For this week assignment: build a wired &/or wireless network with at least two nodes I decide to make asynchronous bus network (hello.bus.45) that can be found in the class webpage. I check the academy tutorial to follow the different instructions.

I start by milling the boards in the Roland Modela and stuffing them following the plans. Everything seems to be well executed, but when I connect the board to the AVR programmer it does not work. I try to look for errors and I see that I had placed the microcontrollers in the wrong direction so I remove them with the hot gun and I solder them again in the correct position (I rotate them 180 degrees). I try again, but it still not working.

components

AVR programmer not working

I then decide to remake all the boards again. Once I finish I try to program them again, but the AVR programmer shows the orange blinking light again. I ask James Coleman, who is around in the lab, for advice. He checks the boards and says that everything looks fine. He suggests me to program the boards with the FabISP, but I cannot do that because I burnt mine a couple of weeks ago. In the end, the AVR programmer was broke and Skylar Tibbits lets his programmer in the shop so we can use it (Thanks!). It worked perfectly.

my new boards (second set)

new programer working OK

red LED lit when programming the board

programming works!

I program the boards assigning different node numbers in the C code (bridge=0, node1=1, node2=2) and run the python terminal. It works!

python terminal sending signals to nodes

bus asynchronous network

(Click on the image to see video)

:) Ignacio Peydro. December 4, 2012