August 2016

Rev Up the Future: Building the Ultimate Autonomous RC Car with EaseCar

Get ready to revolutionize the world of remote-controlled cars with EaseCar, a cutting-edge project that’s about to take autonomous driving to new heights. Imagine a car that not only responds to your every command, but also navigates through obstacles with ease, all while live-streaming its journey to the world.

What sets EaseCar apart is its innovative fusion of multiple technologies, creating a seamless and immersive experience that tackles real-world challenges. This isn’t just about controlling a car with voice or gestures – it’s about creating a futuristic vehicle that can think for itself.

As a seasoned developer with a passion for IoT, I wanted to push the boundaries of what’s possible with intelligent hardware and software. I envisioned a project that would not only impress, but also provide tangible value to users. That’s why I embarked on this ambitious journey, combining the latest advancements in Intel Edison, computer vision, and machine learning to bring EaseCar to life.

In this series of tutorials, we’ll take you on a step-by-step journey to build EaseCar from the ground up. Whether you’re an experienced…

LED Flashing Circuits Design

Apart from using LEDs as power indicators or Joule thieves, I haven’t really used them much, so maybe it’s time to create something really fancy! 😊

I searched for some LED flashing circuits that can control at least 4 LEDs with minimal components, and finally found two circuits that I liked, both using Schmitt trigger oscillators, one that makes LEDs fade in and out, and another that feeds BCD to a 7-segment driver IC, making 7 LEDs flash randomly. 

Fader [HERE]
Random flasher [HERE]

Push-Pull Circuit

The push-pull circuit uses one Schmitt trigger for each LED, and since Schmitt trigger ICs usually have 6 triggers, it’s no problem to make 6 LEDs fade in and out at different rates. The downside of this circuit is that it will never fully turn on the transistor/LED, with a maximum current of only 4mA through the LED.

Since I want the LEDs to fade in and out at different rates, I couldn’t use the same resistor/capacitor values for all oscillators. Here is the table of resistor values used for each oscillator, with all capacitors having the same value (2.2uF / 22uF).

LeadR1R2R3
1100k4.7k47k
215k+27k2.2k15k
327k+47k4.7k47k
447k+100k4.7k47k