AquaPinguino

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Susanne from Germany has started a nice project she calls AquaPinguino.
She has built a system with automatic monitoring and control of every major water and lighting factors for her seawater aquarium.
She made a double side board controlled by a Pinguino32 Micro with relays on one side to control lights and mosfets on the other side for pump flow regulation.
pingu
At the moment the LED-light can only be turned on and off for day/night simulation but Susanne has also planned to simulate sunrise/sunset and maybe lunar-phase.
Pinguino’s PWM can drive up to four 12V pumps. One is for water level regulation and pumps demineralised water from a canister into the aquarium. The other ones can simulate waves, streams and also basic high/low tide.
Next step will be to add temperature control to drive air fans in order to cool water in the summer season. She also plans to add alarms for water level control and redox potential sensor to regulate a calcium reactor.
All information are displayed on her self-made “console terminal” with 6 buttons and a 16×1 LCD display.
Bravo !
bedienelementpingu

100 Pinguino 26j50 Kits available !

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We made 100 Pinguino 26j50 Kits.
Why not combine your Christmas shopping this year with your favorite hobby ?
Think about your grandmother or your little sister and make them happy with a Pinguino.
You will support our efforts to make a better IDE !

http://wiki.pinguino.cc/index.php/PIC18F26J50_Pinguino

http://shop.pinguino.cc/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=50

Pinguino as a remote controller for your Linux machine

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Yeison is one of the contributor of Pinguino IDE. He’s the one who wrote most of the Python code in the X.3 version. His new deal is to use Pinguino as a remote controller for a Linux machine. Using this python code you can send a shell command with the CDC module and execute it on your computer. We can imagine an IR receiver connected to Pinguino and use a TV remote controller to drive your computer.

First of all, you need to change permissions on the serial port used:
sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyACM0

then execute the python code ( download it on Yeison website )

In the Pinguino board, this is a simple example to open the terminal and take a screenshot:

void setup() {
    }
 
void loop() {
    //Open terminal
    CDC.println("shell: gnome-terminal");
    delay(1000);
     
    //Take a screenshot
    CDC.println("shell: gnome-screenshot");
    delay(1000);
    }

Follow Yeison blog to learn more about Pinguino ( in spanish ).

Pinguino 26J50 !!

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A new 8 bit board is available with full support in the last SVN revision. Regis and André published their work this week and made a lot of work to incorporate it in Pinguino IDE.
This board uses a 18F26J50 and a new bootloader rewritten from scratch and based on the DIOLAN Bootloader.
18F26J50 is a 8 bits PIC with many features:

  • 64 kbytes
  • 3800 bytes of RAM
  • a CTMU module ( to build capacitive sensors )
  • 2 Serial port
  • 2 SPI/I2C
  • operating voltage from 2 to 3,6V with 5,5V tolerant input

As usual, everything is published as Open Source and Open Hardware. Feel free to build the board and give your opinion.

Kicad files, bootloader and schematic are available on the website.

 

PINGUINO32-DIY is ready !!

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Pinguino32-DIY is now fully functional. The board is working with its own HID boot loader.
We have now some work to do to incorporate this board in the Pinguino IDE. The job should be done this week and we should propose a new version of the IDE next week-end !!
At this moment,’GENERIC250F128′ works with a 8 Mhz crystal for a finally system frequency of 40 Mhz. The goal is to make it work with the internal oscillator.

All the files can be downloaded on the google code area of the project. Design has been made with KICAD. The compressed file contain:
- KICAD design to build the board
- HID bootloader to be burned to the chip
- a simple application program to be used to test upload with ubw32

This design is published as GPL and you are free to build it, modify it and of course improve it. It is pin to pin compatible with the PIC32MX220F032B wich can be used with the same bootloader.
We are proud to propose this board as ( probably ) the first 32 bits home-made system.
With this board, Pinguino IDE keep is DIY spirit !!

The Development Team……

Pinguino X.3 !!

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PinguinoX.3 is now available in the download area for both Linux and Windows computer.
With the help of all the users and the developers team, many improvement have been added to make Pinguino a better development environment.
Still in Beta, as usual, but to be improved with your remarks, critics, suggestions…..
Many thanks to the users,
Congratulations to the development team:

  • Regis Blanchot
  • Marcus Fazzi
  • Jesus Carmona Esteban
  • Alfred Broda
  • Yeison Cardona
  • Henk Van Beek
  • Björn Pfeiffer
  • Alexis Sanchez

Download revision 381 on website.

PINGUINO32-DIY

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Finally, we designed a new board with a low cost 32 bits PIC. This board will become the generic-PIC32-board in Pinguino. Based on a PIC32MX250F128B, with 128k of flash and 32k of RAM, 17 I/O, 2 UART etc….
The same board can be used with a PIC32MX220F032B, the same chip used on OLIMEX Pinguino-MX220. We are working on the bootloader which should work with the internal oscillator of the chip ( no external crystal on this board ).

This board can be built ‘in a garage’ as usual !! With this new design, Pinguino stay in its original spirit. Kicad files and even a Gcode file to build it with a milling machine should be soon available.

Stay connected !!