This has been a sad week for the Exploding Twit Bird, but I have not given up hope!
First of all, my Arduino was having weird issues. It wasn't sensing the button correctly (rather, was sensing an always HIGH signal, which was no good. I ordered a new Arduino, and then had trouble getting it to connect (which turned out to be stupidity on my part—I just needed to reset it from Duemilanove to the Uno. That done, it worked fine!
I am still having troubles, however: My air compressor is fancy, so it requires that I set the PSI before it will turn on. To set the PSI, one must hold either the plus or minus button for a few seconds. I assumed that I could just send a HIGH signal to the transistor for a few seconds, and all would be fine. This does not work, however. The signal is not clean enough for the air compressor to recognize it as a constant signal. I know this, because the light on the air compressor keeps turning on and off, which is what happens if you hit the +/- buttons, but don't hold them for long enough. Below is video of that happening: (well, I'll add the video in once it's done uploading)
I *did* double-check that the balloon will explode. It takes a full 2-2.5 minutes, but it gets there:
I also noticed that the power button keeps getting a signal, even when the Arduino isn't (or at least, shouldn't be) sending it a signal. I'm not sure if, because I used the 30-gauge wire, it doesn't have enough insulation to prevent troubles, or what the problem is.
End decision: I need a new air compressor, and I should just manipulate the 12V power supply, directly (via a larger transistor), rather than trying to do it with little buttons. Then I can just send a single signal to power it for a certain number of seconds. I can't really use the PSI, anyway—one thing I wondered about—because balloons do not inflate to a high pressure. They just get bigger and bigger and bigger, with roughly the same PSI, until they pop. I wen to Home Depot on 23rd Street with no luck, but I'm off to Lowes in Brooklyn today! Hopefully I'll have a new, simpler air compressor in hand, when I return.
Oh, and my Interface professor thought maybe I was getting electromagnetic interference in my Arduino signal because it was too close to the air compressor. Just to be sure, I moved it a good 2 feet away:
Oh, and lastly, I'm still grappling with the ethernet shield code, but in the worst-case scenario, I'll use the firmata library and connect to Processing on my computer.
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