Picorder 2

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Revision as of 08:28, 8 January 2018 by Directive0 (Talk | contribs) (Components)

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The TR-109 Picorder

I am beginning to plan and acquire sensors and materials for my successor to the original Picorder . The original Picorder was bulky and power hungry. For this version I am doing away with a colour screen and instead using the relatively low cost and low power Nokia 5110 screen. The hope is that this projects sensor module will be usable for a number of other projects outside of a Tricorder prop replica.

Sensing Goals

Basic ambient environmental; temperature, pressure, humidity and VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds). Ranged line-of-sight temperature sensing (very small envelope. 0°c to 80°c). Magnetometer, maybe something like spectroscope if I can find one that works.

Components

Raspberry Pi Zero W
My old favourite will return for this model. I am playing with the idea of using something like and arduino or just an ATTINY, but the Pi has so many advantages.
Playmates Tricorder
I'm going to use a standard Playmates TNG Tricorder as my enclosure. They are ubiquitous and cheap!
Nokia 5110 LCD screen
To provide low power information output to the user, and maybe to play some snake.
Bm860 VOC, Temp, Humidity, Pressure sensor
Basic environmental sensor. VOC is a nice added feature.
AMG8833 IR Thermal Camera
This is a VERY low resolution and low range thermal camera. It will basically only be useful for detecting dramatic temperature differences. It was relatively cheap so I want to include it.

Software

New software will be written that runs on some of the basic concepts of the original Picorder program. It will not use Pygame though, which will provide considerable performance and power savings, hopefully.