darb1972
Senior Member
Hi All
I am researching products for a new project. At the moment, I’m “spit balling” to ensure I don’t start a project only to find that one or more components aren’t suitable, or, my concept and hardware structure is flawed in any way.
In a nutshell, the project will consist of multiple countdown timers (at least 2, possibly 3). Each countdown timer will have a display. The project is a love job for my daughters Netball club. At any one time, there can be multiple “grade” games in progress so I want each timer to create a unique tone to indicate quarter, half and full times. The quarters are either 15mins or 10mins (depending on the grade). When a timing period is done, a tone will be generated to feed to the PA (Public Address) system.
While timing accuracy isn’t super critical, it would be nice to think that the countdown timer can be accurate to within a few seconds over a 15min stretch.
At this point in time I am planning on using either an AXE131Y or an AXE133Y for each timing/display module. In addition to this, I am planning on using a Master PICAXE (via an I2C bus) to handle the keyboard strokes, generate the tones to the PA system (and monitor for clashes with the countdown timers and manage conflicts) and handle triggers from each of the timer modules.
So, my first batch of questions to the forum is based on timing. Am I likely to get more accurate timing from using the 1Hz Pulse Out from installing the DSxxxx RTC on an AXE131Y/AXE133Y or is it more accurate to use something like the TIME variable within the Master PICAXE? If I was to use the TIME variable within the Master PICAXE, would this PICAXE will only be able to track one countdown at any one time? If so, I gather that rules out using the Master for this function as it also has to monitor keystrokes and perform other tasks as mentioned above.
My second question relates to communications between PICAXEs. I was thinking of using I2C to monitor the slaves (18M2 on the AXE displays). I gather this would mean continual polling of the slaves to see if a countdown has finished. Is this considered a sound move or should I maybe not use the I2C at all and rely solely on letting the 18M2 generate some form of interrupt to the Master?
My third and final question relates to the AXE131Y/133Y “refresh” rates. According to the (limited) research I have done so far, it appears that I will only be able to “update” the AXE displays around once every 1000ms or so. Is that correct? I would really like to display the countdown in minutes and seconds. For example xx:xx (mm:ss). Is it considered feasible to do this with the AXE displays or is updating this often considered too fast and therefore not really possible???
I am confident that overall this project is a really good fit for PICAXE, but, I would appreciate some feedback and opinions from the forum before I move forward.
Thanks.
Regards,
Brad.
I am researching products for a new project. At the moment, I’m “spit balling” to ensure I don’t start a project only to find that one or more components aren’t suitable, or, my concept and hardware structure is flawed in any way.
In a nutshell, the project will consist of multiple countdown timers (at least 2, possibly 3). Each countdown timer will have a display. The project is a love job for my daughters Netball club. At any one time, there can be multiple “grade” games in progress so I want each timer to create a unique tone to indicate quarter, half and full times. The quarters are either 15mins or 10mins (depending on the grade). When a timing period is done, a tone will be generated to feed to the PA (Public Address) system.
While timing accuracy isn’t super critical, it would be nice to think that the countdown timer can be accurate to within a few seconds over a 15min stretch.
At this point in time I am planning on using either an AXE131Y or an AXE133Y for each timing/display module. In addition to this, I am planning on using a Master PICAXE (via an I2C bus) to handle the keyboard strokes, generate the tones to the PA system (and monitor for clashes with the countdown timers and manage conflicts) and handle triggers from each of the timer modules.
So, my first batch of questions to the forum is based on timing. Am I likely to get more accurate timing from using the 1Hz Pulse Out from installing the DSxxxx RTC on an AXE131Y/AXE133Y or is it more accurate to use something like the TIME variable within the Master PICAXE? If I was to use the TIME variable within the Master PICAXE, would this PICAXE will only be able to track one countdown at any one time? If so, I gather that rules out using the Master for this function as it also has to monitor keystrokes and perform other tasks as mentioned above.
My second question relates to communications between PICAXEs. I was thinking of using I2C to monitor the slaves (18M2 on the AXE displays). I gather this would mean continual polling of the slaves to see if a countdown has finished. Is this considered a sound move or should I maybe not use the I2C at all and rely solely on letting the 18M2 generate some form of interrupt to the Master?
My third and final question relates to the AXE131Y/133Y “refresh” rates. According to the (limited) research I have done so far, it appears that I will only be able to “update” the AXE displays around once every 1000ms or so. Is that correct? I would really like to display the countdown in minutes and seconds. For example xx:xx (mm:ss). Is it considered feasible to do this with the AXE displays or is updating this often considered too fast and therefore not really possible???
I am confident that overall this project is a really good fit for PICAXE, but, I would appreciate some feedback and opinions from the forum before I move forward.
Thanks.
Regards,
Brad.