Trevor
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- Joined
- Jul 17, 2009
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So, I came up with the idea for the next iteration of LumenOS and an accompanying laser power meter a while ago. I had been contemplating buying an LPM, but I knew I wouldn't really be satisfied by anything that was currently on the market. So, I set out to build it myself. Thus, the Apex LPM was born.
I wanted it to feature a full color LCD and have a fast, modern microcontroller driving everything. I ended up settling on Leaflabs' Maple Mini as a base for the project. It uses an ARM Cortex M3 - a fast, modern chip that is orders of magnitude more powerful than the Arduino, though is tougher to work with. The onboard chip is clocked at 72MHz and has 120k flash memory and 20k RAM to work with.
So I put together a prototype board that had the Maple, LCD, and buttons on it. I got the LumenOS base written, then put a second board under it (standoffs, yay!) that had the power circuit for an Ophir thermopile. LumenOS R1 features a much higher level of configurability (is that a word?
) than its predecessor, LumenOS P1. It has onscreen graphing that includes all your standard fare - peak, average, min (with configurable detection options), stability (not yet implemented, but planned). It also notes peak and average directly on the graph and is fully autoranging.
Demo video not embedded because it is best watched in HD:
LumenOS R1 Demo - YouTube
I had planned on taking a prototype to demo at SELEM, but since I can't be there I figure this is the next best thing. With any luck, I'll have it finished and looking all pretty in a box in a couple months. :beer:
Questions, criticism, and suggestions welcome!
And now back to coding...
-Trevor
I wanted it to feature a full color LCD and have a fast, modern microcontroller driving everything. I ended up settling on Leaflabs' Maple Mini as a base for the project. It uses an ARM Cortex M3 - a fast, modern chip that is orders of magnitude more powerful than the Arduino, though is tougher to work with. The onboard chip is clocked at 72MHz and has 120k flash memory and 20k RAM to work with.
So I put together a prototype board that had the Maple, LCD, and buttons on it. I got the LumenOS base written, then put a second board under it (standoffs, yay!) that had the power circuit for an Ophir thermopile. LumenOS R1 features a much higher level of configurability (is that a word?
) than its predecessor, LumenOS P1. It has onscreen graphing that includes all your standard fare - peak, average, min (with configurable detection options), stability (not yet implemented, but planned). It also notes peak and average directly on the graph and is fully autoranging.Demo video not embedded because it is best watched in HD:
LumenOS R1 Demo - YouTube
I had planned on taking a prototype to demo at SELEM, but since I can't be there I figure this is the next best thing. With any luck, I'll have it finished and looking all pretty in a box in a couple months. :beer:
Questions, criticism, and suggestions welcome!
And now back to coding...
-Trevor
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