Need help choosing hardware to start with

Archive
1

Hello everyone.
I want to build a camera control box,
that will trigger my camera flash with sound or beam-crossing
(Insect and Bird in-flight photography)
I have used PIC micro controllers, but that was a while ago.

I’ve been looking into Arduino, but then I found Netduino,
and then I found Fez Panda,
and I thought, bingo. This is what I want.
I’ve read that most Arduino shields work, some only partly.

Can someone direct me to an text LCD that
is easy to use with the Fez?

Will this microphone work with the Fez Panda ?
http://cgi.ebay.com/…=item2a0e1af6f1

Thanks,
Excited to be doing this stuff again,
SW

2

Hi SW,

[quote]…text LCD that
is easy to use with the Fez?
[/quote]

[url]http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/174[/url]
LCD with buttons on Sale

and Serial LCD
[url]http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/144[/url]
which also on Sale

both have driver available.

But I could not get to the microphone link!
Seem like the page has been removed! :frowning:

3

If you get the component shield with FEZ then you can plug this in http://www.robotshop.com/inex-sound-detector.html

4

Thanks everyone for a super quick reply,
I love the LCD shield.

I’m also looking for a cross-the-beam kind of trigger.
Anyone has ideas how to set that up ?

Thanks,
SW.

5

[quote]I’m also looking for a cross-the-beam kind of trigger.
[/quote]

Something like this?

[url]http://www.instructables.com/id/Another-Arduino-Laser-Tripwire/[/url]

6

Yup, I’ll look into that, thanks !

Another question about the LCD shield,
does it take all the IO pins ?
How do I use that with the microphone ?
I’m thinking i can’t, right ?

7

I do not have this LCD, but looking from the driver code for the LCD
[url]http://www.tinyclr.com/downloads/Shield/FEZ_Shield_KeypadLCD_Red.cs[/url]
It used 7 digital pins for the LCD display, and one analog (an0) pin for the buttons.

And the microphone (mentioned) use one data line + VCC and GND.
So you still have pins available to use.

8

so now I dont understand something,
it looks like the LCD covers all the pin sockets.
so how do you connect anything else ?
Do I need a pass-through shield,
or wire lines directly to the pins ?

Thanks,
SW

9

see the picture below.

10

ok now it makes sense.
Thanks, this has been very helpful.

SW.