Cycle Sound - assembling the electronics on the bike

So, the bike is ready. An excellent ride I should add.

The electronics are ready to assemble. But the bike is not ready to receive them. Simply because there is no place for buttons, sensors and drum pads on a bike!

Well, but I'm making place for it.

Here's some snap shots of what I've done so far. I must say as well that everything I've done is tested and it's working.

Linear hall effect sensor and magnet on the brake levers.

Hall effect sensor switch and magnet on crank wheel for cadence computation.

Mini rear rack to hold the arduino, xbee shield, xbee, cyclesound shield, antena and batteries.

 

Soon enough the weather will be suitable for proper park testing! Can't wait for the day to come.

More developments - moving quickly

Today was a quite intense day for the Cycle Sound project.

Started off with testing the XBee connection. This had been done very softly before and needed deeper understanding and testing.

Four things needed checking: a) all the pins of the XBee shield are sending; b) the analog pins are sending analog signal; c) the remaining pins of the arduino, despite not connected to the XBee, also send signal; d) Pure Data is receiving all signal, parsed as desired.

There is, however, another point to be tested: multiple simultaneous signals being sent and received and respective correct parsing. For this multiple connections to the arduino are needed.

After checking these points I proceeded to designing all the separate PCBs and a shield for connecting them to the arduino. As it was done their production starter: laser printing in photo paper, cutting the prints, cutting the copper board, transferring the prints to the copper board, etching the board, removing the toner, drilling and finally populating the boards.

I made a couple of mistakes on the way. Nothing serious.

1st - I didn't invert the shield drawing for printing. The others weren't important to invert as they were symmetric. And they were all printed in one go. I only realised this when I was already peeling the photo paper after the transfer had been done. Therefore, I had to go back to Illustrator, invert the image, print, cut the print and a new board, make the transfer again and so on...

2nd - the two very small hall effect sensor PCBs for the brake levers take a ratiometric hall effect sensor each. I assumed that it was going to work in the same way as the switch. Clearly I was wrong. But, luckily enough, I didn't have to make new PCBs for this. The problem was that I didn't test the sensors before making the PCBs. Anyway the difference was that they proved stabler without the resistor. I actually didn't test with different resistors but assumed that they would only interfere. Therefore I simply didn't insert the resistor.

The shield was done with surprising accuracy. However, the pin connectors aren't yet in my posetion. As soon as I get them I'll populate the shield. With it done, I can connect all PCBs to the arduino and make a full range test of the XBees, taking it to the park and making its first walk outdoors.

Hopefully, the brake calipers will also arrive soon and the bicycle will be able to join the XBees for a test drive.

Cycle Sound development

In the last week, great developments have taken place.

1st - The Bicycle. Very few parts are now missing to complete its construction. I am pretty stubborn and the choice I made was to build it from scratch. Piece to piece... Of course, in the end it's a much more expensive bike than it could be, but it is the bike I chose to make. I just need a deraileur, pedals and a saddle. Brake calipers are ordered and should be here by the end of next week. This means that in a couple of weeks it will be ready to ride. I'll spend the weekend assembling the bottom braket and crank. Sunday, I'll get the deraileur and possibly pedals. This means that by monday it will be a moving bike... However, it wont brake yet...

2nd - Electronics. All parts for the bike rigging are either ordered or already in my posetion. Most of the PCBs are made and tested but there are some to be made still. Mostly, what needs to be done is the inter connection of all parts and its assembly to the arduino. Thumbs up!

3rd - Wireless. It was a long frustrating strive to find how to make the XBees work together. Not only that in a simple way, but very specifically: a) making it transmit all the signals desired; b) getting the signals straight into pure data. However, I'm still not too shure about it fully working, whitch still requires some testing. This will take place very soon. One of the question marks I still have wondering around my head is about the transmition of all analog signal.

4th - Pure Data. The patch is pretty simple so far. I'm using FM8 to make notes from the patch. The development of this will be done when the electronics are fully functional and stable. Some things will probably be worked in the meanwhile to test the electronics.