Comments for Utopia Mechanicus

Comment on The Utopia Open Source Braille Reader/Display ‘Audrey’ by David Pankhurst

David Pankhurst — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:19:10 +0000

Using a driver board like the Adafruit one, you can control 2 steppers at a time with a single Arduino, which is all you need for the display. As for software/docs, I’m posting them as I finish them – stay tuned!

Comment on The Utopia Open Source Braille Reader/Display ‘Audrey’ by Ahmad Abbas

Ahmad Abbas — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:01:45 +0000

Good Idea
I am going to design this device with 8 charcters , but how I can use only one Arduino,
Also I find some difficulites in the computer programme and in the Arduino Programming and type.
Please if you have any documents related to my questions , send it to my email

Thank you ..

Comment on How To Initialize (Or Clear) Variables Fast on the Arduino by Mitko

Mitko — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:32:24 +0000

Hi David, i find your post very interesting. I have posted a link to it in my blog. I’m just starting with the Arduino and I’m amazed what things you can do with it. Cheers!

Comment on A Better Serial.print() For Arduino by Chuck Allen

Chuck Allen — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:15:35 +0000

Thanks for the quick reply. I’ve converted all my “debugging” messages and saved about 600 bytes – a big deal in this particular application. I do have a flag that will eliminate them completely for production, but for now this code has helped immensely. I’ll simply massage the floats to ints for the trace – not a big deal – precision not important in the message.

Comment on A Better Serial.print() For Arduino by David Pankhurst

David Pankhurst — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 07:48:25 +0000

Unfortunately, from the source it appears floating point isn’t supported in vsnprintf() – so you’ll either need to write your own version, or massage floating point to int (for example, scaling by 100). Here’s a web page where this topic is discussed, including code: http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1164927646

Comment on A Better Serial.print() For Arduino by Chuck Allen

Chuck Allen — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:46:53 +0000

Great routine and helping me with a space problem. However, I can’t get floating decimal fields to format. I’m using
Serialprint(” %12s Temp = %f C, %f F, Min = %d, Max = %d\n”,
sensorList[ix].ds_Name,
sensorList[ix].ds_celsius,
sensorList[ix].ds_fahrenheit,
sensorList[ix].ds_min_Temp,
sensorList[ix].ds_max_Temp);
All prints fine except the %f fields just print question marks. Needless to say they print fine with Serial.print(…..); Any suggestions? Thanks

Comment on Gear/Drive Train Design In the Audrey Braille Display by David Pankhurst

David Pankhurst — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:25:43 +0000

Yesterday I was on a site that talked about teaching kids – and getting them up to about 200wpm before they left school! So yes, I guess my estimate was way too low. However, I still need a target to aim for, and right now I’m well under 150wpm, so I’m good for awhile – but if I ever reach 150, I’ll be sure not to rest on my laurels!

Comment on The Utopia Open Source Braille Reader/Display ‘Audrey’ by John Greer

John Greer — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:09:27 +0000

I am a blind computer user and came across this project while searching on Google. I will continue to watch this project with alot of interest.

Comment on Gear/Drive Train Design In the Audrey Braille Display by Nehemiah Hall

Nehemiah Hall — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:54:56 +0000

Sorry. I was doing 2 things at once. The highest I know of personally is 429.

Comment on Gear/Drive Train Design In the Audrey Braille Display by Nehemiah Hall

Nehemiah Hall — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:53:51 +0000

I hate to tell you, but that max estimate is low. I’ve been a student at, and later done some work for, a blindness training center. We had students reading much higher. 150 is probably closer to the average. One of the highest reading rates I know of was around 129. If you need, contact me, and I can either find out, or put you in touch with people that can give you better estimates.