Hello All,

Recently a thread entitled "wild pig" was opened whereby
the user Manfred POMUTZ started he built a
widget which he wanted to come out of a deep sleep, log
the time of day, and return back to a deep sleep.
The occurrence rate could vary from daily, weekly, to

monthly. The objective of this thread was how to
extend the battery life of his widget from three days to
a year.

Following the thread lead to good and bad ideas of how
to accomplish this objective. The best (in my opinion)
came from Mr. Steve M. Taylor (http://www.8052.com/forum/read.phtml?id=76829) in which
he suggested Manfred POMUTZ look at some IC designed for
this purpose
(http://www.maxim-ic.com/products/...oggers.cfm ).

Checking out these IC's I realized the DS1678 (Real Time
Even Recorder) was perfect for this application. I
also did some more research on the Internet and found an
excellent article published in circuit cellular magazine
by Jeff Bachiochi in 2002 and it contained hardware and
software to turn this project into an easy solution.
(http://www.circuitcellar.com/library/p...eff140.pdf
ftp://ftp.circuitcellar.com/pub/Circuit_Cellar/2002/140/jeff140.zip).

Soon Manfred POMUTZ problem became my problem. I wanted
to build a widget which expanded upon the original idea
so that it would log the date & time, take a picture
using a cheap digital camera. The digital camera
required a flash in order to handle low light situations
(Night time) which was solved by hacking a
throw away Kodak disposal camera to make use of its
flash.

Some interesting information about the digital camera
can be found at these sites.
http://www.robnee.com/electronics/Articles/6/
AYUCR Camera Controller - Modifying a Pencam for xternal
Control
========================================================
http://members.misty.com/don/kmaxhack.html
Hacking the Kodak Max Single Use Flash Camera into a
Self-Repeating Strobe
========================================================
http://members.misty.com/don/kflashmp.gif
Photos the Kodak Max flash unit/board, top and bottom.
========================================================
Schematic for the Kodak Max flash unit.
http://members.misty.com/don/kflashm.gif

All of the objectives of being battery operated, CHEAP,
and maintainable soon felt into place.

I redid the schematic and laid out a printed circuit
board which can be seen at these address
http://members.aol.com/cpu8052/ds16782.gif.

A project this size never gets finished but at least my
mind has been satisfied that Manfred POMUTZ original
problem has been solved.

I didn't tie all of the pieces together (DS1678, Digital
Camera, Flash, and IBM computer comm port, etc) because
I thought it might be a good thread to get suggestions
of how to do that. Any suggestion would be highly
regarded.

Regards,

Charles Bannister