Category Archives: project logs

Loki – a new PSoC based development board

Nickjohnson posted his Loki PSoC based development board in the project log forum: Loki is an arduino-esque development board I’ve been working on based on Cypress’s underappreciated PSoC series of chips. The PSoCs are novel in that instead of predefined peripherals, each chip has a set of programmable digital logic blocks, as well as analog […]

Loggrid – Power line frequency and voltage monitor/logger

Matseng is currently developing a power line frequency, and voltage monitor. The design is meant to monitor the quality of the line power and log to an SD card for later computer analysis. He is sharing his development through GitHub and discussing it in the forum. I’m thinking of doing this project on two separate […]

CNC stepper controller

Bearmos designed a 3-axies CNC stepper motor controller. It has a ATX connector, allowing it to be powered from a computer power supply. The motors are driven via onboad driver chips, while commands are received from the computer Via the parallel port. This board is mainly designed to be inexpensive, have lots of indicators for […]

USB function generator

Tuomas designed a simple function generator controlled via USB. It’s capable of generating sine, square, and triangle waveforms up 3 MHz. The device uses the AD9833 SPI programmable waveform generator IC and a USB-enabled AVR to control it. One tool that I’ve been missing at my lab at home is function generator. They tend to […]

USB current and voltage tester designed on the DP5031 standard PCB

Here is TitanMKD’s USB current, and voltage tester designed on the DP5031 standard PCB. The board features 4 standard USB connectors, while voltage and current can be measured via 4mm banana terminals For those interested in a cheap funny board to test USB current consumption/voltage or even check USB D+/D- and ID signal The goal […]

LOpen logic probe detects high, low, and floating pins

LOpen is a PIC-based logic probe that fits inside a pen. It detects if a pin is at a logic ‘High’, logic “Low”, or at high impedance (floating). This time it’s a Logic Pen controlled by a tiny 6-pin PIC10F202. The PCB is 5 cm by 5mm so it fits just fine inside a regular […]

Imagination Labs #SMWsocialobjects Arduino badge

Jack Chalkey, Creative Technologist with Imagination Labs, has posted an outline of their Arduino based project for Social Media Week. The project was conceived by several lab members who returned from EMFcamp 2012 with some tech and an idea for badges. “The tech was badges (more like lanyards) with an onboard Arduino Leonardo, RF module, […]

Easy Pulse heart rate sensor

Easy Pulse is a heart rate monitor using an IR LED and a light detector: Easy Pulse provides a reflective IR sensor with necessary instrumentation circuit to illustrate the principle of photoplethysmography as a noninvasive technique for measuring heart rate. In order for this sensor to work, the fingertip should be placed gently over the […]

DimBlue – USB controllable 16 channel light dimmer

Matseng designed DimBlue, an ATmega32u4 based USB controllable 16 channel light dimmer. Triacs which dim the lights are optoisolated from mains to provide protection from high voltages. The board is powered from mains voltage, via a PCB mounted transformer. As an added bonus, the board has a footprint for a serial Bluetooth module, giving it […]

Visualizer Arduino shield up and running

Matseng soldered his Visualizer Arduino shield. You might remember these PCB as the with the cool dithered “eye” artwork on the back. The shield shows the state of the each Arduino pin – ‘Hi’ or ‘Low’: It seems like both the hardware and firmware is ok. I just had to lower the value of a […]