I Love Cynics!

Pictured here is a circuit I was working with last winter, trying to convert the RS232 signal from the Garmin eTrex GPS to the TTL signal understood by the Arduino. I made two of those damn boards and neither worked. After intensely looking them over today, I found one that was salvageable. All that needed to be done was correct a couple of the solder points. And voila, it now works. That means I am now farther along then I managed to get last time. I’m now in new territory.

Right now, all that the Arduino is programmed to do is take the data from the GPS and parse it out into a human readable form. An example is shown here. Basically, it breaks the data down in to its individual parts and sends them to the serial reader of the Arduino IDE. I’ll eventually want to send that data as a text file to an SD card to store for later use. The previously mentioned GPS data logger shield will do that work. I never completed its construction last winter, so I’ll need to finish that up before I can continue with that section of the project.

The other part of the project is the camera. I still need to pick up a new cheap-o digital camera. There are plenty that fit the bill. I’m considering the Nikon Coolpix L20. It’s small and can generally be found for under $100. Samsung also has a couple of cheap cameras. Why cheap? Cause I’m likely to break the damn thing trying to get this project to work. Cheap equals easy to replace.

Some other things that need to be figured out, aside from triggering the camera shutter, include:

• Where and how to mount the control box on the motorcycle
• Where and how to mount the camera on the motorcycle
• Weather proofing everything
• Batteries – specifically, battery life and recharging
• Shock resistance – this is, after all, the Dalton Highway we’re talking about
• Integrating the GPS data files in to the digital images