Revisiting the MakerBot watch

[Bre Pettis]

Hey folks,

I'm looking at the MakerBot watch on my desk and I'm thinking it might be time to revisit it and get a bunch made.

This group has been through a few versions of the watch. Are there any features of the derivatives that you like?

What should be the inspiration for a new production version?

Things I'd like to see:
RTC
Power management so it lasts longer than a day.

Any other suggestions?

Bre

[Ante Vukorepa]

http://chronoduino.orcinus.me/index.php5?title=Chronoduino_v0.3

:)

-- 

Ante Vukorepa

Sent with Sparrow

[Nicholas Granado]

a tilt sensor kinda like how woz's cathode ray tube watch lights up when tilted would be sweet.

nick

[Nicholas Granado]

perhaps an accelerometer / gyroscope would do the trick?

nick

[Ante Vukorepa]

Tilt switches don't consume energy.

Accelerometers and gyros do.

-- 

Ante Vukorepa

Sent with Sparrow

[Nicholas Granado]

tilt switch it is. i don't know anything about the power consumption on this device, but it makes sense that it's definitely a concern.

nick

[Enkel Bici]

The new MakerBot watch could be based on the atmega32u4 with the
Leonardo bootloader.
This way you can put a micro usb port on it for charging and
communication.
What about a rechargeable 3032 coin cell battery?

E.

On May 18, 5:05 pm, Nicholas Granado <ngran...@gmail.com> wrote:
> tilt switch it is. i don't know anything about the power consumption on
> this device, but it makes sense that it's definitely a concern.
>
> nick
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 8:03 AM, Ante Vukorepa <o.orci...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Tilt switches don't consume energy.
> > Accelerometers and gyros do.
>
> > --
> > Ante Vukorepa

> > Sent with Sparrow <http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig>

>
> > On Friday, 18. May 2012. at 17:02, Nicholas Granado wrote:
>
> > perhaps an accelerometer / gyroscope would do the trick?
>
> > nick
>

> > On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 8:00 AM, Nicholas Granado <ngran...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > a tilt sensor kinda like how woz's cathode ray tube watch lights up when
> > tilted would be sweet.
>
> > nick
>

> > On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 7:57 AM, Ante Vukorepa <o.orci...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> >http://chronoduino.orcinus.me/index.php5?title=Chronoduino_v0.3
>
> > :)
>
> > --
> > Ante Vukorepa

> > Sent with Sparrow <http://www.sparrowmailapp.com/?sig>

[Ante Vukorepa]

Atmega32u4 sounds like a great idea.

I was planning on using it on the Chronoduino as well when i finally catch some free time to do rev 0.4.

3032 is a bad idea IMHO as with the hunkier sparkfun li-ion getting a day or two out of it is already a stretch.

MakerBot watch has a pretty huge footprint. Using a small diameter coin cell wouldn't accomplish much.

It'd make more sense to reduce the diameter and increase the thickness (the way i did, although for different reasons) and stash the battery inbetween two PCBs, for example.

-- 

Ante Vukorepa

Sent with Sparrow

[watanabe okigo]

I'd say the old version is damn good to me, let's make a bunch of (pcb) them and each of us can come up on our own version, see who the best !

[Enkel Bici]

What about putting something like this
http://kingbrighttw.en.alibaba.com/product/524345030-213204338/0_2_DUAL_DIGIT_7_SEGMENT_SMD_LED_DISPLAY.html
(just 9 pins to count 0-99)
It could show minutes or seconds.

Enkel Bici

[Ethan Dicks]

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Bre Pettis <brep...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey folks,
>
> I'm looking at the MakerBot watch on my desk and I'm thinking it might be
> time to revisit it and get a bunch made.

Nice timing.

> This group has been through a few versions of the watch. Are there any
> features of the derivatives that you like?

I was just fiddling with my "v3" watch this week. I'm liking the
MicroUSB charging port and the LiPo battery (vs the well-known
terrible on-time with the original coin cell).

> What should be the inspiration for a new production version?
>
> Things I'd like to see:
> RTC

Yep. The "v3" has that. though it lacks its own battery, so a dead
watch is a dead watch, but the accuracy is there.

