This design features a movement-based charging system, that supplies energy to a supercapacitor; it means that you need no USB port nor mousepad for charging. You will never worry about anything other that using it.
Another cool feature I'm implementing is an accelerometer, so this mouse doesn't use neither a trackball nor Infrared encoder!.
A prototype is under way, with pictures and schematics to come!.
I am making great advances with my wireless-batteryless mouse project: even started designing a 3D-printed case for it!. I decided that I will be working both hardware and software in paralell, due to my will to see this beauty working. Turns out that this week's #HaD prize giveaway are 3D printing gift-cards!. There is nothing like good ideas meeting good incentives.
For you guys to see what I have done so far: I have started learning how to use "123D design" to draw my mouse case; the base models I utilized came from the 123D design software online library itself (http://www.123dapp.com/gallery/design). The internal PCB can be found here and the mouse case is here.
So as you saw in the last project low, I am already using a Teensy LC as the brains of my mouse. You also saw that it works as a HID (human interface device) almost out-of-the box; this is why I was able to (still roughly) control a mouse from an accelerometer in minutes!.
Happens that this weeks's #HadPrize giveaway are exactly those nice #TeensyLC !!. So it would not be bad to get some more of those, for the sake of making a couple more prototypes and test new things. Let the luck be to my side, guys :)
A quick update on my mouse project: I have made test on it controlling my laptop's mouse, and it works! The sketch I have used is the standard #Teensy mouse-controller, modified to get position reference from a MMA7361 accelerometer!. It is still very rough and jumpy (no smooth mouse-pointer movement yet), but I am working on code for that.
This week's hackaday giveaway is about the LightBlue Bean, a [BLE+ Arduino Uno] board; I am very sure this product is what I need to prototype my project: a controller to read the accelerometer (Arduino) + Bluetooth BLE to send commands to a computer!.
What you guys think of that? any ideas, suggestion? Just comment below :) . And see you next time
Hello everyone! To begin prototyping my ideas out, will need the following materials:
1- an accelerometer breakout board (which I have already ordered from eBay),
2- a microcontroller (I will be using my brand-new Freescale-based "Teensy LC" for that,
3- a bunch of discrete components (resistors and so on, which I already have in store) and,
4- a Boost (step-up) breakout board from Pololu, which I already have in store as well, and
5- I will need to order a couple of PCB's.
So this project log is just to let you know that I will be needing to have some PCB's ordered in order to keep working on this project. See you guys next time, and keep up the good hacking!.
Hi, and thanks for the interest in the project. The point where I left the project one year ago is: the mouse is being recognized as such by MS windows and I can move the cursor by tilting the accelerometer. This code (for teensy LC) is available in the links section above in the left of this page. I have not moved my project forward since then.
what basically is the component capable for charging the super capacitor? And is it not applicable to use the bluetooth to send a file when you are already using it for the computer mouse?
Regarding the drift, my current code almost eliminates that (at the cost of losing room for action at low accelerations..), but I am pretty sure I will make an "almost-commercially-viable" software if I invest enough time on it.
Hi, Cool idea! If you need to keep the energy consumption very low, consider using a combined microcontroller and Bluetooth LE device, like the BL600 from Laird (I'm using that one for my project). Seems to me that it should be powerful enough for what you want to do.
I don't know what your skills are, but if you're already skilled/familiar with ARM it might be a possibility (it's a bit out of my league but I've been wanting to use it for one of my projects)
"movement-based"
Have you done an energy budget ?
Based on projects like this, I think you have a real hard problem to solve !!
(since the mouse basically sends data all the time, I can't see you will harvest enough energy )
http://resenv.media.mit.edu/pubs/papers/UbiComp-Switch-submitted.pdf
http://cherryswitches.com/us/energy-harvesting-technology/
Even if you plan to shake the mouse first it's a tough problem.............