Compass Project

January 31, 2019

My latest project has just been published in DIYODE Magazine #19.

I took the work I had done on the Azure Sphere based IOT Compass and ported it over to the Arduino MKR1000. There was a couple of reasons for swapping platform. Firstly the Azure Sphere is quite a new platform and does not have extensive community support yet. So that meant I had to write everything from scratch from the stepper driver, to a software I2C protocol for the Azure Sphere. The Azure Sphere is also described as “Not a board for makers” and given the price and availability, I can’t really disagree with them. So given these the Arduino MKR1000 seemed a better option.

This smaller form factor allowed me to fit the whole project into a 3D printed and wooden case. To make the whole thing portable I added a Lithium Polymer battery utilising the charger in the MKR1000.

For more details see: https://diyodemag.com/projects/getting_your_bearings

DIYODE is an Australian magazine, so for those in the UK, don’t worry I’ve no intention to stop writing for Hackspace, I’m currently working on an interesting project combining acrylic sheet and ESP32s. For those who do subscibe to DIYODE watch this space, there could be more projects heading downunder in the future.

By Andy from Workshopshed Add Comment

  Posted in: IOTCompass Tags: 3d Printing, compass, magazine