Here is an open source plant watering alarm based around the ATtiny44A. It uses a humidity sensor to detect when a plant needs to be watered. Your favorite plants need plenty of water to grow. If you keep forgetting to water your house plants you might be interested in this plant watering alarm device called […]
Author Archives: DP
Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters
Every Friday we give away some extra PCBs via Facebook. This post was announced on Facebook, and on Monday we’ll send coupon codes to two random commenters. More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week: Free PCB Sunday. The classic. Every week, get […]
Week in (p)review August 16, 2013
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. Making wine in Shenzhen: Metal hex standoff kit Arduino retro gamebox PCB a Week 21: Tindog SMD soldering practice CreepyDOL WiFi surveillance project debuts at Blackhat/DEFCON SARRRO – Ultrasonic anti-collision robot build FabISP – a home-built AVR in-system programmer […]
Open source DIY cellphone
Here is a DIY cellphone based on the Arduino platform and the GSM shield. It features basic functionality of a cellphone including making calls, sending SMS, storing phone numbers and displaying the current time. The DIY Cellphone is a working (albeit basic) cellphone that you can make yourself. It can make and receive phone calls […]
FabISP – a home-built AVR in-system programmer
David designed a home-built AVR in-system programmer. It’s built on the USBtiny and V-USB firmwares and uses a ATtiny44 microcontroller to communicate with avrdude over USB and a target microcontroller over the 6pin IDC cable. The FabISP is an in-system programmer for AVR microcontrollers, designed for production within a FabLab. That is, it allows you […]
Raspberry Pi Pandora streamer
Here is a Pandora music player based around the Raspberry pi. It features a screen that provides basic user interface control, and displays the song title. My basic justification for the project was that I listen to a lot of music on Pandora or Spotify while reading and doing homework, but having it up on […]
Making wine in Shenzhen: Metal hex standoff kit
Often it’s not clear exactly what connector, button, switch, or part is the best choice for a project. We end up making a last minute order of 1 or 2 of any likely candidate from Mouser or Digikey. That sets the project off by about a week while we dig through datasheets and websites, make […]
PCB a Week 21: Tindog SMD soldering practice
Mats continues his challenge of designing one PCB every week. In week 21 he came up with Tindog an SMD soldering practice board shaped like a dog: A 8-pin SOIC is about the easiest SMD IC to solder so I had to come up with a project using one of those, and also not having […]
Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB
We go through a lot of prototype PCBs, and end up with lots of extras that we’ll never use. Every Sunday we give away a few PCBs from one of our past or future projects, or a related prototype. Our PCBs are made through Seeed Studio’s Fusion board service. This week two random commenters will […]
App note: Powering portable media players
Here is an application note from Texas Instruments on how to power various systems required for portable media players. These devices require several different voltages, multiple power sources, as well as integrated battery charging.
App note: Protect Your Designs from malware with the DeepCover MAXQ1050 secure microcontroller
Here’s an app note from Maxim describing how to protect your embedded systems from Malware with DeepCover MAXQ1050 Secure Microcontroller: Malware injection has become a critical threat to embedded systems. Implementing an asymmetric cryptography-based secure boot is the best protection against this class of attacks. This application note describes the key principles of such a secure […]
SARRRO – Ultrasonic anti-collision robot build
Ultrasonic anti-collision robot by Gavin Hannah: I’ve also coined a name for my project. SARRRO, which stands for Search & Rescue Reconnaissance Rover. I’ve updated the site title to reflect this. From now on, I will be referring to my project as SARRRO rather than just “project” as I have been doing. Via Hacked Gadgets.
Free PCB coupon via Facebook to 2 random commenters
Every Friday we give away some extra PCBs via Facebook. This post was announced on Facebook, and on Monday we’ll send coupon codes to two random commenters. More PCBs via Twitter on Tuesday and the blog every Sunday. Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week: Free PCB Sunday. The classic. Every week, get […]
Week in (p)review August 09, 2013
Here’s a summary of major developments over the last week. Free PCB Friday is coming up soon. Debugging the WM8731 ADC/DAC with the Bus Pirate Atmega328p PPM Encoder programming with the Bus Pirate Breadboard version Bus Pirate and ST7920 Controlling a heat pump with Raspberry Pi and USB IR Toy ATX Bench power supply DIY Bus […]
BareDuino micro
Niek designed this BareDuino micro, that is available at github: For some Arduino projects, you don’t actually need that many IO pins. That’s exactly the case when I tried to build a simple RGB throwie that would cycle through colours. I was looking for a cheaper alternative to the Arduino UNO’s ATmega328P when I stumbled […]
Making wine in Shenzhen: Nylon hex standoff kit
Often it’s not clear exactly what connector, button, switch, or part is the best choice for a project. We end up making a last minute order of 1 or 2 of any likely candidate from Mouser or Digikey. That sets the project off by about a week while we dig through datasheets and websites, make […]
Atmel AVR Dragon hardware review
Kenneth Finnegan did a review of the Atmel AVR Dragon hardware: One of my good friends at Atmel, Paul Rako, recently sent me a sample of the AVR Dragon (Atmel store page), which is a in-circuit serial programmer (ISP) and On-Chip Debugger (OCD). The ISP functionality is familiar to most hobbyists in the AVR embedded […]
The Laser-Wielding robot that roams landfills to sniff out methane gas
Researchers at Orebro University in Sweden have developed a mobile methane-sniffing machine, the Gasbot: Cue the robots. Researchers at Orebro University in Sweden have developed a gas-sniffing, mobile robot that uses laser beams to find gaseous areas and an algorithm to map them. Researchers are calling the Gasbot “a big leap forward” for automating the gas […]
Digital/Analog clock – Arduino + PaperCraft
alstroemeria wrote this Instructable detailing the build of his Digital/Analog clock: In this instructable we will be recreating a clock inspired by Alvin Aronson’s original design. When I first saw this clock I was very impressed by how clean an elegant the design was I immediately wanted to recreate this effect. I hope some of you […]
Hard Disk Drive Midi scratch controller
DoktorAndy built this scratch controller made from parts of an old harddisk and an optical mouse: Check out this cool Hard Disk Drive Midi Scratch Table. It uses the sensor from an optical mouse to look at the movement of a hard drive platter. There are a number of buttons that can change the midi output […]