MANOA LOGIC: Morse Code Wall Art With Arduino + Found Materials

Step 1: Gather Materials

For this project I purchased an Arduino Uno REV 3, one bright white LED, four resistors, one push button switch, four circuit board standoffs, one 8x 1.5 AA battery holder, one battery connector lead, 8X AA NiMH batteries from Radio Shack.

I found an old piece of copper flashing for the base, discarded strands of electrical copper wire from a nearby house under renovation, 4 switches scavenged from an old chassis panel, and red, green, and black multi-strand hook up wire. I like working with copper because it easy to fashion into the end result that I want and copper presents a nice patina as it ages. BEWARE: Copper is an efficient electrical conductor so avoid shorting out your Arduino that will probably disable it. Plastic, wood, ceramic or stone would also make a suitable base for this kind of project--you design and decide for yourself.

My tools were pliers, different sized small drill bits and drill, hammer and metal file, soldering wand and solder, and volt-ohm meter.

I include the Arduino source code as MANOA_LOGIC.txt

Step 2: Position the Parts

An examination of the photos will indicate how I decided to lay out the parts--you decide how you would like to proceed. My layout top to bottom:
1. Loop of heavy single copper wire tohang the finished object
2. Bright white LED to display the Morse code and power ON-OFF switch for the Arduino.
3. Push button to start the Morse code and Piezo buzzer play the audio of the Morse code.
4. Three switches that let the user see/listen to eight (8) Morse code sequences. Read the logic in the included Arduino source code.
5. The Arduino UNO board on offsets.
6. I weave the hook up wires through holes drilled in the copper. Black is ground (-), red is power (+) and green is data. Weaving or sewing the hook up wires helps order the wires neatly, provide strain relief that makes it hard to pull out wires from behind, and the wire color stitches display the circuit to the user.
7. I use the heavy single strand copper wire to secure the Piezo buzzer to copper flashing. And I use the same heavy single strand copper wire to build a cage on the back to attach the 8x AA battery supply. The power supplies slips in and out of the cage to allow the batteries to be recharged. A smaller 9v power supply would work. However, i wanted a heavy duty power supply so the finished piece would be avaiable for at least one year's worth of performance before recharging.

Step 3: Wiring Hook Up

The Morse code data leaves the Arduino as electrical signals to the bright white LED and Piezo buzzer. The LED gets its signal from the green wire attached to pin 12. The buzzer gets its signal from the green wire attached to pin 8.

The push button switch and 3 'logic' switches deliver 5v (HIGH) to 2, 3, 5 and 7 respectively. Notice that each pin 2, 3, 5 and 7 is individually connected by resistor to ground pin 'GND' to pull it LOW. This forces the pin LOW until the switch gives the pin 5v to take it HIGH. By a looping function the Arduino constantly checks the HIGH LOW status of pins 2, 3, 5 and 7 and delivers the appropriate result based on the combined HIGH LOW status of all those pins.

The red wire connected to power side pin 'Vin' attaches to the power ON-OFF switch receiving voltage from the 8x AA batteries. The red wire connected to power pin '5v' supplies voltage to the push button switch and the three logic switches. The two black wires connected to the two 'GND' pins on the power side are shared by the Piezo buzzer, LED and 8x AA batteries