Origa.me

Hooray - my USB adaptor arrived this morning and within 1 hour of rigging up an Arduino compatible development board all sorts of cool things are happening! I decided to be a real cheapskate and build my Arduino myself rather than buy one. So it's all breadboarded and slightly rough looking, but on the plus side it works perfectly and I have another 9 AtMEGA8s sat around waiting for exciting things to happen to them.

Here's the obligatory YouTube video:

Showing the following:

1. Reading an analogue value from a potentiometer
2. Display that value on line 1 of LCD (in 4 bit nibble mode)
3. Display the same value using a bar graph type output on line 2 of LCD
4. Use the value to also set position of a servo.

All in Arduino's lovely C type syntax:

#include <lcd4bit.h>
#include <servo.h>

LCD4Bit lcd = LCD4Bit(2);
Servo servo1;

int potPin = 0;
int servoPin = 12;
int val = 0;

void setup() {
  lcd.init();
  servo1.setMaximumPulse(2200);
  servo1.attach(servoPin);
}

void loop() {
  val = analogRead(potPin);
  char buf[12];
  itoa(val, buf, 10);

  // Print 1st line
  lcd.cursorTo(1, 0);
  lcd.printIn("Value: ");
  lcd.printIn(buf);
  lcd.printIn("   ");

  // Print 2nd line
  lcd.cursorTo(2, 0);
  int steps = 255/16;

  for (int i=0; i<16; i++) {
    if ((val/4) > (steps*i)) {
      lcd.print(0xFF);
    } else {
      lcd.printIn(" ");
    }
  }

  // Keep positioning the servo while waiting to update the LCD
  for (int x=0; x<50; x+=2) {
    val = analogRead(potPin);
    servo1.write(val/6);
    Servo::refresh();
    delay(2);
  }
}

So easy! I am finished with trying to do PIC development on my Mac on a tight budget.