Wednesday 21 August 2013

What would we need?


What would it take to make this display?
  • A micro-controller
  • A power source
  • An ANT+ module
  • A display 
  • An ANT+ source of distance information (Garmin Forerunner 410 Foot-pod)

MCU
I have quite few Arduino boards lying around, so that seemed to be the easy choice on the processor. I ended up using a Tinyduino (Tinyduino) and an Arduino Pro Mini (link) in my two separate iterations.

 Power
I also have some LiPo batteries around from other projects. Lightweight and powerful (link).

A display
7-segment displays are cool in my opinion and so that was the display I decided would make most sense (in spite of the difficulty in getting some letters represented). These seemed to be good and cheap options based on the MAX7219 (http://dx.com/p/8-segment-led-display-board-module-for-arduino-147814) and cheaper than I could get the main chip for myself.

ANT+
An ANT+ module for talking to the Garmin. This would need to be purchased. The sparkfun modules (link) seemed good - however they weren't available anywhere. I ended up buying from Goodluckbuy.com in China (http://www.goodluckbuy.com/nrf24ap2-wireless-module-zigbee-module.html)

Source
I have a Garmin Forerunner 410, Heart Rate Monitor and Foot-pod.

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