DorkbotPDX people doing strange things with electricity

In my slow but steady quest for better macro photography of electronic projects, I decided to build a light table to (hopefully) eliminate shadows.

With boards from Laen's PCB group order, materials from TAP Plastics, 15 white LEDs and misc parts I mostly had laying around, this is how it turned out:

Read on for electronic details....

Boards from Laen's PCB group order arrived today, and I'm happy to say the Accel-only breakout board works. This was inspired by Sott's design, but with support for 5 volts, and using I2C.

I'll have 4 more kits at the next Monday meetup. The kit has all parts except the MMA7455 chip, and the kit's FREE if you build it or wreck it trying. So far, I've only written a tiny test program. Here's the code:

At the last meetup, I handed out 4 kits for an accelerometer-only breakout board... sans the bare PCB since they're delayed. Anyway, here's the parts placement diagram:

On the next group order, I'm going to send in an Accel+Gyro breakout board. Thanks to Scott for finding these cool chips!

On Friday I ran across a page lamenting the "chicken or egg" problem with most AVR ISP programmers, and I got to thinking about a way to do it using only USB and no programmable chips or specialized USB parts.

At the last Monday meetup, Scott mentioned my Teensy-as-Benito code wasn't working with the '328-based Arduino and Dorkboards, which now run at 57600 baud. So this weekend I dusted off my Dorkboard to investigate.

Read on for details, and updated code with a workaround....

What I've been working on lately....

Inspired by Laen's group PCB order and Ladyada's breadboard power supply, I decided to try making one that runs from a single AA battery.

click Read more for schematic and rambling about the design.....

All the material covered in the "Getting Stared With Microcontrollers" workshop, the printed handout and online version, are available if you missed it.