805 (CC0805ZRY5V9BB104) VJ0805V104ZXACW1BC Manufacturer: Vishay Desc.: Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors MLCC - SMD/SMT 0805 0.1uF 50volts Y5V +80-20% C2/C5 CapCer10uF 1206 (CL31F106ZOHNNNE) swapped to CC1206ZKY5V7BB106 Manufacturer: Yageo Desc.: Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors MLCC - SMD/SMT 10uF Y5V -20/+80% 16V C3 CapCer10000pF 0805 (CC0805KRX7R9BB103) to VJ0805Y103KXAAR Manufacturer: Vishay Desc.: Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors MLCC - SMD/SMT 0805 0.01uF 50volts X7R 10% C4 CapCer2.2uF 0805 (CL21F225ZOFNNNE) Mfr. #: GRM21BF51C225ZA01K Manufacturer: Murata Desc.: Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors MLCC - SMD/SMT 0805 2.2uF 16volts Y5V +80-20%

I wonder whether a smaller form factor would be better, one that rather than having to be as deep as this, had a short lead to which a battery box could be connected, either with a PF connector if that's what people wanted, or more likely for people doing small projects, with a simple 9v battery connector. that way one could simply use a 9v battery or a home made (smaller) battery box. The top would remain the same (4x3) but it could be only 2/3 of a brick deep instead of almost 2 full blocks. Out of interest how did you create the electrical contacts and then wire them onto the board that went into the to connectors inside the top of the box? I am looking to try and build one of these, have there been any revisions? are all teh components still easy to find, i couldn't' quite work out 'J1' - is this something that slots into the drills and enables the chip to be programmed by connecting it to the PC?