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Arduino Barometric Pressure Sensor BMP085

jay@mercenarymind.com (admin) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Authors: admin

This project shows how to use the BMP085Barometric Pressure Sensor with Arduino. The BMP085 pressure sensor combines a absolute barometric pressure sensor (aka barometer) with an temperature sensor and communicates with arduino using I2C protocol.

Arduino & Barometric Pressure Sensor BMP085 - [Link]

Controlling a CNC over the web with an iPad

jay@mercenarymind.com (Electronics lab) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Authors: Electronics lab

Mike is just controlling a CNC over the web with an iPad, no biggie –

Controlling my cnc over the web with my ipad so I mocked up a powertail with an arduino to turn the spindle on/off. Took the original housing off and it fits easily into my adafruit arduino case. Matt Ratto made an on off button for me in processing that can leave on my desktop and click remotely.

Controlling a CNC over the web with an iPad - [via]

Understanding and Preventing LED Failure

jay@mercenarymind.com (Electronics lab) — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Authors: Electronics lab

Kristin Lewotsky writes:

LEDs have a well-deserved reputation for high-efficiency operation, not to mention high reliability. Properly specified and implemented, LEDs should and do satisfy virtually every lighting application. Still, there are times when actual device lifetimes fall short of the specified ideal. LEDs are wide-bandgap semiconductor devices. As a result, they have far more complex and varied failure modes than the incumbent technologies. Unlike an incandescent lamp, where failure is fairly simple (the bulb produces light until the filament breaks), with an LED, the failure modes range from mechanical and electrical to material.

Understanding and Preventing LED Failure - [Link]

Wifi Ice Tube Clock

jay@mercenarymind.com (Electronics lab) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:00:00 +0000

adafruit.com writes:

Dan has taken an Ice Tube Clock, added a Roving Networks WiFly (RN-134) module, and wrote some firmware to add some more features to the clock. He has added time synch, weather data display, and even a Twitter display. He currently has it setup to alternate between the time, the weather and a Twitter message.

Wifi Ice Tube Clock –[via]

Mini Volt Meter

jay@mercenarymind.com (Electronics lab) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Authors: Electronics lab

Put a voltage meter anywhere with this very handy display. These are often used by RC hobbyists for keeping track of batteries but we thought it would be great on a breadboard or enclosure.

Simply connect the red wire to the positive supply, and black to negative ground. The display has a microcontroller that will read the voltage, compare it to a stable reference and display the voltage with 0.1V precision on a 3-digit 7-segment display. It works from 3.2V up to 30V so it will be good for nearly any electronic project! The meter draws 3-4mA to power the microcontroller and display. This particular LED display is a nice vivid green, which we found very readable. Mounting tabs make this module easy to attach to any box or plate.

Mini Volt Meter - [via]

Washing Machine to Hydroplant

jay@mercenarymind.com (Administrator) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 05:00:00 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRT-bvXrjSQ

I Hope they do a how to on the DIY solenoid. That could be useful for a number of things.

PC Fan Repair

jay@mercenarymind.com (Hacked Gadgets) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Authors: Hacked Gadgets

I have changed out quite a few fans over the years, you know the ones that I’m talking about, they make your PC sound like it’s a jet engine on takeoff. A few times I blew the dust out of the fan, pried the fan blade off and dropped a few drops of oil into the fan shaft. This seemed to always fix the problem but in my case it always turned out to be a temporary fix since the squeal usually came back after a few weeks of operation and when I opened it there was a bunch of black gunk in the shaft. I think I see what my problem was after reading this PC Fan Repair post from hacklordsniper. I should have used bearing grease and perhaps cleaned the fan assembly better. Seems that he is quite a bit more invasive than I have ever been since he utilizes the bath tub to clean fans and other electronic parts.

Via: EEVblog Forum

“You will need it later. Remove the rubber seal, then use tweezers to remove white lock and a small rubber seal again. At this moment the fan will fall apart and you will see why it does not work. Clean all parts, apply ball bearing grease (not regular one, but the one designed for small bearings) to axle and top and bottom of fan. Reassemble and test”

via: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HackedGadgets/~3/h797kh77vJQ/

When music meets Arduino

jay@mercenarymind.com (Arduino Blog) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 05:00:00 +0000

A beautiful project by [Leigh Davis]. It is a brilliant proof of how Arduino fits into virtually any sphere of thought and is the shortest path for a creator realizing his idea in reality.

He writes:

I began the first few days by developing a stand alone application build in MaxMSP that understands the notes that a play on my (recently purchased second-hand) flute. I set the range from low C right up to the 3rd octave D. Each note of the chromatic scale triggers a bang, which is coloured uniquely to the other notes bang messages.

The bang message then sets the corresponding color to the display screen on the application. Which will in turn send a signal to the arduino to dispense the corresponding oil color on water according to the different notes. (Something like a physical Milkdrop!)He further plans to control different LEDs, motors and the likes using the Rayne application.

This entry was posted by priya on Monday, August 29th, 2011 and is filed under Ar(t)duino, Audio, Community, Education, Exhibition, Hardware, Led(s), Mega, Motors, Relay, Visualising Data, arduino, controllers, lcd, sensors, servo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

DIY DSLR Shoulder mount

jay@mercenarymind.com (Administrator) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Ever since the hand cams palm sized video cameras have been on the mark i have missed the stability of old shoulder resting cameras. Here is a cool how to video on making a mount for a dslr that could be used for any camera with a tripod mount.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtfY-YKPFoA

Regular diode used as a photo-element

jay@mercenarymind.com (Administrator) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 05:00:00 +0000

robertgawron.blogspot.com writes:

There are special diodes, that are designed to measure light intensity, also regular LED can be used for this, but I was wondering, if any diode is suitable here? In this post I will share results of those experiments.

Theoretical background of this is well described in Wikipedia: “A photodiode is a PN junction or PIN structure. When a photon of sufficient energy strikes the diode, it excites an electron, thereby creating a free electron (and a positively charged electron hole). This mechanism is also known as the photoelectric effect. [...] Since transistors and ICs are made of semiconductors, and contain P-N junctions, almost every active component is potentially a photodiode.” [source]

Regular diode used as a photo-element –[Link]