ESP8266 galore
29 July 2016
More than a year ago, I tried out the ESP8266, but didn't get very far. The scene and products have evolved a lot since then, and today it's as easy...
DIY Arduino Debug Shield
22 June 2016
Debugging with LEDs; it's probably even more primitive than debugging with printf statements. However, to get a very immediate feedback on what's happening, or which pins are in use, it...
Hello World! from the UG-2864 "OEL Display Module" / SSD1306
05 June 2016
There is a wide range of cute small OLED (organic LED, aka. Organic Electro-Luminescence) display modules around. Adafruit has a range, the same or similar can also be found all...
RFID tag reading with the RDM630 module
25 April 2016
To read RFID tags with an Arudino is easy using the RDM630 card reader module (also sold as RDM6300 in a slightly different version). It's available from DealExtrme, including a...
Wifi with the ESP8266
03 May 2015
The ESP8266 is an interesting chip that has gained a lot of traction lately. At only $5, it's quite impressive what you get: a wifi to serial adapter, a TCP/IP...
Soil Moisture Sensor
03 November 2013
Over at gardenbot.org Andrew Frueh has an interesting article on a DIY soil moister sensor. It is simply two large nails with wires attached. By measuring the resistance of the...
3x3x3 LED cube with fewer wires
13 July 2013
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that it would be possible to optimize the number of wires and components needed for a 3x3x3 single colour LED cube by using "the...
16x2 LCD and button shield
03 July 2013
I recently picked up this 16x2 character LCD and button shield from DealExtreme. It is similar to the Hitachi based shields and displays sold elsewhere, but with a slightly different...
Sparkfun orders
30 June 2013
Here's a list of items I've ordered from Sparkfun over the years. Mostly for my own reference than anything else, and maybe not of much interest to others.
Simple multiplexing with two shift registers
30 June 2013
There are many ways to drive multiple LEDs, which in sum would require more IO pins and more current than is available on the control chip. The simplest way is...
Large bright 10 mm LED
25 June 2013
Earlier this year, I found some uncommon LEDs at Clas Ohlson: Large bright 10mm LEDs (note that the link takes you to selection of different kinds; I got the "ultra...
Nexa Home Automation - 433 MHz codes
23 June 2013
After successfully decoding the Everflourish home automation controls, and integrating that with a DIY Android app, I thought it was time to expand the system. I picked up a new...
8 bits shift register - 17 bits of data
19 June 2013
Although the serial-in, parallel-out shift register, aka. SN74AHC595, SN74AHC594 or just "595" / "594", is an easy component to hook up and use, it might not be immediately obvious what's...
How to make an LED Cube
20 May 2013
User "fruitkid101" has a short and to-the-point video up on YouTube on how to construct a 3x3x3 LED cube, and drive it with an Arudino. What distinguishes his video from...
Home automation with Arduino and Android
19 February 2013
Last year I made the first progress towards a DIY remote for my home automation light switches (using the Everflourish RF based system). The goal was to use the 433.92...
Small DIY keypads
27 January 2013
Looking for a simple remote control solution, I came across these small 4x4 button keypads seen in the pictures below. The first two are similar in that they are simple...
Arduino on Fedora 17
19 January 2013
Working with the Arduino on a changing Fedora environment is a bit of a challenge. For every release or update, there's something new and exciting which breaks the Arudino IDE,...
Arduino adapter shield for the RPi
14 November 2012
The H recently wrote about the AlaMode board which lets you use Arudino compatible shields with the Raspberry Pi. The board connects to the GPIO headers of the RPi, and...
Home Automation on 433.92 MHz with Arduino
02 September 2012
Last year I wrote about my plans with the RF Link Transmitter, Receiver, and Everflourish home automation system seen in the pictures below. The idea was to replace the remote...
Autonomous Coaxial Helicopter - Stage 1
13 August 2012
Using the Double Horse 9053 Volitation (Revell “Big One Pro”) I wrote about earlier, I've now embarked on a project to make it an autonomous flying and stabilizing helicopter. (First...
Sensors: Ultrasonic Range Finder
04 August 2012
In yet another shipment from Deal Extreme, I picked up a HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Range Finder. It seems to be a widely used and supported component, as there are plenty of...
Moving Parts - Part 1: Stepper motors
03 July 2012
After the new Atmel ATMega was installed yesterday, I'm now ready to experiment with some stepper motors. First out, the Mercury Motor SM-42BYG011-25, a medium sized motor with quite a...
Burning a bootloader with the STK500v2
02 July 2012
After picking up a few blank ATMega328P I was ready to upload the Arduino bootloader with the latest Olimex AVR-ISP500 USB STK500v2, but ran into a few issues. Here's how...
RF Communication on 433.92 MHz
05 November 2011
I recently got a Sparkfun order on my door, so it's time to play. In the box was a RF Link Transmitter, and Receiver. They are sold as 434 MHz...
