• After a bit of use, I found that the camera button servo motor was stressing out the slim bit of wood that was meant to hold it in place.  In the end, I went back out to the shed and redesigned a more robust servo motor holder.  The new mount is easily holding it in place:

Part 1 of this project talks about the initial project concept and testing.  Part 2 goes into building the Macro Prototype Rig.  This blog post describes some of the electronics that operate the rig.

As you can see so far from Part 1, this wasn't really a properly planned project.  It was just an idea that snowballed along, with new features being added on when the time or thought arrived.

As the project About page says, I had volunteered to photograph some local beetles for a Native Orchid wasp propagator study we where doing.  Some native wasps lay their larvae in beetles that live underground.  Our mission is to try and identify the species of wasp that is parasitising local beetles and to identify what kind of beetle it is. 

In November, I was given the first vial of beetles that had been collected after dusk.

Ok, D-Day. Time to dig up my Press-n-Peel PCB transfer film and Ferric Chloride.

In the mean time I added a jumper to the circuit design so I can disable the buzzer if it became too annoying.

In Part One of this project I developed a test circuit that proved that it would all work. In Part II, I actually redesign the bread boarded prototype into the final product.

After the near mishap with the last GPS bush walk, I have pondered how I was going to monitor the battery power usage. This blog is my first go at it.

The next day I set out to map some of the roads and tracks around a patch of Bush that I have been frequenting for a few years - recording native Orchid growth etc.

Here is the voltage recordings of the battery:

11:30 13.25V (No load)

11:32 12.63V (PC On)

14:45 strong electrical burning smell noted!

14:50 9.8V (No Load)

Ok, time to go for a walk and a drive...

I checked out my last lot of GPS code from the SWASC subversion repository and uploaded it to the MARK I mini-ITX PC. I then went for a walk around the park at the back of the house. The PC and GPS where running from a common 12V 7A Sealed Lead Acid (SLA), battery. The first walk lasted 1 hour 40 minutes. I noted the voltage drop over this period:

13:40 12.28V (on load)

14:00 12.14V

14:40 11.96V

15:00 11.88V

15:05 12.00V (no load)

Back in March 2006, I went to run the PC for something, and realised that it would be really handy to have a power distribution board. This would allow me to quickly unplug all the different modules.

This is what I came up with. It's still not built, as I will make the PIXAXE-28 controller board at the same time, since this one is pretty small.

Here is the schematic diagram of the board:

Here is the PCB board layout: