The new
"Simple Sniper" (pictured above) has the capability to alow YOU to easily program it yourself using a chip called the picaxe 08M. Since I’m kind of a rookie programmer, and new to picaxe programing, I’m writing this from a beginner perspective (it’s not like I have much of a choice). So, if you see something I have wrong, let me know.
Where to start
First, let me give you a very simple run down on what this is all about. The chip circled in red above is the picaxe 08M chip. This is "the brain" that controls what happens when the board senses motion. The picaxe 08M chip is where the program is stored. To put a program on the picaxe 08M chip, you write the program (don't run, it's really not hard), plug the picaxe 08M chip into a socket that you have connected to your computer and then simply push a button on the screen and the program will be copied to the picaxe 08M chip. Now plug the picaxe 08M back into the socket on the Simple Sniper and it is ready to go.
What Do I Need
You will need to purchase 2 items. One is a small circuit board that has a socket on it that you plug the picaxe 08M into so that you can copy your program to it. The other is a cable to connect the board to the computer. If your computer has a serial port, then you can use a less expensive serial cable, if not, then you'll need the special USB cable. I recomend the starter kit here:
"Starter Kit" Notice below the kit you can also choose the cable that you'll need. So, as you can see, it is fairly inexpensibve to get setup. This particular kit alo includes the program that you use to write your programs and copy them to the picaxe 08M chip. It also contains another picaxe 08M chip (just like the one the Simple Sniper uses), so you can practice on it and keep the original picaxe 08M for a back up if needed, or use it to store a different program.
The Programming Editor can be downloaded for free. Go to the site below and click "Software" at the top of the page and you will see a link to download the Programming Editor. The download is about 36MB, so if you are on a phone line, you may want to wait and install it from the CD that comes with the kit.
"Programming Editor" HIGH OR LOW
The picaxe 08M chip has 8 pins. The program controls what some of these pins do. One of the fist things to understand is if a pin is high or low. With the SS board, it runs on 5 Volts. A pin that is high would be above 2.5 volts, and a pin that is low would be below 2.5 volts. For the most part, all that the standard SS program is doing is checking to see if certain pins are high or low, or making certain pins high or low. Another way to say a pin is high or low is a 1 for high or a 0 for low. Knowing that, you can see below that there really isn’t much to it.
How it works
You want the program to watch pin3 (which is normally high) to see if it goes low. When the motion sensor detects motion, it will always pull this pin low, so now, you just need to decide what you want to do when this happens. If you are doing walk test, then you will want to tell pin4 to go high and that will light the LED. Now tell it how long to light the LED, and then make that pin low again to turn it off. Now you can force the program to ignore the pin 3 for a certain amount of time and then let it light the LED again.
If you were in camera mode, then rather than light the LED, you would make the pin 1 go high for a short time, then set it back to low, this will turn the camera on, now wait for a second or so (whatever shutter time is needed for your camera) and then make pin0 go high and it will take a picture. Now make pin1 pin go high for a short time, then set it back to low again and the cam will turn off. Now you can force the program to wait for a certain delay again before you let the input from the motion sensor on pin3 have an affect on the program. Click here for:
Free Sample Programs to get started now.
