Dilshan R Jayakody’s Web Log

This is TCS230 based Bluetooth color picker prototype which we build to test the concept. In here the idea is to extract color from any physical object and transfer it to PC / mobile. To test this concept, we use low-cost TCS230 color sensor. A prototype version of color picker on a tiny breadboard. TCS230 is programmable color light-to-frequency convert IC. This chip produces square wave output with frequency directly proportional to the light intensity. To drive this sensor and capture its output we used PIC16F628A microcontroller. The processed output is then transferred to the host using the HC-05 Bluetooth SPP ( Serial Port Protocol ) module. In PC we wrote small Python script to display captured value and color in a Window. In this design, we drive the TCS230 sensor with 20% frequency scaling. The entire circuit is built using commonly available modules and components. For the color sensor, we use the 8-pin TCS230 sensor module which is commonly found in eBay and other...

" Musical trees " is a part of creative art installation and this project is capable to produce different audio tones by detecting a human touch to its attached plants. The existing version of this driver is capable to monitor 8 plants and produce different sounds for each plant. A prototype version of "Magic Tree" project with 2 plant samples. This project is built around PIC16F628A 8-bit microcontroller and PT2399 echo processor IC. To drive the sensor electrodes we use pair of CD4011 quad 2-input NAND gate ICs. This prototype uses TDA7052 1W audio amplifier IC to drive the speaker(s). The existing firmware of PIC16F628A is designed to produce tones in between 155Hz to 1244Hz and this range can be changed by modifying the supplied firmware source code. In this design, the PT2399 echo processor IC is used to get the more natural (/ deep) sound effect by adding some reverberation to the output. Schematic and firmware of this project are available to ...

This is demonstration project to control servo motor movement using physical marker and normal video camera. In this project video camera capture the movements of marker and calculate rotation angle based on that. This calculated rotation angle is feed to the servo through small MCU based interfacing unit. In this project video processing and tracking is performed using ARToolkit and controlling of servo is carried out using PIC16F628A microcontroller. RS232 interface is use to communicate between PC and microcontroller. Interfaces in optical servo controlling system This application detects movement of marker on Z axis (yaw) and transforms it into another numerical scale to manipulate the servo motor. Processing application is written using Visual C++ and configured to work on Windows operating system(s). The marker used for this application is needed to be a " square with some symbol " and user can train this system for any compatible marker. As per our tests, st...

microTone Module is analog interface to connect microcontrollers or digital logic systems with PCs. This interface use PC sound card’s audio output terminal to send commands to external hardware systems. microTone Module is an open source project and all its software source codes and hardware designs are available to download at sourceforge.net/p/microtone . All the compiled software and source codes of this project are distributed under the terms of GNU Lesser General Public License . Hardware design and other documents are distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License . Software library of microTone Module is a Win32 DLL and it can use with any programming language which allows interface with dynamic link libraries (e.g: C++ , C# , Python , Java , Delphi , Visual Basic , etc.) Some wrappers for this DLL are already implemented and available to download at microTone Module sourceforge.net code repository. And also if you implement or...

LSI Computer System's LS7220 is a digital code lock system for automotive systems. This LS7220 integrated circuit is difficult to find in many places and because of that we design some alternative system which simulate the functionality of LS7220 code lock system. This simulated system executes on top of the PIC16F628A 8bit MCU and it release as an open hardware project. LS7220 is a "hard-wired" code-locking system, but this simulated system provides both "hard-wired" and customizable (re-programmable) code locking options. This re-programmable feature provides some higher degree of protection to the system and it allows user/administrator to change system’s code at any given time by without changing the wiring layout(s) of the system. Pinouts of Programmed MCU In this project PIC16F628A MCU use its internal 4MHz oscillator and because of that it doesn't require any external clocking source(s). This system is design to work with 5V DC power supply...