Previously I had finally gotten out an arduino board that had languished unloved in a drawer for a year or more and actually sent it a flashing light program. Proving that I could actually do something with it I set out to build something more interesting. Always looking for interesting ways to alert you to various non-emergent things in XTension I wanted to have some wind chimes play me a tune. This little project gets it’s music data from the serial port. Right now just the USB plug built into the arduino, but ultimately through a ethernet shield so that I can connect to it from the DIY interface of XTension wherever I end up putting the thing.
the point of a serial protocol as opposed to just embedding it into the program is that I can send it from XTension later. The DIY interface can easily handle sending that list of bytes in response to action or information and playing me a different tune. And just learning how to use the serial interface on the thing too which is important for future projects.
I know someone is going to be concerned about my connecting up those motors directly that it will overload the output pins. I don’t think the current is enough to hurt them any but if I have problems I can always go with a transistor switch, but this was to be a simple proof of concept ;) I am also going to add a reverse diode to absorb the inductance current when they are turned off, though it hasn’t hurt anything playing with it so far.
So much for my first ever project actually programming an arduino. I think I’m going to be spending a lot more time with these things!