New version of jamlooper

About month ago I realised that it would be extremaly easy to build new jamlooper in godot. And so I did. Why is it easier? Well Android Studio is very heavy IDE. The boilerplate code that you need to write just to run app is huge.

And building/debugging is very slow. In godot on the other hand everthing is small and fast. Things I had to do manually in Android Studio came out of the box in godot. Andorid version of jamlooper took me about a year to complete. In godot I've made it in one month. And what is even better is that you can port this app to Android, Windows, App store and web. Unfortunetly I can't put this app on google play as of now. It's becouse now google needs you to provide evidences of your identity and I don't want to put my personal data on the internet so now my accout is blocked.  App is waiting for better days :)

Drift King Godot project

Every time when I decide to make a game I'm very excited. I like to code but it takes time. I've always started everything from scratch. It took months to finish and when I was about to finish I was bored with it. Right now I'm very busy but I had three weeks spare time and had an aportunity to learn how to make game in godot. The pronciple was to make very simple game very fast without reinventind the wheel. Just make all the mechanics and with royality free assets available free online. In this game you control small car on a road. This car can drift and basically that's it. You need to be carefull not to fell of the map. Sometime in the future I will add buildings or maybe dirt map. It would be great to make it online game to play with friends or make some AI to compete with. Anyway I can tell you that godot is rather easy to learn considering that there is a ton of online videos. Sometimes its tricky spacially with grid map when you want to draw your map using objects that you imported from online file like FBX or OBJ. And it requires you to have some basic knowledge about 3D grafics and handling physics. Great thing with godot which made me decide to learn using it was the ability to export your game to APK and run it on mobile. When I finish this game sometime in the future I will share it on this page. As of now you can see the final result on my short video here.

Roland SPD30 MIDI extension

I have this Roland SPD30 digital percussion pad and Alesis DM6 electronic drum kit. I like SPD30 sound and that you can customize it to your needs. Roland pads are nice, but you cannot play them like real drums. But you can expand it using external pads and hi-hat control. Unfortunately, there are only 4 inputs, so you can only set up, for example, hi-hat, snare, kick, and ride. I wanted to have a full drum experience, so I came up with a solution.

The Roland SPD30 also has MIDI input (DIN5 and USB). With a bunch of laying around electronic components, I have built a MIDI extension. Basically, it's just 4 analog inputs on Arduino (protected with a diode and resistor) that are connected to piezo triggers on Alesis DM6 pads. There is even a dedicated Arduino library for this called HelloDrum. Another useful library is the Arduino MIDI library, which lets you send MIDI data using a UART serial interface. I'll be testing this design now for a few days. I like the way all parts came together to fit in a small enclosure that's been collecting dust for many years.

Arduino hand programable PLC training station

To properly test my new device I came up with this training station like design that fits in the smallest case I could find. I like how everything fits so well and is so portable now. There is even room for some addons (which I planned because PLC has i2c extension port). But the main benefit of this is that everytime when I make a project like that after some time is put in some sort of box. But now when it has this dust/damage protection it wont get lost anywhere I can return to it when ever I want.

Raspberry-PI Function Block Diagrams

In order to learn something new I like to get my hands dirty with new technology rather then buy expensive book and do things step by step. I don't have as much time as I used to. So looking at new framework I'm trying to find out if I can to stuff easier. As you can see by my last posts I was working on a PLC device that can be programmed without computer using only buttons. That came out to be very interesting device to make and I'm still working on it because it's so much fun. A new idea came to my mind to make a PLC that unfortunately will need PC but will provide programming software on its own. It will be a raspberry PI which will host a webpage that you can connect to using ethernet/WIFI then draw functional block desing using front-end application and deploy code that will immediately run. I'm trying to find best (easiest) technologies for this purpose. As of now I'm testing if they will work together. Wish me luck :P

New keyboard/display panel design

On the left you can see my new idea on how to make keyboard/display panel for device like that. I wasn't happy with cutting holes in plastic by my self. It always looked crooked and not profesional. There was a problem with buttons as well. TACT switches with long buttons where unstable (they where slightly moving in all directions when you applied force). So I came up with a design where top panel is really just a PCB board with holes made on CNC. That way I'm sure that everything is even and on the right place. Small TACT switches mounted on top are very steady. I wanna try different solder mask color but green looks nice. Design of this device is almost complete. There are only few issus I have to address.

