Step by step I’m getting closer to setting the lights up. I’ve went to person who will be having these setup, to check the situation with cables and how to proceed further. Everything is looking OK and we did some testing. The only problem we had is that the current setup is using AC 12V voltage source and for arduino I need DC voltage. In order to get DC voltage from AC voltage I will add diode bridge to my project.
To make things easier and nicer I’ve deciced to make a shield for my arduino. I needed to add diode bridge and Darlington Transistor Array to arduino and I did not want it to be hanging just on wires. (more…)
Archive for December, 2010
LED stair lighting based on Arduino, Part 4
CNet CQR-981 router does not work with Huawei 3G USB modem
I was having problems with CNet CQR-981 Wireless-N Pico 3.5G Broadband Router and Huawei 3G USB modem.
The router would not connect to the 3G network after checking all the setting and making sure that the 3G USB modem is working fine I’ve decided to check if there is a newer firmware version for CQR-981. The version on my router was 1.0.02 and the latest on the CNet website was 1.0.06.
I’ve flashed the latest firmware to the router and after restart it connected to 3G straight away.
You can find the latest version here. Download the firmware file. The file is a RAR archive that contains 2 files: the firmware file and also the PDF file with the instructions how to perform update.
LED stair lighting based on Arduino, Part 3
Here is part 3. No video this time as there is not much to show.
I’ve done some coding to add some new features but nothing major. On a hardware side I was looking how to power up 12V LED or whatever the 12V light will be used to light up the stairs as there will not be enough power to drive those 12V lamps from arduino board itself. After reading through couple forums I’ve came to conclusion that I should used ULN2803A which is Darlingon Transistor Array:
It has eight npn Darlington pairs (I need to control eight LEDs)
Output voltage upto 50V (I need 12V)
500mA Collector current (is enough for LEDs as the power of them are low but might be not enough for Halogen lights)
More information about ULN2803A
I’ve tested ULN2803A with couple 12V LEDs and it seems to work fine. Now I need to move from my ‘lab’ to the site where it will be installed and see what is needed over there and try to implement it in real environment. Hopefully I’ll be able to do that this year. 🙂
SCCM: How to Configure Software Update Point
It’s been a while since I’ve wrote step by step guide for SCCM but here it is.
SCCM Software Update Point is mainly used for distributing Microsoft updates but it can also be used to distribute update from other software manufactures.
First you need to download and install WSUS SP2.
Installing WSUS:
1. Start WSUS sp2 installations
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LED stair lighting based on Arduino, Part 2
In this part I’ve connected the second IR sensor and Light sensor.
As you can see in the video when the light sensor is covered Arduino gives my a sign that it is night time by running Leds from one end and back.
At the moment there is a delay until the lights starts switching off if during the delay any of the IR sensors are crossed the delay starts counting from the beginning.
While testing I’ve noticed that some Leds instead of dimming just switch off. Reading through Arduino forum I’ve found that apparently Arduino can only to analogWrite() on digital pins 3, 5, 4, 9, 10 and 11. This is what I most liekely will have to live with or maybe get myself Arduino with ATmega.
LED stair lighting based on Arduino, Part 1
Hi Everyone,
This post will be something different compared to the posts on this blog but it is still ralated to IT.
About a year ago I’ve found out about Arduino and really liked what can be done with it and how easy it is to use. So I’ve bought it…. Well needles to say I played around with for day or 2 and forgot about it.
Couple months ago I saw Automatic LED stair lighting posted on YouTube see the video bellow:
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