This modification to the Sony FDR-X3000 greatly improves wind noise
reduction, and this is exactly how I record my rides. Even though I have
the camera mounted on the handle bar, I really wanted to mount it on
the stem (still haven't figured this out yet). I want to reduce the
sideways movement and helm or chest mounts seem to restrictive to my own
movements.
I really enjoyed creating my own rear lights for the
bike. Using a Dual 18650 Powerbank case (these are really cheap on Ebay
$1.60NZ), mounting an Arduino Mini Pro in 1 of the battery spaces, opens
up many Arduino Project possibilities. Using the WS2812 programmable
LEDS was an obvious choice, at one stage I was riding down the street at
night with rainbow colours streaming all over my bike, yep totally
illegal. Back to basics, red only (I did add a red yellow startup flash
loop at the beginning, couldn't resist).
Photos: Huawei P8 Lite
Camera: SONY HDR-CX405
Video Editor: kdenlive on Linux Mint
**D.tube Exclusive**
Really simple project.
Arduino Pro mini, with an 8 LED WS2812 stick, a
touch switch, finished with 1x 18650 battery all mounted inside a 2x
18650 powerbank charging case. Sketch includes the FastLED library.
Tested duration in flash mode: 14hours
Time taken to complete project: just under 1hour
Time taken to edit video: 8+ hours LoL (not good at this really)
Camera: Sony HDR-CX405
PC: Optiplex 9010 i5 8GB Ram running Linux Mint 19
Notes
This came out much better than I had expected, especially using the powerbanks case to contain all the components. It is also possible to replace the Arduino Pro Mini with the sketch uploaded onto a ATtiny85 and yes I've tried it and it works just fine.
Ideally it would've been nice to use another touch switch as the Power ON/OFF switch but I have no idea (yet) how to power up any Arduino board using an electronic switch such as these ones.
Bridging both solder points A & B means, as soon as power is applied, the switch in ON, next time you touch the case, it goes off ie it toggles.
This is where you get your 5V and GND power source from.
And yes, don't forget this is still a Powerbank. I would definitelty use this when I create Timelapses on my Sony FDR-X3000 action camera.
Thoughts
The possibility of using this concept has opened many idea opportunities and in my mind I have already formed 4 new projects:-
- Garage minder: detect movement in garage inform household via radio signal
- Emergency House lighting with Solar Panel backup
- Fishing Underwater night LED lighting rig
- WS2812 Christmas tree lighting https://youtu.be/if178oluID4
It has been a while since I've deleted all my old projects, I'll attempt to recreate them again and repost.
We all do it, try something new, have a little play with things then stand back to admire our most recent achievement. Then curiosity leads us to down the youtube path, to see how other people are doing in this field.
Arduino is no exception. I was so proud of myself after purchasing some small WS2812 Driver boards and with a little bit of coding I finally created my rear night flashing cycle lights! (project will be uploaded very soon)
To be honest here, this is pretty extreme for such a simple project, normal LEDs would have worked just as well, if not better. But !!!
I wanted to be different!!
Very proud of my self with my projects results, where part of the code required the FastLED library. So I decided to look up the creator and he gave some really good advice and there are some really great demo codes you can try.
I feel I have found one of the pioneers in this field, and his demo codes are freely available, well commented with hints on how to change to suit ones purposes.
I want to make christmas tree lights just like in that video, but baby steps first!!
I have always had a problem installing this piece of software, you can download the archived file from here https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software
Once unarchived you need to run the ./install.sh in a terminal to create the desktop icon. Up to this point everything worked fine, until I plugged the USB cable from the computer to the Arduino board.
Loading up the example blink sketch, then sending it to the UNO resulted in an error message which unfortunately I cannot display because I have resolved the problem.
The problem was the UNO was not recognized on any port, so searching DuckGo I needed to find a BASH command that tells me what is connected to the usb ports. lsusb
which was actually pointless, all it told me was the UNO device
Bus 003 Device 006: ID 1a86:7523 QinHeng Electronics HL-340 USB-Serial adapter. I have no idea what to do with that information. So I played around with the Tools/Ports option in the IDE, choosing between /dev0/ttys4 try uploading, /dev/ttys0 try uploading again, same error. These were the only 2 options, until 5mins later, I looked again lo and behold a third option appeared,
/dev/ttyUSB. This has to be it, so tried uploading sketch again and bugger me a new error appeared LoL.
this time access denied. In fact this is something I remember from previous installations so back to DuckGo and find those BASH commands that allows me access.
sudo usermod -a -G dialout <your login name>
sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyUSB0
Not sure about the second line (didn't use it) but all works perfectly now, so expect some Arduino Projects coming up very soon.
