Thursday 28 June 2012

Fun with Arduino - Annoying LCD glitch

Arrrggggg!!!


Have you ever spent a bunch of hours trying to debug a weird programming glitch only to find out it was a hardware fault? I have!!!!

I have been having a persistent problem with the LCD Display on my NaV-1 Arduino Synth project where the LCD display would not initialize when you first powered up the system. Actually, I don't think the Arduino program would start at all. If I hit the reset button on the Arduino, it would work but that is not going to cut it in a stand alone, enclosed system.

Apparently the problem was a result of having the RS pin (pin 4) of the LCD module connected to Pin 7 on the Arduino. For some reason unknown to me, this can cause problems. A quick Google search showed that I am not the only one having this issue. Since many people are referring to Ladyada's fine LCD tutorial which uses Pin 7 for the RS line, this problem could be very common.

The fix is very simple - Move the LCD RS pin to Pin 6 on the Arduino! Use Pin 7 for something else entirely. All is now right with the world.

If this post can save one person from this frustrating issue, my work is done.

If you have any insight into this problem, please leave a comment below.

Monday 18 June 2012

Warning about purchasing Babblebot Chips

For those of you who have been following the NaV-1 Babblebot - Arduino Synth project, you may be soon looking to purchase a Babblebot chip. I just wanted to pass along a warning about this

If you google "Babblebot", the first result will direct you to the site Babblebot.net. This is the site for JT Technology, the company that is producing the Babblebot chip using the old Soundgin firmware. This page has a store section with a drop-down menu and a familiar "add to cart" button interface. I placed an order from this page and went through the usual checkout procedures and paid with Paypal. The order was processed and a Paypal payment was sent to JT Technology.

No products were shipped and any attempt to contact the seller went unanswered.

After some unsuccessful attempts at contacting JT Technology, I filed a Paypal Dispute. The dispute was resolved by Paypal in my favor and luckily the funds were recovered but it seems like for all intents and purposes, the seller is gone. I just wanted to share this experience to hopefully prevent any problems for my readers but if JT Technology would like to contact me and clarify this issue, I will gladly update this post.

For some good news, i was able to purchase some Babblebots from www.speechchips.com. Thanks to them.

It seems like the Babblebot chips may be in short supply but since the device is in reality software running on a standard PIC microprocessor, it should be easy for other sellers to produce.

If you find any other sources for the chip, please post a comment below.