> Power management so it lasts longer than a day.

The LiPo battery takes care of that. 110mAh, IIRC.

> Any other suggestions?

If there's a low-power tilt sensor/accelerometer, that would be handy
- I still think being able to sense ones wrist being flipped up and
turned into the "reading" position to engage the LEDs would be a very
handy feature - one recommendation - make sure it works for lefties!
A combination of two axes/sensors might be required - one to notice
the watch is more-or-less level (first you bring your arm up), then
one to notice the watch is in the
"six-o-clock-points-towards-the-floor" orientation (next, you turn
your arm). One could just sense when it's in the final position, but
then it wouldn't make a good pendant or pocket watch. For those, it
could stay off in most orientations, then turn on when tilted to some
previously chosen orientation.

These moves are easy to detect with an accelerometer, but the power
consumption may defeat the purpose - 2 or maybe 3 passive tilt sensors
connected to a wake-up pin might be less flexible but use much less
power.

I liked the idea of the accessible analog pins on the original watch,
but I haven't figured out what to attach to them yet.

-ethan

[Ante Vukorepa]

There are single-package 2-axis tilt switches.

That might work nicely.

-- 

Ante Vukorepa

Sent with Sparrow

[Ethan Dicks]

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 5:31 PM, Ante Vukorepa <o.or...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There are single-package 2-axis tilt switches.
> That might work nicely.

This one looked small and inexpensive...

http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10313

-ethan

[Ante Vukorepa]

That one's active, though.

Consumes energy, i mean.

-- 

Ante Vukorepa

Sent with Sparrow

[Ethan Dicks]

On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Ante Vukorepa <o.or...@gmail.com> wrote:
> That one's active, though.
> Consumes energy, i mean.

True, but it's a start. It should consume less power than the MCU
running full-out.

I don't think it's necessary to get to zero power (since the RTC will
be using the batteries anyway), but keeping it very low is important -
mostly from not running the LEDs and pausing the MCU.

-ethan

[Ante Vukorepa]

One important thing…

Don't forget to hook up the RTC alarm pin to one of the MCU interrupt pins.

That way you can put the MCU into deep sleep and have the RTC wake it up periodically to do quick housekeeping (alarms, logging etc.)

-- 

Ante Vukorepa

Sent with Sparrow

[Romain Bazile]

There's one thing that's sure nice, it's how fast people react when anything is posted here! ;)

So as a summary of what's requested:
RTC with alarm pin
Tilt switches and/or accelerometer/gyros
7 segment led display
ATmega32u4
3032 li ion cell battery (or Lipo battery!)


I think good improvement would be the ATmega32u4, the Lipo battery, RTC with alarm pin and maybe tilt switches (though i'm not convinced about them. It would be terribly annoying (for me at least) to have to put the watch in one position to get the time).


Where is the chronoduino at? Any release of the source code planned?


Cheers everyone!

Romain

[Ante Vukorepa]

I've put the Chronoduino source up on the wiki here:

http://chronoduino.orcinus.me/index.php5?title=Software

I haven't really touched it since last summer, though :/

-- 

Ante Vukorepa

Sent with Sparrow

[Enkel Bici]

The baisha pocket watch has an interesting alternative to the 7
segment display
http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/baisha-pocket-watch-p-1080.html?cPath=202
It uses normal smd leds in a 7-segment configuration.
Obviously, since we need to show minutes/seconds we should need only two digits

Enkel Bici

[Ante Vukorepa]

I've bought a batch of HP 5082-7433 displays to use as a watch display.

They're three digits per module, so two modules = HHmmss.

They're tiny enough to fit on my "face" modules, leaving enough space for a ring of LEDs, a row of 5 LEDs extra, magnetometer, LED controller and a shift register (i've already designed the board and have three prototypes).

Trouble is, they've been out of production for a while now.

You can snag them on ebay every now and then, though, in ample quantities, so it might be another solution worth investigating.

-- 

Ante Vukorepa

Sent with Sparrow

[Matt Joyce]

There are modern serial in versions of the hdsp-211x but they are like 40usd new.

[Romain Bazile]

This sounds awesome!

Is it possible to get one with the chronoduino base and a standard face?