


HacksKickstarter Backer Alert with Stats Scroller, using Arduino Yun![]() Recently, we created our first Kickstarter campaign (RGB LED Shades). It's very exciting to see the "New Backer Alert!" emails roll in, and the notifications pop up on a smartphone. But we wanted to see our Kickstarter stats at a glance, and be notified whenever we have a new backer. The Linux side of the Yún can run scripting languages such as Python to scrape website data and control an LED marquee sign, and the Arduino side can control some I/O for an impossible-to-ignore new backer alert. Read the full Instructable here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Kickstarter-Backer-Alert-with-Stats-Scroller-using/ Submitted by Garrett on Tue, 10/14/2014 - 14:52. Musical Fish (MSP430 Captouch & Bare Conductive Paint)This is a short article demonstrating an experiment with Bare conductive ink and the MSP430's capacitive sensing hardware. I've experimented with various capacitive sense methods previously; the most common uses one pin to charge up an electrode, while using another pin to measure the amount of time needed to charge up to the logic high threshold level of an input pin. A couple of similar approaches are illustrated here: http://www.ti.com/lit/an/slaa363a/slaa363a.pdf An alternate method is available on several of the MSP430 value line microcontrollers (G2xx2, G2xx3, FR58xx, FR59xx). In addition to the typical pin peripheral functions, they include a relaxation oscillator circuit that includes pin capacitance to set the frequency. By measuring the number of oscillations in a given time period, a small change in capacitance can be measured...enough to detect whether a finger is touching an electrode. Bare Conductive makes a carbon-bearing paint that is fairly conductive, and available in pen form. Combined with capacitive sensing, it is possible to draw an interface on a sheet of paper, and use it as input to a microcontroller. For this experiment, we used it to play a few notes from a speaker and make a very basic piano-like instrument.
Submitted by Garrett on Sun, 01/19/2014 - 13:58. AF_XPort and lighttpdRecently I was building a project for a client, who needed an internet-controlled display device. For quick development time and minimal budget, I selected an Arduino Duemilanove, XPort Shield, and XPort Direct from Lady Ada's Adafruit store. Soldered everything together, tested and configured the XPort, everything worked. Then I wrote the necessary code to request data from a web server, that all worked too. Finally I took the project down to the client's office in Mountain View and set it up...didn't work. I ended up working on the project for about four hours trying to get it running (minus some tricky subnet issues...use increments of 8 bits on an XPort). The client was using lighttpd to serve the display data, and I had been using Apache for testing. HTTP is HTTP, right? It should work on either? It didn't. I set up an Apache server on my laptop and everything worked great...point the Arduino sketch back at the client server, nothing worked. I kept getting "501 - Not Implemented" errors from the web server. If I opened up a telnet session directly to the web server and manually typed in the request the Arduino was sending, it worked. Submitted by Garrett on Tue, 03/17/2009 - 17:19. Quick cable testerI got a batch of cables that had a few bad wires in them, so I needed to test every cable. Checking all the wires with a multimeter was out, so I built this simple cable tester out of a proto board, some headers, an LED, a resistor, and some wire. It just completes a circuit through all the wires in a cable; if any wire is bad, the LED will not light. Simple concept, but it allowed me to test about 300 cables in about half an hour. A video of a few cable tests is below:
Submitted by Garrett on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 22:54. It worked, ok?![]()
This was pretty ugly. I needed to cut a bunch of copper-clad FR4 into thin strips for my LED array project. 144 1/4" strips, to be precise. I wasn't going to use the metal shear at TechShop, since fiberglass is pretty abrasive. I was also worried the pinching effect would wrap copper around the edges and short the two sides. Anyway, I lashed together a mini table saw with a Dremel, diamond wheel, hot glue, plywood, and duct tape. Note the Shop Vac dust removal system. It actually worked quite well, cutting about 120 feet of PCB material and I didn't notice any decline in cutting ability. Read more»
Submitted by Garrett on Sun, 04/27/2008 - 01:18. PVC Laundry Hamper + Towel Rack
Submitted by Garrett on Sat, 04/05/2008 - 09:29. |
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