Low cost Whiteboard

[jakejackjoe]

that costs thousands of dollars! definitely practical for home use!

[H3liosphan]

@jakejackjoe

Absolutely not. The WiiMote can be had for £15, a cheap projector found on Google products cost £191 (Samsung SP-H03), can be used for a lot more than just a whiteboard, plus I assume you already have a PC cos you posted this uninformed comment! The software is free.

Sure its not a £4.99 whiteboard from staples, but its entirely digital, notes can be recorded for posterity and anything can be done with them, plus its about a thousandth the cost of any commercial digital whiteboard.

[jakejackjoe]

@H3liosphan I was actually replying to someone with that comment (the @ replies were not implemented when i posted that comment). Their comment was that it would be easier to get a smart board, and I was just saying that the Smart Board costs thousands of dollars, not this.

[StickmanEMK]

it could be improved with some sort of pressure sensitive switch to hold the LED so it activates when you press the LED to the screen

[STPFOO]

Try the latest Smoothboard 1.6 at (smoothboard net) which has the autoconnect mode using just MS Bluetooth Stack!

[MeTheUltimatecheater]

0x0992818 O99-01

0x0994122 O99-02

[H3liosphan]

No pressure sensitivity I'm afraid. I suppose this is a limitation of the wiimote as it's designed to just see one or two IR lights for positional tracking. You might think you could vary the brightness of the IR LEDs but the wiimote won't be able to tell the difference. If the lights get too dim, it just stops working.

[hulksjedi]

IT HAS PRESSURE? someone knows?? I can have pressure on ADOBE PHOTOSHOP???? PLEASE LET ME KNOW!

[dakiro222]

hmm, so you could actually try a usb camera (sensitive to ir.)? or possibly mount the screen so that the camera looks from behind through the paper . Anyway its impressive

[zacx91]

AWESOME! if when i have $2,000 i try that

[radioviper]

Hang On .. Did You Take The Wii Remote Apart ?

[H3liosphan]

No need to take the WiiMote apart. The PC talks to it (and vice versa) over bluetooth. Nothing shown has required any modification of the WiiMote in any way.

[EriqueSherman]

Nice video! Liked the colorful fancy drawings you made with the IR pen :) Since I am too having a range problem with my IR LED:s I would have liked to know where you placed your WiiMOte in order to make it work as neatly as it did.

[H3liosphan]

well u can kind of see at the start of the vid where I placed the Wiimote. It didn't move from there for the whole vid.

I'd estimate roughly 2 - 3 metres from the centre point of the projected image. Not far, I know.

It should be relatively easy picking up good bright IR LEDs on Ebay or something. The key thing is to match the wavelength, eg 840nm or 880nm with whatever wavelength the wiimote is most sensitive with - I dont know which but some experiments sound in order...

Thx 4 your comments

[sgtpinky]

Not too sure about the "Low cost" part of your title. A whiteboard costs about $50. A laptop, AA batteries, projector, etc, costs...

[H3liosphan]

I see what you mean, but Mr Lee used the term to describe one of those digital whiteboards that connect to PCs, cost lots of cash normally cos theyre targeted at businesses.

But yes, a marker pen and a whiteboard is a far cheaper 'analogue' solution, but then u dont get to store a JPG of your scribblings.

[ILikeGoodSongs]

Do I smell a fellow lefty?

[H3liosphan]

Smell!? ;-)

[ThingehThingThing]

YES LEFTYS RULE!

[H3liosphan]

Of course! ;-)

[barushki]

how about a pen that turns on the led light when you press it down, as if you are writing on the ``board''?

[H3liosphan]

Interesting idea, but no - all work on this particular 'project' has ceased! ;-) It was only a p*ss-around anyway.

My next thing will be trying out Mr Johnny Chung Lees ideas on Desktop VR. Will probably be making an analysis video on that too.

Check it on his site mentioned at the start of the vid - just looks so kewl.

[paulaumdelorean]

do a tutorial video for the pen!!

[H3liosphan]

How about you learn some manners instead?

And what is it with the difficulty making IR pens, its a piece of cake. Took me about an hour.

- Go elsewhere and learn basic construction skills + some manners and get back to me.

[H3liosphan]

***Continued from before***

-Press the 1 & 2 buttons on the WiiMote and hold them down right the way thru the process until it connects.

-When it shows up, select it and go to the next page.

-Here you have to click Skip Pairing but some adapters dont have the option.

-now wait for the HID device service to show up and click next.

-It should then be connected, if it isn't, go to All BT devices and double click on the Wiimote device.

[draykian]

Would you be able to go over what you used to make your IR pen? I've checked out Johnny Lee's blueprints, but I'd rather see how other chose to do it.

[H3liosphan]

Sure

I started with an emptied out pen, left the front bit off. I then drilled two small holes at the back of the pen, and threaded thru a pair of wires with an IR LED on the end, on one of the wires I put a resistor, and a switch inline. I worked a switch shaped hole into the side of the pen and sat it there. I then soldered a 2xAA battery pack to power it in correct orientation for the LED.

HTH

[H3liosphan]

Hi

It's the built in BlueTooth adapter on my TC4400 tablet PC.

Other than that it shows up in the Device Manager as the 'HP Integrated Module with Bluetooth 2.0 Wireless Technology'.

I still had to fiddle around to get it working, and in some BT adapters you dont get all the same options. I had to -

-Start the BT Setup Wizard and choose 'I want to find a specific BT device' second option down.

***Cont. in next comment***

[00ColdFusion00]

what bluetooth usb dongle did you use, and are you using xp? (not all adapters work so it would be nice to know)