According to its developer, French software engineer Xavier Hosxe, “PreenFM is a set of electronic components and C++ files that, when put together become a Frequency Modulation sound module.” It’s designed around a Leaflabs Maple Mini (available from Seeedstudio) and a collection of supporting components including EEPROMs, optocouplers, shift registers and op amps complemented by […]
Author Archives: the machinegeek
The LiveLight Project: open source ambilight solution
Juha Kuusama writes to inform us of LiveLight, a cool DIY ambilight project. This is a homebrew ambilight system by SunWind that has 9 PWM controlled RGB channels which drive RGB LED strips that are mounted in the back of a 40″ Sony Bravia. All the parameters can be reprogrammed to match your taste. The […]
NBW-SDR: NBitWonder software defined radio
NBitWonder writes: Over at NBitWonder, we have been working to develop a software-defined radio for a few months. Last weekend, the radio received its very first signals. There is a short writeup and demonstration video at our website. This is quite similar to Jeri Ellsworth’s design in that is uses a Tayloe detector and some […]
MacLight: ambient Arduino lighting for the Mac
Adam Howard of 3 Sided Cube has developed the MacLight project. It works to vary the color of LEDs mounted behind your Mac to the average color of your monitor. It can also manually set the lighting via an RGB color selector. Adam says: Most projects I start are because it’s something that I want […]
Masochist’s Video Card on a DE0 Nano FPGA board
Chris from PyroElectro writes: Here’s a little project I thought you guys might like….I re-built the Masochist’s Video Card using the DE0 Nano FPGA board that I won in the 7400 logic competition. The project article has all the details and VHDL source code for download. Via the contact form.
USB gamepad attachment for the Nokia N900
Andrzej “Emeryth” Surowiec writes: “I wanted to share my latest hack with you – a USB gamepad attachment for the Nokia N900. I’ve built a gamepad that connects to the USB port and fits nicely over the keyboard. It features 8 buttons and a PSP joystick, the device emulates a USB keyboard so it works […]
Bus Pirate to breadboard cable hack
Joe Desbonnet writes that he’s found a quick and cheap Bus Pirate to breadboard cable hack. “I needed to check out a I2C temperature/humidity sensor with the Bus Pirate on a breadboard. So I hacked this connector comprising a short length of 10 wire ribbon cable, a 5×2 IDE connector to mate with the BusPirate […]
Build a digital spirit level using SCA610 accelerometer
A spirit level is an “an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal (level) or vertical (plumb).” Here’s a demo by Shawon Shahryiar of an electronic spirit level made using a Microchip PIC16F684, a SCA610 accelerometer and a handful of other discrete components. Shawon writes, “This project used a one-axis accelerometer chip and […]
Nicolas Collins’ original hardware hacking manual
If you want to read an irreverent and unorthodox hardware hacking manual check out Nicolas Collins’ Original Hacking Manual. Weighing in at 128 PDF pages, this book is geared toward motivating beginning electronics experimenters to explore uses and abuses for common electronic components. Topics include basic electronics through integrated circuits and circuit bending of all […]
Digi-Comp II: vintage mechanical computing device
Digi-Comp was a fully functional binary digital mechanical computer, which sparked many future engineers’ imagination in the early 1960’s. The crew at Evil Mad Science recently revived the game with a larger than life version displayed at several Maker Faires. It uses billiard balls on a 4′ x 8′ deck to simulate electrical pulses moving […]
TI debuts sub-GHz CC430 based spectrum analyzer
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player TI has introduced a sub-GHz spectrum analyzer using the SA430 chip. Known as the MSP-SA430-SUB1GHZ, the CC430 microcontroller that the SA430 is based on is a highly integrated system-on-chip featuring an on-board sub-GHz radio chip based on the CC1101. As TI describes it: The MSP-SA430-SUB1GHZ Spectrum Analyzer is a CC430-based […]
Nimbits 3.3 is live
Nimbits 3.3 is live! With Nimbits, you can record data into “Data Points” hosted on a public or private cloud that can be connected to sensors, social networks, devices, software or anything else. The Nimbits team reports: This version of Nimbits provides full machine to machine (M2M) communication capabilities using the same protocols as Google […]
Tutorial: using ChibiOS on Altera FPGA
Kiran writes: There is a great tutorial on how to use ChibiOS on Altera FPGA board by Michael Fischer. I tried and it works great. This tutorial covers how to use ChibiOS/RT on a Nios II cpu based on an Altera DE1 Board. Via the contact form.
TI Launchpad plays Bad Apple
Simpleavr writes to inform us of his project using the TI Launchpad to play “bad apple” on a Nokia 5110 LCD breakout. This was his entry into the 43Oh project of the month contest. He notes that the Launchpad can also play Nyan cat but at a barely recognizable 1 bit color. Nevertheless, the bad […]
Raspberry Pi PCBs
Drone writes: The Raspberry Pi production PCB’s have arrived. Look at the comparison to an actual credit-card; and those tiny yet crowded BGA footprints. It is amazing how the BGA parts are actually solderable – and with high yield! Read more about the Raspberry Pi dev board and the availability of these PCBs at the […]
Arduino Morse Code generator
Denver writes that he has created a Morse Code generator, and posted a tutorial in my blog about how it is done. His tutorial begins with an explanation of how Morse Code is organized and proceeds to explain the process of writing an Arduino sketch to produce the sequences of “dits” and “dahs” corresponding to […]
Arduino code emulation object for Parallax Propeller
If you regularly use the Arduino, but want to explore the versatile multi-core environment of the Parallax Propeller, here’s a code project of interest. Perry Harrington has written a Propeller SPIN code object to emulate many of the functions found in the Arduino SDK. Perry describes his code: This is a basic _light_ implementation of […]
Rescuing an ArduinoBT board with the Bus Pirate
Rohit de Sa has used the Bus Pirate with STK500v2 firmware to rescue a damaged ArduinoBT board. A few days ago I help a friend recover his ArduinoBT board. He had somehow managed to mess up the Bluetooth bootloader on the Arduino, and with wireless comms being the only way to program the board, he […]
Nyan cat running on a Parallax Propeller
We haven’t had a Sunday Silliness post in quite a white, so here goes. The above video depicts an animated Nyan cat running across the galaxy. The video and accompanying audio are generated by a single Parallax Propeller microcontroller. This demo was created by Doug Dingus. Video generation is accomplished using the NTSC 4×2 colorburst […]
How to make a CheerLights controller with Arduino and ioBridge
CheerLights is an ioBridge Labs project that allows people’s lights all across the world to synchronize, stay linked based on social networking trends. It’s a way to connect physical things with social networking experiences and spread cheer at the same time. We are all connected. The Arduino is used to generate the PWN signal to […]