NavLights

Simple navigation lights for RC planes (or other vehicles) based on Arduino This is also an example of a multi-tread Arduino software.

Navigation Lights with Battery Voltage Alarm (optional - TODO)
V0.8 - test version based on project:protothread Library

Websites: http://harteware.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/protothread-powerfull-library.html

http://harteware.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/protothread-and-arduino-first-easy.html

http://dunkels.com/adam/pt/examples.html

Download: https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads/v2/code.google.com/arduinode/pt.zip

Design Notes:

1. The protothread Library allows to run several threads in parallel which updates global variables to exchange information betweeh the therads. Local variables are not safe (protothreads do not save the stack context across a blocking call, local variables are not preserved when the protothread blocks - please see the protothread library documentation for details) so each thread uses its own set of local variables as a precaution to ensure other similar threads do not affect them.

2. There is a Control Thread (pt0) that can switch on and off each other thread. Control Thread can detect some input changes such as battery voltage, switch off a normal blinking thread and switch on an "emergency" blinking thread and a sound tone thread. That is how different audio and visual effects can be made.

3. In this version voltage measurement for each LiPO cell has not been implemented. Instead the Control Thread can read voltage (0-5v only!) from one of the Arduino input pins and switch the threads just to prove functionality.

4. DEBUG mode could potentially affect the Brightness Boost Thread as debug info output via serial port takes too much of CPU time.

5. It has a separate thread to fade-in and fade out a LED using Arduino PWM function.

Donation:

If you like this project or it helps you to reduce your development effort, you can buy me a cup of coffee :)