- Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:06 am
#141794
Hello fellow Sparkfun forum members!
I have long been lurking on this forum and just recently start to post on some other threads. One of the other people is interested in my lasertag project. So after a good nights sleep I have decided to post about it here.
Both my sons love lasertag. We have picked up the toy versions of these before but have always been disappointed about the capability to run outdoors in full sunlight. Range becomes extremely limited. Not to mention you are held down by the modes of the game the manufacturer has decided to incorporate. So as my very first embedded project I decided to make lasertag! I have not completed the game yet, I am still prototyping. This will be a good work log for me. Sometimes I will take a 2 or 3 month break, it helps me to avoid frustrations with repeated failures. Hopefully I am over that period and I can keep moving this forward. All comments are welcome.
First some good resources:
http://www.lasertagparts.com/mtdesign.htm
http://www.laserforums.com/forum/
These boards have helped me in my conquest for my original design. Through reading their posts I was able to determine parts. You will see that my prototypes are running off of 9v but later on that will change to a 7.2v NiMH.
Alright, now on to my design: This is by no means complete of the final design. I have learned that I need to drive the MOSFET by a transistor so I can make sure it is fully saturated and delivering max voltage to the IR LED. Most of these parts aren't from Sparkfun but I can assure you that they did start on a Sparkfun Arduino and move on from there.
Currently the 4 microbuttons are not connected. These are in place for when the LCD is finally attached. I am making a removable module for the LCD. This way I can have either a more graphical UI or I can just rely on the buzzer for input.
Once the code is completed and the circuit tested and revised I will be moving to a small PCB. I would like to make some small lasertag guns and some larger ones. All code is done in straight avr-gcc C code. I was running into problems with Arduino and timer usage. Now I am in total control! Once complete a git repository will be available.
Features that are in progress:
Dan
I have long been lurking on this forum and just recently start to post on some other threads. One of the other people is interested in my lasertag project. So after a good nights sleep I have decided to post about it here.
Both my sons love lasertag. We have picked up the toy versions of these before but have always been disappointed about the capability to run outdoors in full sunlight. Range becomes extremely limited. Not to mention you are held down by the modes of the game the manufacturer has decided to incorporate. So as my very first embedded project I decided to make lasertag! I have not completed the game yet, I am still prototyping. This will be a good work log for me. Sometimes I will take a 2 or 3 month break, it helps me to avoid frustrations with repeated failures. Hopefully I am over that period and I can keep moving this forward. All comments are welcome.
First some good resources:
http://www.lasertagparts.com/mtdesign.htm
http://www.laserforums.com/forum/
These boards have helped me in my conquest for my original design. Through reading their posts I was able to determine parts. You will see that my prototypes are running off of 9v but later on that will change to a 7.2v NiMH.
Alright, now on to my design: This is by no means complete of the final design. I have learned that I need to drive the MOSFET by a transistor so I can make sure it is fully saturated and delivering max voltage to the IR LED. Most of these parts aren't from Sparkfun but I can assure you that they did start on a Sparkfun Arduino and move on from there.
Currently the 4 microbuttons are not connected. These are in place for when the LCD is finally attached. I am making a removable module for the LCD. This way I can have either a more graphical UI or I can just rely on the buzzer for input.
Once the code is completed and the circuit tested and revised I will be moving to a small PCB. I would like to make some small lasertag guns and some larger ones. All code is done in straight avr-gcc C code. I was running into problems with Arduino and timer usage. Now I am in total control! Once complete a git repository will be available.
Features that are in progress:
- Basic lasertag - 1 shot 1 kill
- Advanced lasertag - multiple gun modes with an ammunition counter
- Shooting gallery - Like the classic shooting galleries in old time arcades
- Score keeping
- Multiplayer over 2 players
- Ref mode - Allows field programming of guns for different modes
- IR bootloader - Allow firmware updates over IR
Dan
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