It all about RGB LED

5 months ago, our lecturer encouraged us to start our final year project by learning mirco controller aka the brain of a robot.


To learn how to use it, we can buy a Rm150 development board BVkits from a sale office in Penang. However, it was no more in sales.

bvkits.

Apparently another company, Cytron

( a very innovative local company in my humble opinion, shld be good to work in the future) has the same thing too, sold for about Rm130 including postage fee. Hey it's cheaper, but wasn't sure about how the board works, so didn't ordered it.


Instead, I thought of a making/copying/clone the board by myself!If successful, I might make some $$$$ (note, I expected 4 digit profit) out of that. So I got a BVkits board from my lecturer and started to my journey of becoming rich!

Just follow 3 steps
1. decipher the board
2. draw the schematic and convert it into PCB
3.manufacture it

Simple??

Step 1,decipher it.
What decipher?!?!

The board is green, with all the electrical route spreading all over it, like a computer board, just not so complicated and my task was to turn those electrical route to simple, understandable schematic drawing, as shown below.



Step 2, draw the schematic in a PCB ( those green electrical board are called PCB, printed-circuit-board) software. Wait! I don't have any software to do that.


Thanks to google, and after much search, I ended up with 2 software, Altium and eagle. Altium cost about 2k USD per year, but I used the 1 month-trial version and aimed to fisnish this whole thing in 1 month. yeah too ambitious, the software is too hi tech for me.
Then comes eagle, it's free for life, but the board size is restricted. That's a major problem, cause I cant fit the whole circuit.

the Printed Circuit Board

Hence I was stucked at step 2 for 4 months. Actually, while making the board for PIC I don;t know why are these component connected in such manner, whats the function? why we have different designs..... I have tonnes of questions without answers....

Until I found the super cool US company Sprakfun
It's website has the best tutorials I've seen so far about micro controller. They start teaching form the ground zero and slowly progress up , and they make $$ by selling those tutorial materials on their website. Thanks to this website, I've found all my answers, and I realised I don't need to make one of those board to learn PIC!! HOORAY!!!

Can I say that all my previous effort was dumped into the sea? I don't think so, because we humans learn from failures! Now I really have the feeling of 皇天不负有心人！！！ ( sorry no English translation for this).



I don't think I am going to get a part time job now, cause I'll be the CEO of my new founded company --- Secky Electronics SDN BHD.

IPO will be on 31/8/09, share will be priced at 25 sen each, total units to be released 1000units.
So wanna invest in ME?

shift loader

Oh ya, what's the relation of the title "It all about RGB LED" and its content which is" all about PIC" ? Well, I was searching information on driving a RGB LED ( red green blue light emitting diode), and that's how I found the superb Sparkfun website!!

01 Flashing Bicolor LED

This is how I drive a bicolor LED with a common cathode. This circuit allows the bicolor LED to flash in intervals RED-GREEN-RED-GREEN.... assuming the LED is a red green bicolor LED.

1. A 555 timer was used to provide the pulse and timing for the intervals.
2. The LED on the left is connected directly to the output Pin 3, while the LED on the right is connected to a simple resistor-transistor logic NOT GATE.
3. Left LED will light when the output is HIGH; Right LED will light when output is LOW.
4. Assuming the 555 timer can source up to 200mA, a maximum 10, 20mA LED can be connected in parallel.

reference:
NOT gate/ inverter
http://www.play-hookey.com/digital/experiments/rtl_inverter.html

email:
shlim90@gmail.com

Raja Uda Yam Rice

After sending my cousin brother back to Kepala Batas ( he is studying there), instead of using the highway, my parents and I took the old road back, and so happen we arrived at Raja Uda.

I brought them to have a delicious Yam Rice + pig spare part soup at SIN CHOW KOON




This is what you called Yam rice!!! With a generously big piece of YAM!!

You can't just eat rice right? This is a salted vege soup with pig lever, intestine, stomach, blood and kidney, practically the whole pig's organ is in a bowl!
So where is it? It's in raja uda near one of the traffic lights. I don't really know how to tell you where is it, so just bring me along if you want to taste it!!

Post Exam Activities

Wed 1700 hr

We went to Queensbay Mall for G.I. JOE movie, broke my record for watching movie with the most no. of friends.
I brought 18 tickets! And I paid with my debit card, muahahahaha financial freedom. Of course I'm not so generous to treat them for a movie, I became a part-time ticket seller after that.


You what G.I stands for? government issue.
The movie is just full of all the super hi-tech weapon and actions, not the movie to fill up my empty-ness after exams.

2000hr
Pizza hut! Again, it was a big group, 13 pax! the bill when up to 176.00! Lucky Maybank Debit Card was there to safe the day.
=.=
I think I just like the feeling of swapping the card, n sign on the receipt....

Anyway, you might be wondering why I kept on using my card? Coz there is a promotion going on, and I might get to win a car...hahaha just dreaming

Seck Houng Fortnight report

We can see an improvement here from a monthly report to a fortnightly report!

Lets start with 26 of July:
It was PSDC 6.5km charity run. My target was to finish the run in 1 hour, but I did it within 40 minutes, still it's double the time taken by the champion.
There was a singing performance by our friend, but they started out too early and everyone was queuing up for free VICO.

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My food quest in RAJA UDA, Butterworth.
I had
1. Loh Mee with pig leg
2. Hokkien Mee
3. Ais KAcang
4. Cendol
5. Dim Sum
6. Curry mee with chicken leg, pork lever and quail eggs, which cost RM6
7. Tomyam Mee, which I waited for 30 minute and my friend told me it was very very fast.
8.Bukit mertajam Kuay Chap
9. Currry Fish Head, this one is superb, very delicious, the best curry fish head I've tried.
10. Yam Rice, this one also very very nice, and u get a generously big piece of yam! and you can order a bowl of pig spare parts soup

For the last 2 food, I'll give them a rating of 10/10.

And seriously I'll consider buying a house in Raja Uda in the future, for the sake of the good food!

Raja Uda is just a street, but it is fully packed with delicious hawker food. Of course I would also like to thank my fellow food guides for bring me around!

here a link to their forum

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Having my finals now, 3 down, 2 more to go!