the machinegeek – Page 74 – Dangerous Prototypes

Arduino motion detection camera

Inspired by the intervalometer project at the Honey Jar, Dan Bridges produced a motion activation control to use with his Canon SLR camera. It uses an Arduino, a PIR sensor and two 4N35 optocouplers and this source code. He next plans to add a potentiometer and LCD screen to allow for custom time intervals on […]

CAN sniffing for steering wheel button presses

Newer protocols are always fun to explore, such as the automotive CAN bus. Here’s a project by wire2wire which sniffs the CAN signals from steering wheel controls and converts them to a serial output. The main components are a PIC16F876, MCP2515 and MCP2551. The code and all docs are available in a zip file. Current […]

Convert the Chumby serial port into two PWM outputs

Osman Eralp of Ozbots writes: When I was building my latest Chumby-based robot, I didn’t need the serial port, but I did want PWM signals to control the robot’s wheel motors. Fortunately, the processor pins that are used for the serial (UART) TX and RX pins are multiplexed with PWM outputs. With the proper commands, […]

Arduino based interactive punching bag

In an effort to enhance his workout, Lior Elazary designed an Arduino enhanced punching bag. The bag is outfitted with sensors made from aluminum foil and conductive foam, which are interfaced with the Arduino analog inputs via resistors. Bright LEDs are implanted in the bag near the sensors, and the Arduino flashes the LEDs in […]

Parallax Propeller/WiiMote white board

In this project, Gareth from Let’s Make Robots demonstrates how to interface a Parallax Propeller with the WiiMote and LCD display to form a white board. Inspired by the work of Johnnie Chung Lee with the WiiMote, Gareth uses the Propeller chip programmed in the Spin language to process data and interface with the display. […]

Arduino varies LCD contrast using PWM

We’ve seen a number of tutorials explaining the use of LCD displays with Arduino. In most the display contrast is varied by use of a potentionmeter. Here’s a tutorial from Hobbytronics which varies the contrast using PWM. A 100uF capacitor is connected between the PWM output and ground to smooth the signal. Using this technique […]

GSM SIM emulator using PIC Microcontroller

Here’s a project from EHobbyProjects which demonstrates their hack for emulating a GSM SIM card using a microcontroller, EEPROM and SIM card adapter. Their instructions include reading the IMSI and KI data from the original SIM, and then using their Configurator program and hex programming files in conjunction with a PIC16F877 and 24C64 EEPROM to […]

Seeed Studio Arduino ProtoShield kit remixed v1.0

Seeed Studio has their Arduino ProtoShield kit remixed V1.0 selling today for $12.90. The shield kit features 100mil grid, full pinout of the Arduino, USB B type connector, free drill hole matrix of 32/50/80mil, breadboard style strip, UART and I2C pinout sets, 5V/GND/3V3 power rails, a free button as well as reset button pinout, Pin13 […]

QUISK software defined radio

QUISK is open source software defined radio (SDR) platform by James Ahlstrom. QUISK can interface with certain radio receivers or amateur radio transceivers, and essentially takes over control of the rig’s operation including changing mode, frequency, transmit/receive switching, demodulation, etc. It’s written in Python and C, and all source is included. QUISK runs under Linux […]

FPGAs used to trade stock

Here’s an example of FPGAs being used in a serious application: high-frequency trading (HFT), the execution of computerized stock trading strategies. The device pictured above is the HFT-X Development Kit by Stone Ridge Technology. Under the hood this device sports one Xilinx PCIe Bridge FPGA, one Xilinx Virtex-5 Processing FPGA, 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, 1G, 10G, […]

1.5 to 10 volt inverter

If you need a 5 to 10 volt DC power source and only have a couple AA batteries, here’s a simple solution from CoolCircuits. It uses four transistors and a handful of passive components to produce an adjustable 5 to 10 volt output from 1.5 to 4.5 volt input.

Anger detector using PIC16F877

Technobits presents notes on a developing student project designed to detect the anger level of an individual based on their pulse. The idea behind the project is to detect pulse levels and then display user feedback messages on an LCD readout. Elevated pulse = anger, slower pulse=calm. (References in the notes regarding blood pressure are […]

Atmel announces new CryptoAuthentication chip

Atmel today announced the release of the ATSHA204 the first turnkey, optimized authentication device to include a 4.5Kbit EEPROM and a hardware SHA-256 accelerator. Fully tested ASF software libraries are available for Atmel AVR® and ARM®-based microcontrollers and are integrated within the new AVR Studio® 5. Contemplated uses include industrial, consumer, energy metering, home automation, […]

Xilinx free CPLD/FPGA design handbook

Xilinx has a helpful free publication, the Programmable Logic Design handbook. This quick start guide introduces their line of CPLD and FPGA devices and the basic steps to program development using their ISE Webpack. A listing of application notes and reference designs is included. Download your own copy of this 144 page PDF.

Updated Fritzing release

We previously highlighted Fritzing, an open source GUI based program that allows users to document their prototypes, share them with others, show them in a presentation, and create a pcb layout for professional manufacturing. The developers have released an updated version, which contains a number of improvements including a completely new autorouter, improved footprints for […]

TI intros first 2-channel, simultaneous-sampling ADCs with independently controlled internal references

Texas Instruments today introduced the industry’s first two-channel, simultaneous-sampling successive approximation (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) with two independently controlled internal references for simplified system-level design. The 16-bit ADS8363, 14-bit ADS7263 and 12-bit ADS7223 are pin-for-pin compatible and provide twice the per-channel throughput of similar ADCs, supporting speeds up to 1 MSPS for industrial and energy […]

Retro typewriter as USB keyboard

Here’s a unique project which repurposes old manual typewriters as keyboards for computers or Ipads, using an Arduino as the intermediary. It’s the brainchild of Jack Zylkin, a Philadelphia-based electrical engineer who has designed a kit that makes the conversion reasonably easy for anyone who enjoys hands-on projects. For those considering privacy and flexibility, an […]

FareBot: Read data from public transit cards with your NFC-equipped Android phone

When he heard that the Nexus S would include a built-in NFC radio, Eric Butler immediately started thinking about the potential of using cell phones with RFID to hack public transit fare systems. When the Gingerbread source code was released, he picked up a Nexus S and began working on a proof-of-concept application that could […]

Atmel releases AVR Studio 5 beta

Atmel has released the beta version of their Atmel® AVR Studio® 5, the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for developing and debugging embedded Atmel AVR® applications. Version 5 provides one development environment for all 8-bit and 32-bit AVR microcontrollers. Features include an integrated C compiler, new project wizard, and an improved editor displaying code suggestions, shortcuts […]