Messy-UNO

 

This time I went about building my own low cost Arduino clone. To make sure that my design was consistent with arduino boards, I used Sparkfuns RedBoard design as a reference.

At first I wanted to attempt a single layer layout. As you can see, I ended up using lots of jumpers 😦 Also,  I customized the board to use SOT223 packages for the voltage regulators (bottom layer). I had to use male header pins for the IO’s as my component stash was void of female headers.

Downloads: Eagle Schematic and Layout

Details:

The board makes use of an atmega328 with an UNO bootloader. You can either purchase a bootloaded chip or load the bootloader using a programmer. Here’s a list of sites that sell a pre-bootloaded Atmega328:

Chatting with a BC04 Bluetooth module using Android

I wanted to control an Arduino UNO board using my android phones Bluetooth. The UNO board doesn’t have Bluetooth and so requires an external Bluetooth module. I found a small Bluetooth module (BOLUTEK BLK-MD-BC04-B) at digibay.in and purchased it for experimenting.

The BC04 module can be interfaced to your designs using UART. Before pairing with a device, the module enters into a command mode and can be configured using AT commands. Upon pairing with a device the module enters into a communication mode.

Documentation of the module:
BLK-MD-BC04-B Bluetooth Module Specification
BOLUTEK BLK-MD-BC04-B Bluetooth Module AT Commands

Testing the BC04 Bluetooth module:

Since I bought only one module I wanted to be extra careful, and so built a PCB for the module. The design is just an extension of the Application Circuit Diagram from the module specification file.

Eagle Schematic and Layout
BC04 Eagle Library
Schematic and Layouts as PDF

Simple Line Following robot using an Arduino

A long time back, during my college days, I had built a line following robot using an 8051 microcontroller. After college that robot aged and died in my backyard shed. Ever since I’ve been planning on resurrecting her, and finally did, using an Arduino Uno.

To make the robot platform I used two geared motors from an old toy crane, and a cheese tub.

Line follower robot platform

Here’s a view after attaching a front wheel and IR sensors.

Bottom view