If you're building an autonomous vehicle or a hand-held GPS (or any other device where direction might be important), a digital compass (sometimes called a magnetometer) is a great little sensor to add to your design. However, if you haven't played around with them much, you might not know which type of compass is good for your specific project (for example, do you need tilt-compensation?).
Check out this video we put together. Here, SparkFun Engineer Chris explains a little bit about digital compasses and helps clear up some common issues people have with them.
Hi dotMusclera,
Can I get your email address to ask you few questions about your wii nunchuck interfacing with microchip PIC18f4550 I2C? My email is prashan@uow.edu.au
Thanks
Cheers
Prashan
Great video. One suggestion - maybe show some sample arduino code on how to talk to the sensor. I know there are different communication styles, but perhaps just pick a basic one so viewers can get a sense of how easy/difficult it actually is to talk to these sensors.
Hi,
Thanks for the suggestion. This link might give you some extra information for what you have asked for. It is not specifically from us, but I think the info is still good.
http://www.benjohansen.com/archives/707
Thanks,
Tim
I made a GPS guided vehicle using the HMC6352. That has no tilt compensation. I find it to work well enough. Just keep it away from the electronics on the vehicle. Here is the bot http://letsmakerobots.com/node/18922. I also did a write up on how to make a GPS guided vehicle, which i will hopefully update when i get a new vehicle with a ESC. http://letsmakerobots.com/node/19554
If you are working on a RPV, the tilt compensation available with the compass modules shown will not always work correctly since they determine the local down vector based on the output of accelerometers which will sense vehicle accelerations when the RPV is banking or pitching.
They will, however, output correct data during straight and level flight.
This won't help much if you are trying to use it to drive an autopilot, however.
Nice demonstration. However, I'm wondering what happens when you flip the board. Obviously your heading would be wrong for a 2-axis magneto, but does a tilt compensated 3-axis take care of this automatically?
Really nice !
Very interesting, and while i was watching the sequence with the magnet, i was thinking of using the fact that the compass get the "new north" position to create a kind of new control component, like getting the information from a sliding door or something like that !
Sparkfun should do a tutorial on how to make a handheld GPS.
How about a tutorial for making a frickin' shark mounted laser firing system? I'm sure tilt compensation would be required then.
Step 1: Capture a shark
Step 2: Tape a laser to the Shark
Step 3: Release shark before it bites you
Step 5: Hope the shark doesn't use the laser on you
Step 6: Post Tutorial
Step 7: Profit
Could I substitute sharks with ill tempered sea bass?
Sure, why not, I don't see any reason why it won't work
I'm pretty sure they have fin compatible packages...
I'm actually putting the finishing touches on that tutorial right now. Well, not really, but that would be sweet.
Actually...I am just putting the finishing touches on one I built. When I get it completed I'm going to put together a tutorial. Stay tuned!