Super Powers!

Posted on May 10, 2019 by jjveleber | Permalink Comments Off on Super Powers!

Since 2014 I have been working on myself. I have learned to love myself. Through this journey (I am still on it), I have learned an amazing thing about myself. I have a super power. I have the ability to get people to open up to me and connect with me on a deep emotional level. I never knew that I wanted this, but I love it. I get to be my true self and know someone else deeply. I makes me so happy. If it isn not clear this super power is vulnerability. If you don’t believe me we should hang out and I will tell you who I really am.

I will tell you how I am afraid that if you really know me that you will be repulsed and abandon me. I will tell you about how I need to be right and be able solve all of your problems so that you see value in me. I will tell you how I hide the beautiful parts of myself because I am ashamed (not as much anymore). I will look you in the eye when I speak my truths. I will tell you about my experience. I will do my very best to say “I” when I mean “I” and avoid saying “you” when I really mean “I.”

I will listen to your story intently with genuine curiosity. I want, very much, to connect with you. I want you to be seen and heard. I will be present and attentive. I will do all of this because you are worthy of it. I know this because I am worthy.

Seriously, if you want to grab a beer or a bite or both I would love to hear your story and hopefully you will hear mine too.

Life

Sheep It!

Posted on October 15, 2015 by jjveleber | Permalink 1

Back when I was still working at Amazon I decided to contribute to a DIY/Maker faire. I can’t remember the title of the event.  I thought it would be fun to make a game that could use the buttons I had made in a previous build (see: Jeopardy Controllers are Easy). I thought a memory game would be fun and fairly easy to make in a week. I call it Sheep It! If it isn’t obvious, this is a play on words (or a bad pun) for both the moniker for code reviews at Amazon that pass (Ship It!) and the idea that one might be called a sheep for following a leader (which is what this game is all about).

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJkE0cNOyLU[/embedyt]

I enjoy using QT and thought that I would like to learn how QML works. The code located at  Read more »

Making, Programming, Technology , , , , , , , , , , ,

uint32_t writeError = UC3 + STK600 + JTAG;

Posted on August 29, 2015 by jjveleber | Permalink 2

I can’t write to my AT32UC3A3 using my STK600 and AVR Dragon via JTAG! What do I do?!

My adventure in troubleshooting Atmel programmers/debuggers

I have been working on a prototype for an audio hub type device for my Ford F-150. The bluetooth connectivity is unreliable:

  1. Making a connection is difficult
  2. Connections don’t always stick
  3. Sometimes there is a strange behavior where the audio will speed up in short bursts

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to create a device that will connect to my phone via bluetooth (reliably) as well as serve up mp3 files from an SD card. I may go into more detail about this later, but that is not what I am writing about today.

Read more »

Electronics, Making, Programming, Technology

Jeremy Makes Stuff: Brown Belt

Posted on April 10, 2015 by jjveleber | Permalink Comments Off on Jeremy Makes Stuff: Brown Belt

I couldn’t earn a brown belt, so I made one.

Please subscribe and share this video. Thanks!

Leather Work, Making , , , , , ,

Learning: AVR Assembly

Posted on December 27, 2013 by jjveleber | Permalink Comments Off on Learning: AVR Assembly

I have been trying to learn AVR assembly for the past few weeks. Things are coming along, but it is tough to remember all of the 3 and 4 letter instructions and which registers they can work with. Here is part of an example project, which was really a series of exercises that I worked on through out the chapter. I’ve been reading a book from 2002 called AVR: An Introductory Course. While the reviews for this book haven’t been great, I’ve found it to be a reasonable book for learning. I’m sure it is outdated but I think much of it still applies.

Here is what I came up with for the first part of the Counter project from chapter 2.

/*
 * Counter.asm
 *
 *  Created: 12/25/2013 12:23:58 PM
 *   Author: jjveleber
 */ 

.device ATMEGA328P
.nolist
.include "m328pdef.inc"; Import atmega328p file
.list

;==============
; Declarations:
.def tmp = r16			; rename working register
.def counter = r17		; rename counter register

;==============
; Start of program:
	rjmp Setup

Setup:
	clr counter			; clear counter
	ldi tmp, 0b00000000	; Set I/O on PortB
	out DDRB, tmp		;
	ldi tmp, 0b00000001	; Set I/O on PortD
	out DDRD, tmp		;

	ldi tmp, 0b00000000	; Set Pullups on PortB
	out PortB, tmp		;
	ldi tmp, 0b00000001	; Set Pullups on PortD
	out PortD, tmp		;