Arduino, Fedora 15, and the gpsd incompatibility
31 October 2011
Even though the Arduino is very popular amongst makers and other electronics hobbyist, it is still a fringe platform in most settings. And even though the arduino package is available...
Arduino news
18 September 2011
Some interesting news from Arudino yesterday: Arduino 1.0, we finally froze the Arduino API, the IDE and the layout of the boards. Arduino Leonardo, a low cost Arduino board with...
555 Contest
23 April 2011
Evil Mad Scientist is showing some of the entries for the 555 Contest. There's some great creations, but perhaps the most entertaining is the "Le Dominoux" (or “LED dominoes”) by...
Teensy USB Development Board
10 April 2011
The Teensy is a complete USB-based microcontoller development system, in a very small footprint. It is similar to Arduino boards in that it uses an ATMEGA Atmel AVR processor, however...
Interacting with the Button Pad Controller SPI
27 March 2011
By popular request, here's an update to the first code for the Button Pad Controller SPI. This sketch now includes interactive feedback, in the form of changing colours based on...
Arduino for Fedora
27 March 2011
It's old news, but I missed that the Arduino IDE now is available in the Fedora repository, since Fedora 13. sudo yum install arduino You might also have to include...
Arduino IDE - Adding a little Emacs
23 January 2011
Voidman has a great hack for the Arudino IDE: Adding some of the most common Emacs short cuts to the editor. It's only a few lines of added code, compile,...
Physical tone matrix
05 December 2010
As an update to yesterday's post on the Tone Matrix, here's a very stylish realization from the Reenigne blog. Featuring 16x16 LED lights (just like the Flash app), the same...
Monome as Tone Matrix
04 December 2010
The Tone Matrix by Andre Michelle is making its rounds. It seems this shouldn't be too difficult to implement in hardware, using the 4x4 button pad. Or in other words,...
We are the robots
27 November 2010
I've been looking up a few robots lately. There are a lot of impressive kits out there, and many of them pass as toys for kids, even if the technology...
Online Parts Suppliers
10 November 2010
Nathan Seidle, founder of SparkFun, recently told the story of how his business started from his bedroom in 2004. Since then, there has popped up a lot of good suppliers...
Smallduino: Ardweeny
07 November 2010
Here's probably the smallest fully functional Arudino out there: Ardweeny. At $10 from Maker Shed, you can't go wrong. They market it as a bread board item, however I can't...
Panorama Robots
02 November 2010
It somehow seems inevitable; if you are into photography and electronics, you want to build a panorama robot. Coupled with very good software to stitch and render a panorama image,...
Scavenging old computer mice
25 October 2010
Lately I've taken some old computer mice apart. There are a few interesting components which can be reused in there: On a ball-mouse, there are two pairs of infra-red emitters...
Arduino Shield List
23 October 2010
Jon Oxer has launched a site to catalogue all Arudino shields: Arduino Shield List (shieldlist.org). At the time of writing, there are "pin usage details for 166 shields from 70...
Motors and robotics
23 October 2010
Looking at the 12 V stepper motor at SparkFun, I came across a few other fun links. Including instructions for stepper motor wiring, a DIY surveillance camera, and an example...
First code for the Button Pad Controller SPI
17 October 2010
I recently got the Button Pad Controller SPI from SparkFun. Today I had some time to play around with the code, and got it working. Currently, it is only blinking...
Controlling RGB Matrices with Arduino
09 October 2010
SparkFun just put a new tutorial on controlling their 8x8 RGB matrix with an Arduino. It includes a new library, so things should be easy to set up. Hopefully, I...
Maple: Arudino at 72 MHz
29 September 2010
Just for the record and to save the links for myself: Maple from LeafLabas. "Maple is a 72 MHz 32 bits ARM Cortex M3 chip [...] built from open source...
New Arduino Boards Ready
27 September 2010
Arduino.cc just announced two new Arduino boards: The Arduino Uno, replacing the Duemilanove, and Arduino Mega 2560, succeeding the Mega. The Uno gets a programmable USB chip which can "make...
8 bits Shift Register - 74HC595
08 November 2009
On the heals of the success with the Arduino kit last week, I went ahead and bought some extra parts: a 74HC595, 8 bits Shift Register, some red/green/orange LEDS (TLUV5300),...
Arduino on Ubuntu 8.04
05 November 2009
A few days ago I set up the Arduino development kit on Fedora 11. Here the steps for Ubuntu 8.04 follow, based on this. I was using a slightly custom...
Ethernet2VGA (Arduino w/ethernet -> microVGA PICASO)
31 October 2009
I recently bought an Arduino starter kit along with the Ethernet "shield". In addition, I got a uVGA-PICASO-MD1 Graphics Controller chip, which attaches on to the PICASO Universal Base Board....