Arduino Firmata Actor

bonemap

it works great for me on Mojave

OK! I have wound my testing back to my MBP with 10.14.6 Mojave and incorporated testing with the Test Firmata app. I can see now why the test Firmata app is so critical, but it is hardly future proof having to go back 2x Mac OS releases to access a critical test app - it is not going to be great moving forward. We really need a solution for Catalina and Big Sur - don't we?

I could not find any clear specification online about which boards are supported by Firmata protocol and which are not. I have a couple of Arduino Micro boards (which I love using because they are so small, using a magnifying glass to read the PIN numbers etc.), but these don't appear to be recognised by the Firmata Test app in Mac OS Mojave. However, the Arduino Micro I tested on Big Sur machine did allow me to successfully control PMW and digital outputs through Isadora - just not the analogue inputs.

The Arduino Uno appeared in the Firmata Test app on Mojave and I could see the analogue pins working with an accelerometer attached. So it is unclear why the Arduino Uno failed to read the analogue inputs when attempting to access through the Firmata actor in Isadora. On both test machines I could only get a reading from one analogue input at a time - perhaps I have something wrong with these inputs?. Not having the Firmata test app for Mac OS beyond Mojave 10.14 makes the task a bit hit and miss.

Best Wishes

Russell

liminal_andy

@mark said:

@tonyschuite @bonemap @liminal_andy @juriaan
So, I've listened to all you have to say, and made substantial changes to the actor. I've explained how it's working now in this video, as it was easier to do this than to write it all out.
Please let me know if you think will help make this accessible to beginners and students who might use this actor.
Best Wishes,
Mark

I think you nailed it :). These are precisely the changes needed to open up the actor to a lot of entry-level use cases. Absolutely love it. It may still be interesting in the future to have a dedicated firmware file and user actor that, while rigid and restrictive, can extend to boards that do not support Firmata specifically but do support the general firmware language (thinking of some of those ESP32s, etc.).

Fabulous actor! I need to aside aside more time to play with it...

mark

@liminal_andy said:

but do support the general firmware language (thinking of some of those ESP32s, etc.).

So, ESP32's do not support Firmata? (I know zero about these boards. Thanks for educating me.)

Best Wishes,
Mark

mark

@bonemap

I've recompiled and notarized the Firmata Test app so that it will run on Big Sur. I just tested it on my Apple M1 machine running Big Sur and it worked as expected with my Arduino. (It was running under Intel emulation.)

Download the TroikaTronix version of the Firmata Test App v1.1 for MacOS

Let me know how it goes for you.

Best Wishes,
Mark

bonemap

@mark said:

recompiled and notarized the Firmata Test app so that it will run on Big Sur.

Thanks!

Best wishes

Russell

mark

@bonemap said:

Thanks!

You should debug all connections and signals using the Firmata Test app for now, as the would be more of a known quantity that my new actor. If it works with the test app, it should (in theory) work with the new actor.

Best Wishes,
Mark

bonemap

@mark said:

If it works with the test app, it should (in theory) work with the new actor.

ok...

cheers

Russell

bonemap

@mark,

There appears to be a discrepancy with the Analogue input pins. Only one Analogue pin on the Firmata actor shows activity. With the same board, port and setup the Firmata test shows activity on all analogue inputs. I found this to be the case with the Mojave and Big Sur machines

Best Wishes

Russell

mark

@bonemap

There appears to be a discrepancy with the Analogue input pins. Only one Analogue pin on the Firmata actor shows activity. With the same board, port and setup the Firmata test shows activity on all analogue inputs. I found this to be the case with the Mohave and Big Sur machines

Good find. You're right. Fixed v0.8.1.

Best Wishes,
Mark

bonemap

@mark said:

Fixed v0.8.1

yes, it is now working like a charm.

thank u

Best

Russell

mark

@tonyschuite @bonemap @liminal_andy @juriaan

So the former user @deflost informed me by email of another issue with the Arduino Firmata actor: after designing the setup, quitting Isadora and coming back, the Arduino wasn't reporting analog data unless the 'gen spec' input was triggered, which wiped out their edits to the PIN specification.

This is fixed in v0.8.2. I've moved the download to the first post in this thread.

I had chosen to ask only for the firmware version upon initializing the actor, as this message is short. But to deal with every possibility, I'm now asking for all the configuration information Firmata might send, which can be several hundred bytes. This means upon entering a scene, the actor will send this request and the Ardunio will be briefly "dead in the water" while it responds and sends all the data.

Not sure what can be done about this. Each copy of the actor has its own specification, and thus you really do need to update the configuration on what the hardware reports. But there is now going to be a more significant chunk of down time as you transition from one scene to the next and the Ardunio sends this block of data in response to the actor being activated.

In any case, let's see how this one settles.

Best Wishes,
Mark

mark

Dear All,

Bumping this thread so you'll know there is a Aduino Firmata v0.8.2. In addition to the fixes listed in the previous thread, I've improved the documentation.

The download now lives in the first post in this thread.

Best Wishes,
Mark

bonemap

@mark said:

let's see how this one settles

Mac Big Sur there appears to be a bug with the 'help' and info pop out associated with using the analog pinouts. The info pop out appears to not display the help text when set to analog pins. I getting further inconsistency when attempting to assign "help" text to 'input' pins to actor outputs...

Best Wishes

Russell

mark

@bonemap said:

Mac Big Sur there appears to be a bug with the 'help' and info pop out associated with using the analog pinouts. The info pop out appears to not display the help text when set to analog pins. I getting further inconsistency when attempting to assign "help" text to 'input' pins to actor outputs...

Yep. For the actor outputs, it was showing the input help instead of the output help. Fixed v0.8.3.

Download is in the first post at the top.

Thanks,
Mark

Paz

Hi! Please can anyone confirm whether the Arduino Firmata actor is designed to work with Arm based Macs. The actor is visible on my Intel based Mac - I can drag it into the workspace. However on my M1 Mac Mini I cannot locate it in the "Communications" section after the actor has been uploaded to the TroikaTronix Actor Plugins folder and then Isadora has been restarted. I'm eager to progress with @bonemap 's Arduino sensor setup!

Many thanks for your help! 😀

Best wishes Simon

Woland

@paz

We’ll try to release an ARM-compatible version at some point in the near future, but for now it is Intel-only.

Best wishes,

Woland

bonemap

@paz said:

I'm eager to progress with @bonemap 's Arduino sensor setup!

Hi Simon,

Apologies for the confusion. Let's hope that there is a chance it can be updated for Apple silicon at some point.

Best Wishes,

Russell

Paz

@bonemap @Woland thank you both for your responses.

Best wishes,

Simon

Lo 0

Hi all,

For an installation I am making with a PIR sensor, Arduino and Isadora, I downloaded the Arduino Firmata plugin and ran the script to install it. But unfortunately, when I search for the firmata actor in Isadora, it doesn't pop up. On my friends laptop it did work. The difference between me and her is that I have a new macbook with the m1 chip, could that be a reason why it's not working?

Any help is extremely welcome! Thank you!

Lo

Juriaan

@lo-0

Hi there!

First of all, welcome to the Isadora community!

That is correct, the Firmata actor has not been built for M1 yet. For now you can run Isadora in Rosetta mode to take advantage of the Firmata actor.

Let us know or that solves your question.

- Juriaan