						; Setup 7 segment codes
	;		    ABCDEFG 
	ldi r20, 0b01111110 ; 0 
	ldi r21, 0b00110000 ; 1
	ldi r22, 0b01101101	; 2
	ldi r23, 0b01111001	; 3
	ldi r24, 0b00110011 ; 4
	ldi r25, 0b01011011	; 5
	ldi r26, 0b01011111	; 6
	ldi r27, 0b01110000	; 7
	ldi r28, 0b01111111	; 8
	ldi r29, 0b01110011	; 9

Loop:

	sbic PinD, 0		; read push button on/off
	rjmp Loop			; branch for retry if not pressed
	inc counter			; increment button press counter 

	cpi counter, 0xA	; is counter == 10
	brne PC+2			; skip reset if counter != 10
	clr counter			; reset counter

	clr ZH				; Set address of Z
	ldi ZL, 20			;
	add ZL, counter		; Set address offset in 7 segment codes
	ld tmp, Z			; read out 7 segment code
	out PortB, tmp		; display counter	
    rjmp Loop               ; loop forever

Be warned: I am just learning so some of this may be incorrect. It is fun to learn new things. Don’t you think?

Education, Programming, Technology , , , ,

Citadel 3D v0.1

Posted on May 13, 2013 by jjveleber | Permalink 2

Citadel Bottom RightHere is my 1st attempt at PCB design. These are renderings of the Citadel project I have been working on. I still have some traces to complete, but most of it is done. PCB layout isn’t easy. You have to think at least 5 moves ahead when placing a component or laying down traces. It is amazing how much effort it takes to layout a 4″x4″ PCB.

Electronics, Life, Technology , , , ,

Arduino Workshop Book

Posted on May 7, 2013 by jjveleber | Permalink 2

Arduino Workshop
Here is a book I just came across. It looks promising. John Boxall seems to have the book printed out on his website as well, complete with code and videos. Awesome! The book is a pretty great deal ($17.97+$5.60 shipping for me) with the 40% discount for using discount code: BLINKYTHINGS

Just so it is clear, I have nothing to do with tronixstuff, but I do enjoy the blog. Cool stuff!

Over the last few years I’ve been writing a few Arduino tutorials, and during this time many people have mentioned that I should write a book. And now thanks to the team from No Starch Press this recommendation has morphed into my new book – “Arduino Workshop“
—t r o n i x s t u f f

UPDATE: John mentioned, “…the book is different to the tutorials on the website and is a separate entity.” Even better! Thanks John.

Electronics , ,

Citadel Breadboard

Posted on April 20, 2013 by jjveleber | Permalink 3

Here is what I have so far for my drum enclosure lighting system, code name: Citadel. 🙂

I will provide more documentation, when I get around to it. Cheers!

Electronics , , , , ,

Jeopardy Controllers are Easy

Posted on April 17, 2013 by jjveleber | Permalink 1

Hardware is easy…

according to the people that use many of the things I make, that is. They don’t actually say this, but I can tell. They see that you connected a box via usb to a computer and, Buzzerspresumably, think, ‘oh that looks simple, you just hook up this cable and it works.‘ It isn’t until they ask how it was made and I crack open the enclosure do they get an idea of how much work it really is to put something like this together. The project I am referring to here, as you might have guessed, is a of game buzzer button type controls.

While sitting and eating some lunch at The Wurst Place with my Amazon team we discussed what fun activity we could do at our next “Beer Friday” (which don’t happen every Friday, so we are clear). We had a bunch of harebrained ideas that would ultimately have little to know participation or bring down human resources on us within an hour. I then brought up that I had watched Defcon Jeopardy a while back and it looked like a lot of fun. This conversation went quickly to how we could make this happen in 7 days. We decided that is would be possible to build both the hardware buzzers and the software game-board and scoring system in those 7 days. This proved to be a time challenge for me.

I had to order the parts that I needed from Amazon with 2 day shipping to get them in time to complete the build. I should have used 1 day shipping.

Items from Amazon:

  1. Learning Resources Answer Buzzers – Set of 4
  2. Arduino Uno R3
  3. Protoshield KIT for Arduino R3
  4. Box for Arduino

Arduino UNO r3Proto boardI didn’t get my parts until Tuesday and the game was on that Friday. I drew up a simple schematic and mapped out pins to functional components.

Read more »

Electronics, Technology , , ,

EE Learning

Posted on February 21, 2013 by jjveleber | Permalink Comments Off on EE Learning

ee-stack-exchangeWhile browsing electronics.stackexchange.com, I found the following list of electronics learning sites:

I thought they might be helpful so I am re-posting them. Enjoy!

Electronics