So, what nifty projects have folks been up to?
I was talking to Nick, and he mentioned a Pi/HVAC project he was working on. I had a couple sensor projects and figured it'd make a good thread. Part of this is to hawk a Netduino, which is free for anyone that wants it. It's not the easiest (IMHO) platform, but it's a arduino knockoff so it's still relatively easy for folks to use. If anyone gets inspired, lemme know and I'll ship you your very own microcontroller.
Lately I've been spending most of my time with the BeagleBone Black. It is not a microcontroller, but rather a full PC, for $35. You can directly hook up a monitor and keyboard, and use it as a normal if a bit slow desktop. It just happen to have ports on it handy for directly putting in electronics. I snagged a prototyping/perf board and slapped on a couple sensors. Literally just a photovoltiac resistor, a temperature sensor and a normal resistor.
There are python libraries and scripts out there to make it pretty easy to report back info from whatever sensor you want to plug in. The default Linux OS on the device is frankly horrible, but you can easily slap on plenty of other pre-formatted operating systems, with Ubuntu being the most community supported. Folks also sell pre-formatted SD cards with Ubuntu running on it.
I do readings every ten minutes and with a 32Gb SD card (which is about $20), that'll hold oh, couple decades worth of entries on the MySQL database I installed in minutes. With compression, it'd be centuries worth of data.
Live feed of the temp data, using
pChart:
http://climate.fwdportal.com/BeagleBone (same apply for the Raspberry Pi)
Pros: It can run off the shelf software, easy ethernet/WiFi, can use USB stuff with ease
Cons: Not good for low power (ie powered off batteries), development can be more complex, doesn't like all sensors
On the flip side is the microcontroller, such as the ubiquitious Arduino. Cheaper historically ($25) and easier to use. Not a full PC, so there's less overhead. You also have a lot less space to store programs or data.
Pros: Cheaper, uses less power, easily run off batteries or solar, easy to use just about any sensor
Cons: Harder to do complex tasks, need add-on shields for storage/networking/etc
So, besides reading the current temperature, anyone else have any electronics projects they've been toying with?