chrisbob12

I think I've programmed my first PIC chip now. Hurrah! The burner circuit took a bit of debugging (my errors) and I have arrived at Sprut's BrennerNG which not only has the 16F88 in it's sights, but has the nifty burner circuit test features. Speaking as a PIC noob (though long-standing electronic hobbyist) I think I would buy a PIC programmer PCB or module if I did this again. Now to lay out a board for the speakjet. I can't find the 'vector board' with one pad per hole from Maplin, so I shall either use strip board or try my luck with 'tripad'.

Hello Audio Commander, I am having a good time with my speakjet project and am glad you have published your work. I have put the gesture frame together first, because I can use it straight away - wired into the analogue inputs of a kit-built monome, it works very nicely. The more I have thought about it, the more interesting the design layout of the sensors is, maybe it was obvious, but I would never have started out with that configuration. As one thinks through other possibilities it becomes apparent that it's a very smart layout. I have kitted-up the speakjet board including the MAX chip (had to go to the USA for that) and bought spares in case of 'mistakes'. I will release the spares into the wild once all is built. The next stage has been the MBHP PIC burner, which is all soldered up, running on an original Trace Elliot compressor wall wart, and has so far failed to kill my laptop :) The power supplies seem to work right and present the right voltages to the IC sockets. I have tried a preliminary test with P18 burner software, but the board is not recognised (there is no PIC in yet). I have two questions: Which is the best software to connect to MBHP PIC burner? I have loaded Sprut's P18 software on my PC and it certainly looks good, but seems to be for PIC 18xxx only, whereas we are trying to programme a PIC 16. Obviously, it needs the 40-18 pin adaptor and 13.1V, but should I use different software? Do I need to have the PIC IC mounted in the socket in order for the software to recognise the board? OK, I found the right page: it's PBrenner37 or 37U - also the board not found message box gives four steps to check, including having the PIC in place. Regards, Chris.

Hi Michael, I'm making a start on the speakjet/KII project, and have a couple of questions after studying the breadboard wiki page: 1 What is the RS232 PC I/O for? (this is on the speakjet breadboard) 2 Is all the Midibox core needed for making a KII? The Kinetica version looks much simpler than that PS the point to point wiring looks challenging :o

Hi Michael, The Kinetica exhibit gave a lot of pleasure! Thank you for pointing me in the right directions - the gesture box diagrams are self-explanatory. I think the sensor arrangement is neat and economical. I think I will give this a try. Thank you for your help. Regards, Chris.

I saw Speakjet and the gesture box at Kinetica last year and loved it: easily the most absorbing exhibit. I have been searching the internet for gesture sensors to copy the gesture box. My original plan was to hook it up to a monome as part of a mutual instrument, but now I find there's a whole speakjet project and community. Wow! Which way to jump? I too would be very interested to learn which specific Sharp sensors are used for the gesture box, how many are used and how they're arranged. Of course that may be the magic ingredient ;) I came to the Sharp IR rangers via Massimo Bandi (of Arduino reknown) and the Acroname Robotics website. I have not yet identified a UK distributor. All the best.