Cathodion

Is there any news regarding bricks with PoE?

Will the shielded bricklets cables allow for longer bricklet cables? Like 4, 6 or 10 meters. That would allow me to put bricklets in several rooms of my house and connect them to a centrally placed stack of bricks on a particalur floor.

I intend to write a longish intruduction blog entry regarding the Industrial Bricklets in our blog tomorrow morning (with availability dates).

Thanks!

Could you clarify what you mean with industrial bricklets, and when they are expected to become available in the shop?

I will contact our hardware supplier and ask for prices...

I was wondering whether batti has heard from the hardware suppliers yet... 

When will I be able to order some properly priced plates from the TinkerForge shop?

Any news on mounting plates?

You can directly connect to a Stack with WIFI Extension. There is no need for brickd if you use the WIFI Extension (brickd is implemented on the Master Brick for this).

Nice work fellas!

This one looks like it: http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/734

Batti, Isnt this exactly what we need?

The possibility to connect external buttons is on our change list for the next version of the LCD Bricklet.

 

This change was suggested in the German board a while ago.

I don't see anything like this in the timeline... do you have some sort of product backlog (scrum) on which we can see in which order you are working on new and exiting stuff?

Hi Cathodion,

 

you can use an IO-4, IO-16 or Analog IN Bricklet for this.

This Module has an open collector output with pullup (digital output!)

 

Simply connect 3V3, GND and one input to this module.

That's great!

Do you have any idea how long i can make the cables between the motion sensor and the IO bricklet? I'm wondering if i can use my 16-IO bricklet to connect a bunch of motion sensors on every floor of my house.

Dear Cathodion,

 

ok, I have now something like ab A3 or A4 plastic sheet with ~2mm thickness and 5mm hole grid in mind.

 

I will contact our hardware supplier and ask for prices...

Nice, thanks!

I found the following enclousure:

http://www.conrad.nl/ce/nl/product/520586/Euro-behuizing-grijs-150-X-50-X-80-mm/0203042&ref=list

I'm hoping I can screw TinkerForge components on a plate, cut it to size, and shove it in the enclosure.

Hey folks,

I'd like to use a motion sensor in my home, and came across the following component: http://www.conrad.nl/ce/nl/product/172500/PIR-SMD-bewegingsmelder-3-12V2mA

Can you create a bricklet for this, or explain how I can use an existing bricklet to connect this censor?

Thanks for the information.

I haven't seen the LCD problem after removing the DualRelay from the setup, but when it does show up again, I'll write you an email.

A plate the size of an A4 or even better an A3 sheet of paper would be ideal. I could cut that to the right size for a particular application.

One of my usecases: I have a Master brick, a 20x4 LCD, a humidity and a temperature bricklet floating around on my desk, and i've stuffed my other components (16io's, distanceIR, DualRelay, etc) in a box on a shelve to make sure I don't loose them. I'd like to screw the TF components to a A3/A4 sized base plate that I can attach to the wall, which would give me a good orderly overview on the components, as well as make sure that i don't loose them. (i got kids too )

Before you update the Master Brick firmware this problem wasn't there?

 

What are the other Bricklets on the Master, is there a Dual Relay on there too?

Its hard to say whether this problem existed before because i've never used the LCD as intensive before today. Coincidentally, i've also updated the master bricks firmware today.

There is indeed a DualRelay bricklet attached to the same master brick, but there isn't anything attached to it. I must admit though, that i've been testing the response time by making it perform flops with only 10 ms delay, or lower. I now recall having seen the LCD dimm slightly while the DR was switching.

I'll try removing the DR from the setup and test the LCD some more. I have not been able to come up with a reproducable scenario so far. Last time the LCD run perfectly for hours while receiving an update at least every second. (showing a clock and temperature readings)

I just witnessed the backlight switching off for the first time. On previous occasions it always switched off when I was not near the LCD, so I assumed it 'switched' off.

Now it turns out it slowly fades out... It takes about 20 seconds from my first thought "hey that backlight used to be brighter" to it being completely dark.

Conclusion: It doesn't switch off, it somehow looses power or something like that and after the screen stops responding to commands, the backlight slowly fades off.

Ok, thanks for the quick reply!

I've been asking around my local electronics shop, but the look on their faces when I showed them my TinkerForge components immediately shattered my hope of finding something there. They don't have anything useful for mounting TF components.

If you (tinkerforge guys) can offer a plate of some sorts that has the right holes in it, I would really like to order some of those.

Hey folks,

I'm having trouble with my LCD20x4 after upgrading the master brick firmware to the latest version today.

After a certain amount of time the backlight is somehow disabled, and the LCD no longer responds to any commands send from brickv or my Java program. The buttons are still functional thought! I can see brickv reporting "pressed" and "released" when i press the 3 buttons.

There are no errors reported by either brickv or the running Java program.

When i look closely to the LCD I can still see the text that it was showing last, altough its hard so see with the backlight off.

The master brick (1.1) is running version 1.2.4 of its firmware, and the LCD bricklet has firmware version 1.1.0.

3 other bricklets connected to the same master brick still function like they should, so it looks like an isolated LCD problem. When I hit the reset button in brickv the master brick restarts and the LCD work again, only to freeze again after a seemingly random period of time.

I hope this description is informative enough to locate the problem. I'm trying to create a reproducible scenario that triggers the problem.

Kind regards,

Geert Schuring.

Hello fellows,

I'm measuring around 4.50 volts of output on the 16IO bricklet while the switch on the bricklet reading "3.3V <--> 5V" is switched to "5V".

Switching it to 3.3V results in a perfect 3.30 volts of output, but the 5V is really not even close. Is this a known issue?

Kind regards,

Geert Schuring.

Hey folks,

I'm really onjoying the 4x20 LCD component, except for the little buttons on the bottom side of the bricklet plate. I'm quite surprised you didn't just put 3 IO ports there. I'm trying to integrate the screen in an enclosure, but the buttons are on an impossible location. I would like to be able to put 3 random switches/buttons in my custom enclosure right next to the screen and connect those to the bricklet plate instead of the current buttons. Since I have very little HW experience I don't know if I can modify my current bricklet this way.

I think most users would appreciate the above. Could you guys create a new version of the 4x20 LCD bricklet?

Yep, I'm running java on the raspberry pi:

pi@raspberrypi:~$ java -version

java version "1.6.0_18"

OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea6 1.8.13) (6b18-1.8.13-0+squeeze1)

OpenJDK Zero VM (build 14.0-b16, mixed mode)

However, this is the tinkerforge forum, so you should go to the raspberry pi forum for more info on this.

I got the extender today, and it works totally perfect!!!

Just plug and play... and enjoy your 50 meter USB connection. Nothing more to say about it really. Its so simple.

Since USB has always been backwards compatible, I'm assuming the extender will simply cause my PC USB port to switch to USB 1.1 automatically the same way a USB 1.1 hub would if I connect it to the PC.

I just got confirmation that the order has been shipped today, so I guess we'll find out tomorrow after I get back from work.