512Kb SRAM expansion for the Arduino Mega (build)

The second in this series of articles covers the PCB design and build process for the memory expansion board The Eagle board layout The board layout The signal lines are 10mil wide and the power lines are 16mil. I hand routed some of the power lines myself and then let Eagle’s...

512Kb SRAM expansion for the Arduino Mega (software)

The final part of this series of blog posts will present some open source software that you can use to exploit the new memory space. You can download the library source code from my downloads page. The xmem library I’ve put together a collection of functions into a library that you can...

Building the phototrap. Part 5: The long range infra-red beam sensor

All the phototraps that I’ve seen on the internet include some variation on the infra-red beam breaking sensor. The technique is simple to explain. You place an infra-red source directly in-line with an infra-red emitter and when an object comes between the two you trigger the camera, or...

Building the phototrap. Part 3: Control unit assembly

In the previous article in this series I explained the steps necessary to build the control board. Now, with that completed we are ready to prepare the box that will contain all the components. Back in part 1 I presented a photograph of the box that I’d found to hold the project. Here it...

Building the phototrap. Part 2: The control unit electronics

In part one of this series I documented the requirements for my phototrap project and chose the major components that I will use. This article will document the electronics used inside the control unit. The camera triggers When a sensor (or sensors) is triggered we are going to allow the user...

Building the phototrap. Part 1: Design.

Welcome to the first in a series of posts where I will document the design and build of a microcontroller based camera/flash phototrap that can support multiple sensors and multiple cameras and flashes. The problem As many of you are aware I have a keen interest in bird photography,...