Update on arduino hand programable controller

Here is a new update on my arduino controller. As you can see I modified it a little. Since the main purpose of this device is to run small program i tought it should also be compact and without a need to connect external supply source or relays. This device can be connected directly to 230VAC. It has 4 optically separated digital inputs, 4 SPDT relay outputs and one separated analog input 0-5VDC. There is RTC on board and FRAM memory so you can use memory markers that will persist after power loss. Also there is now a way to download/upload program from a computer. You can see the new design on pictures below.

Arduino handheld programmable controller - article in EdW 06/2022

This year I've decided that not only I will finish arduino handheld programmable controler project but I will also write an article describing it in detail. And I did. You can read about it in polish magazine "Elektronika dla Wszystkich" released in June 2022 (picture below). Also check this link. I know that this article may not be accesible to every person on the planet. Nevertheless I'm happy that it was interesting enough to be released to a bigger autience. If you wanna know how this device works I also recorded short video available below.

ArduSTL - arduino handheld programmer

Recently I've made this setup (in the picture). It's arduino nano connected to OLED display and 5 buttons. Basically what it does is you can program this device without connecting it to computer. You can just select instructions (statements) that will be executed one after another. This statements are simple assembler like instructions. Language is based on STL or SL - statement list (it is used in Siemens PLC's).  It's my new idea so as of now code is in mess and there is no documentation. It's a work in progress.

 

AT90USB162 Arduino Programmer

Recently I came up with an idea to make my own arduino programmer using the same board I used to make USB MIDI controler. As you can see on the pictures below board had some design flaws that I found this week but I managed to lunch it successfully. As in the previous case I've used LUFA's (Lightweight USB Framework for AVRs, formerly known as MyUSB) slightly modified USB Serial example. I'm going to use this circuit as AVR Node programmer and front panel controller.

New AVR Node board

Currently I'm testing new design for AVR Node board. In the pictures below you can see main board (on the left) equiped with ATMEGA328P with arduino bootloader, ULN2803A relay driver, and 3A step down converter. This week I'll be testing RTC and FRAM memory module. On the right you can see USB to RS232 module (based on CH340 chip) and LED array controlled with SN74HC595D using SPI communication (for input/output indication). 

Jam Looper 3.0 tutorial video

Just released new tutorial video on how to use new Jam Looper with all features explained. Just a reminder that new stable version of Jam Looper 3.0 is now available on Google Play here

Jam Looper 3.0 Beta Release

New version of JamLooper 3.0 is available in Google Play. It's in beta release so you can access it by accepting beta tester invitation (link here). 

App features are:

• Downloading music from youtube (via share buton - see video)
• Tempo/pitch control (in settings)
• Snap to beat (in settings)
• Option to save selected parts in up to 5 slots
• Editor tour guide
• Option to send feedback

AVR Node Editor - booster project

This is screen shot of first project made using my AVR Node Editor (and it's working) but there is still much work to do. Basically what this logic does is it starts engine when the pressure is lower then set value and then stops engine when pressure excidees another value. By start/stop engine I mean energizing coil of connected relays and by pressure I mean voltage on potentiometer (picture below). Project is running on arduino nano.

AVR Node Editor testing set

Recently I made a testing set for my AVR PLC. The PLC (on the right in the image below) is connected to K8055 USB experimental interface board (on the left in the image below). After I connect K8055 board to my PC I can control its digital and analog inputs/outputs using special software. There is also a special DLL library so you can make your own software to control this board. My goal is to use this library with Unreal Engine to make virtual plants that will be controlled with my AVR PLC device.

Jam looper 2.3 is here!

Checkout new version of JamLooper available for free in Google Play: here.

This version fixes issues like:

• Some mp3 files names not visible bug fixed 
• File list scrolling bug 
• Better file dialog scrolling 
• Remember last directory
• Fine tuning marker positions 
• Preview after moving B marker

Kropelmania remake

Just made a remake of my old game kropelmania using Construct2. It's available on itch.io:

AVRNode Visual Editor

Recently I'm working on my own Visual Editor for AVR microcontroller programming. Basically it will parse custom source files written in c language and create nodes from it that can be reused. Whole app is written in Qt using this cool library available on github (link).

AVR Visual Programming using DIA

Few days ago I've made simple PLC using AVR microcontroller and DIA Visual Programming concept that I came up with. You can read more about it here.

Jewelry Shop game

My first HaxeFlixel/OpenFL game that covers everything I've learned about that framework in past few months. It's a classic match 3 game with some nice graphics that I've made. It's available on Google Play (link), and also you can play it via web browser (link). It was fun making it... Here's video... Hope you like it.