$25 eZ430-Chronos wireless watch

[Mike Putnam]

For you smartwatch fans out there:

http://tideals.com/

[Bob Waldron]

For $25 I'm tempted. Do any DHMN members have experience with this; if so, any uses you've found that make it worth $25? Gracias.

[Alex Hunt]

I've used MSP430s before.  They are a decent 16-bit uC and TI does a good job with their development kits.  There are GCC-variant options if you run out of code space with the provided "free to a point" compiler.

I think the wireless system on this watch is TI-specific, so don't expect a lot of compatibility with other devices.

Alex

[Lynne Whitehorn]

I've done 430 programming on my current gig, but not on these devices.  In general it's an ok experience.  There's nothing like the community you find around Arduino, or even Parallax devices, but there are some people.  Honestly, I'd spend my money on something else.  TI totally does not get the hobbyist world.  Instead of their code tools being free, they're $500 for the useful version, and their wikis suck, and I have yet to find a really active group of developers.

The SDK for this is "free", but the cost is a max of 16k image size (IIRC).  It's ok for the watch, but for other TI devices, you then need to spend $500 for the Platinum version of CCS.  The latest flavor is supposed to be actually integrated with Eclipse, but if you've been spoiled by Visual Studio, prepare yourself for something of a letdown.

It's a good deal for a watch, though.  Make sure you get the frequency you want for wireless comm.  Honestly, I suspect you'd be better off spending that $25 on a Parallax or Arduino chip and building your own watch.  Plus, there's no way yours could be any uglier. :)  I'll probably get one just because I can.


-Lynne

[Paul Klemstine]

I've owned this watch for a couple years now(I paid $50), and frankly, I cannot find a good use for it. You can (kinda) use it as a accelerometer based mouse, but the novelty wears off quick. The display is like 80's LCD technology, so anything displayed has to fit in a couple 7 segment displays. I really wouldn't recommend if for the the casual hobbyist, but your own mileage may vary. 

[Lynne Whitehorn]

On 4/3/2012 1:47 PM, Paul Klemstine wrote:

I've owned this watch for a couple years now(I paid $50), and frankly, I cannot find a good use for it. You can (kinda) use it as a accelerometer based mouse, but the novelty wears off quick. The display is like 80's LCD technology, so anything displayed has to fit in a couple 7 segment displays. I really wouldn't recommend if for the the casual hobbyist, but your own mileage may vary. 

Best summary yet, IMO.
-Lynne

[Ross Larson]

With the WIMM, MetaWatch, and Allerta InPulse, it's tough for me to get excited about an old segmented LCD.

Ross

[Michael Moran]

Paul, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it does bluetooth, does it?

-Mike

[Lynne Whitehorn]

This is a question for one of y'all with a 3D printer.

See these Victrola-inspired phone speaker cabinet thingies?

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ReAcoustic

How hard would it be to print the individual "petals" of those horns, do you think?  How large could they be on the printers you have?

-Lynne

[Paul Klemstine]

No bluetooth, it uses a proprietary dongle to communicate with a computer. It does interface with a couple commercial heart rate monitors that speak it's language.

No touchscreen either, it's got 4 buttons and an accelerometer.

It's not waterproof either.

On the plus side, it has an extremely low power consumption, giving it a LONG battery life. 

[Alex Hunt]

Hmm... assuming you want it full size, it would need to be printed in sections and welded together.  My work area is about 220x220x100mm, but the X-Y is just limited by the size of the glass plate I am printing on.  Theoretically, I could do a 600x600mm print - but at the moment that's just crazy talk.

I sized my glass to be roughly equivalent to a Mendel, but the other guys in the group have more Z height than I do.

Do you have any measurements to work from?

Alex

[Lynne Whitehorn]

On 4/3/2012 5:30 PM, Alex Hunt wrote:
>
> Hmm... assuming you want it full size, it would need to be printed in
> sections and welded together. My work area is about 220x220x100mm,
> but the X-Y is just limited by the size of the glass plate I am
> printing on. Theoretically, I could do a 600x600mm print - but at the
> moment that's just crazy talk.
>
> I sized my glass to be roughly equivalent to a Mendel, but the other
> guys in the group have more Z height than I do.
>
> Do you have any measurements to work from?
>

No measurements yet, just thinking. I wouldn't think it would need to
be bigger than a stadium cup (6"x2"x3") or so.

Does anyone have a quick link handy describing the process for creating
printable objects? I literally don't even know how you tell it to print
something. For instance, I tend to use Blender when I need to create 3D
objects, and presumably it could export some format that some other
utility would use en-route to create the printing-instructions file.

-Lynne

[Ross Larson]

Have you seen this?  It's a parametric acoustic horn design from thingiverse which includes a python script for FreeCAD to create different shapes and sizes, as well as an STL file.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:19708 

Ross

[Tim Bertram]

The slicers that create the gcode for the printers take in STL files.
I haven't used blender but I think STL is a supported file type for
exports.

On Wed, Apr 4, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Lynne Whitehorn
<lynne.w...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Lynne Whitehorn]

On 4/4/2012 11:28 AM, Ross Larson wrote:
> Have you seen this? It's a parametric acoustic horn design from
> thingiverse which includes a python script for FreeCAD to create
> different shapes and sizes, as well as an STL file.
> http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:19708
>

I hadn't, and it's *cool*! Thanks.
-Lynne W

[Tim Bolz]

Combine http://www.minoru3d.com/ with
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:19708  for stereo microphone ears and
you would have a pretty cool looking robotic head. Maybe some a small
single round grilled speaker for a mouth. Maybe some tubes for air
monitoring or steam coming out for an evil look. Just saying it would
be a cool little robot head.Put it on a pan / tilt servo and voila one
nice looking robotic head. This would be my hack

Tim