dreamport » project

foo_timedisplay

Nonoo — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:28:27 +0000

So I made another foobar2000 plugin recently, it’s called foo_timedisplay, and as the name says, it displays the current playing time in a separate, resizeable and fully customizable window.

A must have for music lovers! :)

foo_ir2

Nonoo — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 22:33:07 +0000

I’ve written a simple infrared remote control plugin for foobar2000. It’s called foo_ir2.

I’ve replaced Winamp about a week ago. I like foobar2000 much better, it has a fully customizable simplistic user interface and lots of advanced settings.

simpleptt

Nonoo — Wed, 21 May 2008 22:49:22 +0000

You can use this simple application for triggering PTT on your radio via DTR/RTS COM port pins.
It supports remote PTT triggering with ptt2dtr as the server.

More…

ptt2dtr

Nonoo — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:35:16 +0000

My Yaesu FT-857D transmits the audio coming from the MIC input instead of the rear line in when PTT is triggered via CAT command.

When PTT is toggled with the rear PTT pin, it works as it should. I had to find a solution for this inconvenience, so I wrote ptt2dtr which translates PTT CAT commands into serial port DTR line changes.

More…

Antenna rotator finished!

Nonoo — Sun, 04 May 2008 17:30:09 +0000

Pictures

This is how it looked like when I got it:

And this is how it looks like now:

More images are here.

Schematics

The circuit has been designed in PCBExpress, you can download the .sch and .pcb files here.

PDF version of the schematics is here.

Features

nearly 360° degrees rotation
error protection – controller stops rotation when the antenna doesn’t turn, but rotation is on, watchdog timer for resetting the controller on failure, bounds checking
RS232 (serial port) communication with Hyperterminal (or Minicom on Linux), easy and fast commands, built-in help
Rotation speed measurement, estimated time calculation ;)
16 individual positions can be saved with position names (up to 13 chars), saved in controller EEPROM

About the controller

The controller is a PIC16F886. I used Hi-Tech C compiler for writing the program.
You can download the source code here.

It uses Timer1 for blinking the status LED and Timer2 for pot change protection (there is a pot in the rotator which turns when the rotator is rotating, and if the rotation is on but the pot doesn’t turn, it shuts everything down).

Otherwise the code is (trying to be ;) really simple, so check it out.

There are 4 medium-current transistors, they power the motor with the required voltage polarity. The serial line is handled via a MAX232 IC.

I’ve added 2 buttons in my room near my little desk so I can rotate without using serial console. This is not reflected on the circuit drawing.

Available commands

Rotator demo video #2
Short rotator demo video
Antenna rotator take #2
Antenna rotator renewing

Rotator demo video #2

Nonoo — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:36:41 +0000

Now it’s working on my desk. It’s pretty strong, I can’t stop it with my bare hands, I hope it’ll rotate my big yagi easily. I’ll perform a full antenna test in our yard tomorrow or on thursday.

UPDATE: pictures are here.

Short rotator demo video

Nonoo — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:07:11 +0000

Now it works perfectly on my desk. :)

Antenna rotator take #2

Nonoo — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:42:41 +0000

After I’ve designed the schematics and made the PCB for the rotator, I put it together:

I’ll upload the schematics & source code when I finish the project. I’m using a wonderful PICKit2 programmer/debugger and Hi-Tech C compiler to make my life easier.

The program is almost finished, I hope I can put the whole rotator together by tomorrow evening, and accomplish the first tests with my big yagi in 2 days.

Antenna rotator renewing

Nonoo — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:45:01 +0000

Last summer I got an old antenna rotator from a friend. It’s controller is missing, but at least it still works and it’s only rusty, and needs a little renewing, and of course a new controller.

It has a little 12V motor and a 1K pot inside (as the antenna turns, the pot’s resistance changes and it can be used in a voltage divider circuit to detect the current angle of the antenna).

Today the weather was very nice and I had some time to work on this project, so I disassembled the whole thing.

The pot is in a very bad shape, WD40 spray didn’t helped it, so I’ll have to replace it with a good quality 10K one. To replace the pot, I had to dismount the gears.

At this point I realized that I only have normal quality pots at home, so I’ll have to buy a very good one tomorrow.

After this I went down to my workshop, and I continued the disassembly. There were some very rusty screws that didn’t want to come out easily and I spent most of the time tinkering away at them.
Finally I cleaned the case with methylated spirit and a wire-brush:

To be continued!

EAC grab howto translated

Nonoo — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:39:38 +0000

I’ve translated the EAC grab howto so it is now available in english (and hungarian).