SparkFun Forums

[NateW]

And now the 6DOF unit is on the front page. Great!

I just need to figure out which gyros I want... I'm going to go for the soldered version due to size constraints so I'd prefer to get it right the first time.

I just wanted to say thanks for putting this together so quickly. I'll thank you properly (with my credit card) as soon as I figure out the details!

[Pete-O]

Nothing says "thank you" like dollar signs! You are very welcome.

Pete

[sparky]

That thing was fun to build. Pete had the firmware up in a morning. The VB program is kinda fun as well.

If anyone reads this far... The basic gyro board is due in 10 days. It's basically an IMU cut in half. What headers should we put on?

IMO, right angle headers are the way to go to get the gyro vertical.
Straight headers are the standard for breaboarding.
The MiRFs sell well without any header installed at all.
Some customers might scoff at the idea that they have to solder their own headers to the board?

Any input from you guys? We *really* listen to customers. I'd love to offer headers any which way/configuration but that really screws with production - we'll always have the wrong configuration in stock.

-Nathan

[jasonharper]

Right-angle headers with an extra long straight side, so that you have straight mounting on one side of the board, and right angle on the other side? The customer could snip off one side if the unused ends of the header pins got in the way of something.

[NateW]

I'm working on laser cutting templates for my robot, and I could use a bit more information about the 6DOF IMU.

How tall is it when built with the daughter cards soldered in, rather than socketed?

What are the dimensions of the mounting hole pattern? It looks like a square just under two inches on a side...

Thanks!

[Pete-O]

How tall is it when built with the daughter cards soldered in, rather than socketed?

By my measurements, it should be about .845" tall when the daughter boards are soldered in. The mother board is 2"x2", and the mounting holes are about 1.75" apart on a side.

Pete

[sparky]

The basic gyro boards finally made it onto the site today : http://www.sparkfun.com/shop/index.php? ... itemid=420

Let me know if someone thinks we should be soldering some sort of header onto these guys. The MiRF sold very well without headers and most of our customers are savvy enough to solder whatever they need. 0.1" is doable with almost any iron.

-Nathan

[SOI_Sentinel]

Wonderful, if I can't pry some lose gyros out of Analog's sales staff, and when I'm done playing with my DIP mounted versions, I'll have to come back for those No, I did not pay for my Analog demo boards, the '401 variant was magically sampleable for one day on the Analog web site.

[NateW]

.845 will fit just right - I have just barely an inch to work with.

Please solder the perpendicular cards on mine, and leave the parallel cards (the bluesmirf and the IMU below it) socketed. I made this note in my order but I wanted to be darn sure this doesn't get overlooked.

Thank$!

[sparky]

Thanks Nate! We will get started on the unit today...

-Nathan

[NateW]

I've been playing with the gyro board and it's great. Thanks so much!

Is the firmware available? If not, is there any chance you could tweak it to send a single 'packet' of sensor readings in response to a different command? Staying synchronized with the continuous stream complicates things for me a little bit.

The current scheme is to send a continuous stream of sensor readings after you tell it to "go" by sending a control-G (Sparky knows this of course, but in case anyone is contemplating one of these, that's the way it works). Sending a single packet in response a different command (control-S?) would make it a little bit easier to work with in my case.

Currently I have a background thread continuously pulling data from the sensor and filling an array of values, but it would be nice to be able to get rid of that extra processing and just poll the sensor when I'm ready.

Thanks!

[sparky]

Email Pete. I think we can post the source - it's actually pretty simple.

We want to keep it simple, but will entertain recommendations.

The problem is that if we constantly transmit as quickly as possible, the BT module has no time to listen for a stop command. The 6DOF firmware could probably be updated to check every second or so for a stop command, but the computer would need to send a steady stream of stop commands for a second for one to get through...

-Nathan