During a recent vacation, I challenged myself to come up with a design for a continuity tester that suits my particular testing requirements. Most of the time, I go straight for a microcontroller, but this time I decided to use only non-programmable components. I also decided to use only through hole components, to make soldering easier.
Driving LEDs using the lowest possible pin-count is a common challenge for folks creating projects with microcontrollers. Complementary LED drive, also known as “Charlieplexing”, allows a large number of LEDs to be controlled with a relatively small number of I/O pins. This fun digital LED clock project is a hands-on example of how Charlieplexing can be used to stretch your “pin budget”!
A theremin is a musical instrument that is played by waving one’s hands in midair over the instrument itself. There is no physical contact between the player and the instrument. Of course, this makes playing a theremin very difficult. However, help is on the way! Enter the Altura theremin MIDI controller kit!
This fun, elegant, and useful project pulls data from the Internet so a series of useful displays can show all kinds of cool info in real time from your mantel or bookshelf in this impressive platform.
In our previous article, we discussed the circuit and code for each of the core components for our Weather Gauge. We took a deep dive on how the stepper is wired up and the node.js code that drives it. Now, it’s time to put it all together and light it up in this final installment.
This fun, elegant, and useful project pulls data from the Internet so a series of useful displays can show all kinds of cool info in real time from your mantel or bookshelf in this impressive platform.
In this first article of a two-part series, we’ll discuss the circuit and code for each of the core components for the weather; take a deep dive on how the stepper is wired up; then learn about the node.js code that drives it.
The “magic” of Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) process control can be mystifying. In this article, we’ll step you through using an Arduino in a hands-on exercise using a solid-state relay to control a 1,500 watt hotplate in a real world solution to a tricky problem: automating a vegetable canning process.
The NeoPixel LED tree is beautifully made from laser cut 3 mm Baltic birch plywood and is powered by a NodeMCU Amica ESP8266 32-bit Wi-Fi enabled processor. With 93 individually addressable NeoPixel LEDs, and remote controllable from any browser on your Wi-Fi network, this tree can’t be topped!
The Macchiato is a build-it-yourself/do-it-yourself (DIY) miniature eight-bit, polyphonic, digital music synthesizer kit. Derived squarely from the circuitry roots that are deeply entrenched in the pioneering work of American synthesizer maestro, John Simonton of PAiA fame and the legendary analog 1980s Pro-One synthesizer from Sequential Circuits, this offering from Zeppelin Design Labs is much more than just a kit.
Here’s a quick beginner-friendly tutorial that shows you how to interface and read data with the popular serial protocol, I2C. In particular, we’ll be reading data from the NXP MPL3115A2 altimeter/barometer/temperature sensor. The principles found here can also be applied generically, even to your ambifacient lunar wane shaft positioning sensor of your turboencabulator.
This timely clock project uses CMOS logic and seven-segment displays, which offer the builder many design variations for construction.
