Spectrum Values from Arduino Analog Pins

Introduction

Arduino's are very common microcontroller boards used to study and design programmable electronics. It is often used with multiple peripherals such as buttons, sliders, sensors and motors.

Together with a TIMI acting as a small fancy display, Arduino boards become a lot more powerful and interesting to use in prototyping.

This project showcases a TIMI-96 module controlled by an Arduino Uno to output readings from a set of potentiometers.

Requirements

To proceed with the project, the following are required.

Hardware

TIMI-96
Mates Programmer
USB Type A to microUSB cable (for the Mates Programmer)
USB Type A to Type B cable (for the Arduino, replace as necessary)
Potentiometers (6 pcs)
Connecting Wires
Arduino Uno
Breadboard

Software

Graphics Design

Step 1: Open Mates Studio and create a Commander project for TIMI-96 with Reversed Landscape orientation

TIMI-96

Select Commander

Step 2: Browse the library for appropriate page designs. For this project, Media Spectrum page under Audio category was used.

Browse Library

Media Spectrum

Step 3: After finalizing the design, connect TIMI-96 to your computer

Connect TIMI-96

Step 4: Upload the project to the appropriate COM port

Select Port

Project Upload

Step 5: When prompted, click Proceed to continue with upload.

Date and Time Proceed

Note

It is recommended that the graphics design is finalized before moving to the next steps when working on a project

Programming the Arduino

Step 1: Install the MatesController library using Arduino’s Library Manager.

Library Manager

Step 2: Include MatesController.h to your project.

#include "MatesController.h"

Step 3: Create a MatesController instance named mates.

MatesController mates = MatesController(Serial);

This will initialize the MatesController instance to the default reset pin 4 using a LOW pulse.

Step 4: (Optional) Create a function for toggling the built-in LED of the Arduino board. This can be used for debugging or showing errors if the Serial monitor can’t be used.

int errLedStatus = LOW;
void ErrorLed_Toggle() {
  errLedStatus = ~errLedStatus;
  digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, errLedStatus);
}

Step 5: (Optional) At the beginning of the setup function, set the built-in LED pin to OUTPUT and set it to LOW.

pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, errLedStatus);

Step 6: To start using the MatesController instance, use the begin function

mates.begin();

This will initialize the Serial UART at the default baudrate of 9600

Step 7: (Optional) The begin function can be enclosed in an if condition to handle initialization errors.

if (!mates.begin()) {
  // Display didn't send ready signal in time
  while (1) {
    ErrorLed_Toggle();
    delay(100);
  }
}

Step 8: Define the pins into a constant array and declare the upper limit of the analog reading.

#define ANALOG_UPPER_LIMIT  1023 // Uno 10-bit upper limit

const int analogPins[] = {
  A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5
};

Step 9: In the loop function, the values are updated and sent to TIMI as necessary.

void loop() {
  int pinValue;
  int16_t barValue;

  static uint8_t col = 0;

  pinValue = analogRead(analogPins[col]);
  barValue = map(pinValue, 0, ANALOG_UPPER_LIMIT, 0, 100);  
  mates.setMediaSpectrumValue(0, col, barValue);

  col++;
  if (col == 6) col = 0;  
}

As shown, the code loops from the first (col = 0) to the sixth column (col = 5). Every loop, the next column is updated with the the mapped value of the potentiometers readings.

Running the Project

After designing the user interface for TIMI and writing code for the Arduino and programming them, it is time to connect the devices together. Follow the diagram below for the connection between TIMI and Arduino.

Arduino TIMI-96 6 Pot

Finally, supply power to the Arduino and observe the behavior of the project.

Downloadable Resources

Here are the links to the software applications, libraries and completed project files.