Development
These are development notes taken during the development of the Treadmill.
mkDocs
This documentation is written in markdown and a static site is generated with mkDocs using the Cinder theme. Previously I have used Jekyll which is amazing. Going with mkDocs to see if a simple site is acceptable.
When writing markdown, serve a mkDocs site locally with
cd docs/
mkdocs serve --dev-addr=0.0.0.0:8000 # serves built site on LAN IP
mkdocs serve # serves built site on localhost at 127.0.0.1:8000
mkdocs build #generates the site into docs/site/
Deploy to Github gh-pages
Deploy to github gh-pages by follow mkDocs deployment instructions.
mkdocs gh-deploy will use the gh-pages branch of repository specified in mkdocs.yml
# this will deploy to github gh-pages specified in mkdocs.yml
cd docs #should have mkdocs.yml file
mkdocs build --clean
mkdocs gh-deploy --clean
#site is then available at
http://cudmore.github.io/treadmill
I am doing this on OSX. Not doing this on Debian because I do not have git/github properly configured.
Tweak Cinder
Along the way I have actually contributed to Cinder, the mkDocs template that makes this site. See here.
Use 'pip show mkdocs' to figure out where your cinder files are
pip show mkdocs
/home/cudmore/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages
Generate a single PDF from mkDocs site
Use mkdocs-pandoc to convert the mkdocs site into a single pdf. This creates a table of contents and appends all .md files using pandoc as a backend.
cd docs
mkdocs2pandoc > mydocs.pd
pandoc --toc -f markdown+grid_tables+table_captions -o mydocs.pdf mydocs.pd # Generate PDF
pandoc --toc -f markdown+grid_tables -t epub -o mydocs.epub mydocs.pd # Generate EPUB
I found it easy to do this on OSX using the pandoc installer. I did not get this working on Debian.
Platformio
If you prefer you can use [Platformio][5] to do everything from a command line. This has the distinct advantage that you can compile and upload code from a headless computer including a Raspberry Pi or any system running Linux.
Platformio is a python library so you should be good to go with pip install platformio.
Have a look [here][6] to create a platformio.ini file for your specific Arduino. Here are three different board configurations
platformio init --board uno # arduino uno
platformio init --board pro16MHzatmega328 # generic arduino pro
platformio init --board nodemcuv2 # arduino node mcu
After 'platformio init', platformio.ini will have environment configurations. You only want to have one of these blocks at a time to simplify compilation. For example [env:uno].
[env:uno]
platform = atmelavr
framework = arduino
board = uno
build_flags = -D _expose_interrupts_ #creates compiler directive
#[env:pro16MHzatmega328]
#platform = atmelavr
#framework = arduino
#board = pro16MHzatmega328
#[env:nodemcuv2]
#platform = espressif
#framework = arduino
#board = nodemcuv2
#upload_port = /dev/ttyUSB0
Compile, upload, and clean Arduino code with
platformio run #compile arduino code
platformio run --target upload #compile and upload
platformio run --target clean #clean project
Finally, once the code is running you can open a serial port connection with
platformio serialports monitor -p /dev/ttyUSB0 -b 115200 #a serial port monitor
Specifying the correct serial port for the Arduino is critical. Specify this in the treadmill.py file.
#serialStr = '/dev/tty.usbmodem618661' #teensy at work
#serialStr = '/dev/tty.usbmodem618661' #teensy?
#serialStr = '/dev/ttyUSB0' #hand soldered arduino micro (home debian)
#serialStr = '/dev/tty.usbserial-A50285BI' # hand soldered at work
serialStr = '/dev/ttyACM0' #uno
5V Relay
A relay allows a 3.5 or 5 V DIO pin to turn a higher voltage switch on and off. For example, you use a 5V relay to turn a 12V line on and off.
How to wire a 5V relay is here
http://www.codeguru.com/IoT/understanding-relays-in-iot-development.html