Despite the long title, this is nothing more than the simplest night-light imaginable... a single LED hooked up to a Picaxe; not even the current limiting resistor of the typical "hello world" intro project. It's amazing that even the simplest Picaxe chip now available can be programmed into a 1000+ point datalogger, a clock, or a even thermometer, with no additional components, and running off of nanowatts scavanged from "dead" AA batteries, at a cost of less than $3 per build.
I'm late to the party in using the new M2 parts; but I love seeing how software and silicon keep replacing hardware: Timers to replace real-time-clock chips, internal pull-up resistors that take the place of external components, capacitance sensing routines that eliminate the need for buttons. Eventually, everything almost becomes a matter of software.
Just like some amateur radio operators go down the QRP route to see how far they can communicate on a few milliwatts, I like working with a minimalist machine consisting of a single input bit, single output bit, and the highly evolved Turing machine that is the Picaxe 08M2. To go from yesterday's "hello world" project, to todays self-calibrating nightlight, to this weekend's data-logging clock is just a matter of software. Can anyone share some pointers to others with this minimalist obsession?
Project details at http://corticalcafe.com/picaxe_simple_nightlight.html
I'm late to the party in using the new M2 parts; but I love seeing how software and silicon keep replacing hardware: Timers to replace real-time-clock chips, internal pull-up resistors that take the place of external components, capacitance sensing routines that eliminate the need for buttons. Eventually, everything almost becomes a matter of software.
Just like some amateur radio operators go down the QRP route to see how far they can communicate on a few milliwatts, I like working with a minimalist machine consisting of a single input bit, single output bit, and the highly evolved Turing machine that is the Picaxe 08M2. To go from yesterday's "hello world" project, to todays self-calibrating nightlight, to this weekend's data-logging clock is just a matter of software. Can anyone share some pointers to others with this minimalist obsession?
Project details at http://corticalcafe.com/picaxe_simple_nightlight.html