Good high power IR LED

This is a good high power infrared LED:

SFH 4230 Golden Dragon Package, half angle ±60°, 850nm, typ. 440 mW at 1A dc.

http://catalog.osram-os.com/catalogue/catalogue.do?favOid=00000000000207c000ed0023&act=showBookmark 

 

 

Arduino control of LED

Here is code to control the intensity of an LED using Arduino.

Arduino control of polarization switcher

Here is the code that I used in the Arduino box to control the polarization rotator (switcher). (I think...)

Setting up Simple Step

These are my notes on setting up Simple Step, a program by Will Dickson for controlling stepper motors.

Using synaptic, install gcc-avr, avr-libc, and dfu-programmer.

cd src
mkdir MyUSB
cd MyUSB

Download MyUSB v 1.4.1 from http://www.fourwalledcubicle.com/LUFA.php and extract it to MyUSB

make all

cd ~/src
hg clone https://bitbucket.org/willdickson/simple_step
cd simple_step/firmware
gedit Makefile

Change line 24 to MYUSB_SRC_DIR = /home/<username>/src/MyUSB/MyUSB
Exit gedit

cd src
gedit Makefile

Change line 53 to MYUSB_SRC_DIR = /home/<username>/src/MyUSB/MyUSB

cd ..
make
cd ~/src/simple_step/firmware

Press the 'RST' and 'HWB' buttons on the atmel simultaneously, then release the 'RST' button, then the 'HWB' button.

sudo make program

cd ~/src/simple_step/firmware
sudo cp udev_rules/99-simple_step.rules /etc/udev/rules.d
sudo addgroup simple-step
sudo usermod -a -G simple-step <username>

Reboot
Install pylibusb

cd simple_step/api/python
sudo python setup.py install

Setting up Python PControl

These are my notes on setting up Python PControl:

Install mercurial via synaptic

cd src
hg clone https://bitbucket.org/willdickson/panel_comm
cd panel_comm
sudo python setup.py install

Setting up Arduino in Ubuntu

These are my notes from setting up Arduino in Ubuntu Lucid 10.04:

sudo apt-get install gcc-avr avr-libc
 
Download newest release from http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software and extract it to a convenient location.
Double clicking on the arduino file should start the program.

sudo usermod -aG dialout <myuser>

BEWARE: Serial.println in a loop can cause entire Java Arduino program to lock up because it locks up the serial ports, which are scanned every time you click the tools menu (upload a different sketch using windows or mac to fix the problem)

test strokelitude and ROS

This is useful: rxplot /strokelitude/left_wing_angle_radians