Inspired by a post by Geir Andersen, I decided to make a little tester box. Nothing too fancy, and (I'm sure) not properly put together, but enough to be able to so some regular, every-day testing of robot stuff.
High and Low states
Continuity --Yes, I know that High and Low sorta covers this one but the rotary switch has 6 clicks! I has to use more than 2 or 3 or them!
Pulse Width (in uS) with a high trigger
Pulse Width with a low trigger
Audio (and the ability to turn the gosh-darn beeping off!)
The brain for the whole system is a Atmega 328 who's real home is as the backpack for the LCD. Everything else was selected because it happened to be in the parts box. As a matter of fact, I even found the rotary switch in there --which still had the resistor bridge soldered on from the last project.
As always Chris, a perfect project and a great presentation. I love the quality of your builds and there is not a spot of hot glue in site (there maybe one under the voltage regulator ). Anyway as you have most of the hardware already I would like to utter some possible enhancements. • Break out the RX line from the Arduino and just dump it out on the LCD (You might need some way of changing the baud rate though) • A simple voltmeter. So you can look for voltage drops. • A function to see how stable the power line is and indicate if there is voltage spikes.
Well, Geir --Thanks, but I would say it looks pretty good except for the 2 huge X-acto slips around the LCD cut-out! I knew I should have done it with a router and template --alas, I guess I will have to just sand and paint (I wanted something more than plain black anyway).
I like your ideas, I had a lot of them myself. I was also thinking about a resistor-checker (so I don’t have to check colors). I would also like to experiment with those non-contact ring-things that can measure the current in a wire. Inductive testing, I think it is called.
The case comes from a company called Bud Industries. Here is the link that goes straight to the enclosures. They don’t sell them directly, mind you --but they have links to suppliers (mouser, digi, etc.)
Nice creation- I like the audio feedback feature, I’m sure you will find it very convenient as your eyes will typically be on the circuit under test. Just a thought, it might also be snazzy to have an ADC tone feature that will interpolate audio tones for anaolog voltages between 0-5V, although perhaps impractical (what I’m trying to say is a higher pitch tone for a higher analog voltage, and vice-versa).
I recently ordered some continous rotation rotary encoders with pushbuttons (and nice knobs) from Mouser and they are awesome for user input without much real estate. I also love the probe clips Radio Shack sells, I’ve got a set for both my meters!
in my search for a piece of information I ran across mention of a resistor box, a variable reisistor box that assists in choosing the right value. Since you have all that space in the case maybe a variable resistor box and/or a variable capacitor box?
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Simple and