Tinylab Getting Started

[MustafaModerator]

Hi everyone,

You can find getting started document this link:

http://www.tinylab.cc/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Getting_Started.pdf

This is Tinylab’s pinout diagram:

http://www.tinylab.cc/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/tinylab-pinout-diagram2.png

Here is our GitHub page:

https://github.com/sixfab/tinylab

And you can find all of them on this page:

Getting Started

Have fun with Tinylab!

Edit: What will you learn or what can you do Tinylab? Example document:

sixfab.com/tinylabexamples.pdf

• This topic was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by  İsmet Ergin.
• This topic was modified 2 years, 2 months ago by  Mustafa. Reason: adding new document

[earlParticipant]

First and foremost, awesome work!

And a BIG thanks for doing and including the case!

Now questions on the actual kit.

Where can I find documentation on what the DIP switch all do?

From what I see on the board, they seem to match up to the headers for the Arduino shield, so I’m assuming they toggle whether or not the signal goes to the header or part of the board. But it would be VERY useful to have a table to describe what each does relative to the DIP switches.

Also, all but one of the add on boards were in labeled bags. The last one wasn’t so I’m assuming it’s the the bluetooth connector. But I really don’t see anything in the documentation to confirm that. The female-to-female cable that was included made things even more confusing.

Lastly, one of the standoffs underneath the board doesn’t have a screw thru it (at least in my kit). The one near the temp sensor. Was this intentional or did one just get left out of my kit? If so, can you tell me what size/#/length screw it is?

[axel50397Member]

Same as others, GREAT THANKS !

While I have the same questions as @earl, I also want to say that the upper left corner screw is (also) missing. Not a big deal.

What does “Remove seal after washing” means, on the buzzer? To ignore? Or important?

[axel50397Member]

@lennart Now you mention all that… It seems obvious… Thank you.

I hope the admins will move this thread to a classic one, and will make a “pinned” thread with the FAQ or not so obvious questions for beginners.

[raimundMember]

The seal on the buzzer you can remove.It is just needed through the pcb-process

Which is correct. If you remove the seal the buzzer gets a little bit louder as well.

Raimund

[raimundMember]

Hi all,

just my second post here. In my previous (first post here) post I tested the quote function – whow – gets very big. Is this intentionally? I would prefer to have real quotes or a separate box, but with normal sized characters.

TinyLab:

It was also my first stumbling point to find out what the dip switches would do, but could find it out pretty soon and was sure about it when I had examined the schematics. In general I am happy with it as a lot of things can be tested without having to deal with flying wires which sometimes cause a headache and a chaos on the desktop.

What I would like to test next is exchanging some test routines of the original test sketch, especially the rotary encoder is not very responsive and I don’t like the implemented LCD library (my favourite: F. Malpartida’s New LCD Crystal library as it got all my different lcd screens to work without any hassle).

Having done this I could take the tested sketches 1:1 to my project(s) without having to adjust libraries, constructors etc.

One question to @mustafa: What exactly does the EEPROM content do in the test sketch? When I change the lcd and rotary library – would that be affected by values in the EEPROM and cause problems?

Raimund

 

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by  İsmet Ergin.

[raimundMember]

Big sorry, but I forgot to thank the makers of TinyLab for your master piece – should have been my post #0 😉

What I am missing as for “getting started” with TinyLab: a specification for the DC motor to be connected to the Lab (= max current, voltage).

I tried to get a little PC fan (4cm) to turn – no way without giving it a kick by hand, it just shakes a little and doesn’t start on its own, so I suspect that it draws too much current to start on its own. Have to check the schematics again – maybe only for small 5V DC motors?

[axel50397Member]

@raimund The DC Motor is on the d5 pin, which means it can draw only what the Leonardo’s datasheet, which says “40 mA” and I’ve heard NO MORE THAN 50 mA.

[gtinylabParticipant]

As with others: thanks for creating TinyLab. I have been meaning to start looking into Arduino for some time!

Quick question from a newbie: I have been looking at the Github code and thought I would try out the tinylab_test_code. But where do I find the various libraries it needs? Do I just search for suitable libraries or is there a standard place to find them?

[lennartMember]

@raimund @axel50397 I think you draw up to 100ma on the D5 Pin because there is a BC847 NPN before. With 5V and 100ma you can get 0.5W

@gtinylab Yes there is the problem with the libraries for the test code. I have not found the libraries anywhere. @mustafa maybe the tinylab-team can upload the libraries with the testcode on github

[AndreNMember]

I was able to find all the libraries. Here’s a list of where I think I found them (it was a couple weeks ago so I had to look them up again):

LCD (LiquidTWI2):
https://github.com/lincomatic/LiquidTWI2

Real-time clock:
https://github.com/PaulStoffregen/DS1307RTC

Time:
https://github.com/PaulStoffregen/Time

Rotary encoder:
https://github.com/mathertel/RotaryEncoder

ExtEEPROM:
https://github.com/JChristensen/extEEPROM

RF24:
https://github.com/TMRh20/RF24

LedControl:
https://github.com/wayoda/LedControl

[SD and SPI libraries appear to be included with Arduino install by default]

For any item on GitHub, click green “clone or download” button, then “download zip”. Unzip and put the contents in a subfolder of your Arduino\Libraries folder.

 

[gtinylabParticipant]

@andren thanks for the pointers. Unfortunately tinylab_test_code still won’t build: it is about 200 bytes too big. Did you get it to work? If so, maybe I need to try some older releases of the libraries if they have got bigger.

[AndreNMember]

For me it builds using 99% of the available space, but I’m running Arduino 1.6.7. It may be that with a newer SDK version like 1.6.10 it uses a bit more space to build, hitting 100+%.

Here’s a workaround. When I was working on another project, I found the SD library is way too large. There’s a replacement library called SdFat which is much smaller. Switching to that dropped tinylab_test_code space usage from 99% to 86%. To switch to SdFat,

Go to https://github.com/greiman/SdFat and copy the SdFat library to your Arduino\Libraries folder.

In tinylab_test_code.ino, change this (line 30):

#include <SD.h>

to this:

#include <SdFat.h>

and compile/upload the sketch again. Not sure if anyone from BoMec is reading this, but they should consider making this change. Maybe I’ll try to add a pull request for it to their GitHub.

 

 

 

[raimund1Member]

@gtinylab:

if possible, uninstall IDE 1.6.10 and load either 1.6.9 or 1.6.11.

Although it might have worked in this case for you, the 1.6.10 is a very buggy IDE ;-(

[rene-milonMember]

Hi

The lcd programs (‘hello world’ or others) and LiquidTWI2 libraires don’t compile. I get usually ‘LiquidTWI2’ does not name a type or ‘lcd’ was not declared in this scope.

Can you help ?

Thanks

 

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