Hand of PI (Twitter controlled robot hand)

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IronJungle built this Twitter robot hand and wrote a detailed explanation describing the build.

Control a Robot Hand by sending a tweet to @OurCatDoor. The Robot Hand understand the following commands. If your tweet includes one these commands in the text, the “Hand of PI” obeys your command. Valid commands are (lowercase):
one (holds up one finger)
peace (shows the two finger peace sign)
three (three fingers up)
hookem (if you are a Texas Longhorn fan this one makes sense)
fist (the Hand of PI gets ready to fight)
open (ready for a ‘high five’)
finger (well… this will be the most tweeted command)

Via Hacked Gadgets.

Check out the video after the break.

Continue reading “Hand of PI (Twitter controlled robot hand)”

AZIZ: DIY LED microscope illuminator

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Here’s an interesting project by Steve of Tangent Audio the AZIZ project, a microcontroller-based LED microscope illuminator:

AZIZ is an LED microscope illuminator that I designed and built from scratch.  It is designed around a Texas Instruments TLC59116 constant-current PWM LED driver chip, and an Atmel ATTiny1634 8-bit microcontroller.

Check out the video after the break. Continue reading “AZIZ: DIY LED microscope illuminator”

Tutorial: receiving ACARS with RTL-SDR

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This posting on RTL-SDR.com provides a good explanation of how to receive and decode the aeronautical digital communications known as Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) generally found on 131.55 MHz. Their technique uses the RTL-SDR dongle tuned by SDR# which feeds into the decoding program. The tutorial also contains links to several videos demonstrating the use of RTL-SDR with the PlanePlotter and acarsd decoding programs.

Amazing new touchscreen interface

Fujitsu Laboratories: Touchscreen interface for seamless data transfer between the real and virtual worlds

This new gadget comes directly from Fujitsu Laboratories. They developed what seems to be the next generation of user interface! It can accurately detect the operator’s fingers and hand, and can react to certain movements and gestures. A projector from above projects info about the scanned objects underneath.

“To detect touch accurately, the system needs to detect fingertip height accurately. In particular, with the low-resolution camera used here (320 x 180), if fingertip detection is off by a single pixel, the height changes by 1 cm. So, the system requires technology for recognizing fingertips with high precision.”

Via PCBheaven.

Yet another project: P01-114C POQiRX

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Here’s another project by Asgard the POQiRX:

This board is the optional 25.4 x 22.6 mm add-on board for the P01-109 BLiVIT. It mounts on the header provided on the BLiVIT, and is supported by header pins at the four corners. This board contains a Wireless Power Consortium receiver compliant with the Qi specification. By connecting the 40 x 32 mm flat oval coil (from Vishay) the POQiRX can accept transmitted power up to 5W and use it to source the power into the BLiVIT. The “dangly” part hanging off the POQiRX is a sensor to provide temperature protection against ambient conditions. The corresponding transmitter (Project P01-113) is also in work.

Via the project log forum.

Workshop Update for April 16th, 2013

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We tested out all the Bus Pirate Edu Kit exercises and the connection diagrams. Some alterations may be made to the real time clock exercise to make it more interesting.

Rediscovered SEG market. Had ignored it as a tourist trap but, was really successful sourcing some low volume items there today. Really nice people at all the stands too.

Rave shades: The self assemble LED glasses kit

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Rave shades: The self assemble LED glasses kit

These Rave Shade – LED Glasses look like a ton of fun. They are Arduino based and use 74HC595 shift registers to light all the LEDs. At first I though it was a silly design since with a PCB sitting on your face you would not be able to see anything. But later I saw the small circles that are cut into the board which allows you to presumable see most things in front of you. To program new pattern some computer software is used which generates the pattern code to be downloaded to the Arduino.  eXtremeSomething is selling kits but he is waiting till 10 people pays for a kit before pulls the trigger on the order. Sort of like a mini Kickstarter (he lives in the UK and Kickstarter doesn’t operate there). Be sure to follow the project Facebook page if this interests you!

Via Hacked Gadgets.

Check out the video after the break. Continue reading “Rave shades: The self assemble LED glasses kit”

DIY AVR Atmega dehumidifier controller board

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Davide Gironi documented his DIY AVR Atmega dehumidifier controller board build:

Suddently my dehumidifier stop working, the original humidity switch get broken, it was a mechanical hygrometer, based on a thin transparent strip that react to humidity and engage the main electronic switch. So i decided to build my own dehumidifier board.

#FreePCB via Twitter to 2 random RTs

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Every Tuesday we give away two coupons for the free PCB drawer via Twitter. This post was announced on Twitter, and in 24 hours we’ll send coupon codes to two random retweeters.

Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times a every week:

  • Hate Twitter and Facebook? Free PCB Sunday is the classic PCB giveaway. Catch it every Sunday, right here on the blog
  • Tweet-a-PCB Tuesday. Follow us and get boards in 144 characters or less
  • Facebook PCB Friday. Free PCBs will be your friend for the weekend

Some stuff:

  • Yes, we’ll mail it anywhere in the world!
  • Check out how we mail PCBs worldwide video.
  • We’ll contact you via Twitter with a coupon code for the PCB drawer.
  • Limit one PCB per address per month please.
  • Like everything else on this site, PCBs are offered without warranty.

We try to stagger free PCB posts so every time zone has a chance to participate, but the best way to see it first is to subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook.

Having fun with big ultra capacitors

Here’s a video by Afrotechmods: Fun with ultracapacitors!

So I recently got hold of some 2600F (no that is not a typo) ultracapacitors with an insanely low ESR of 0.7 milliohms, meaning they can discharge hundreds of amps even at low voltages. This video shows you some of the mayhem I got up to, and teaches some important capacitor formulas along the way.

Via PCBheaven.

Simple DIY ECG + pulse oximeter (V2)


Scott Harden has designed an ECG/pulse oximeter combo project using LM324 op-amps. Scott describes, “This new project is fully documented and uses extremely common and cheap parts, all of which could be purchased at RadioShack. It serves as both an ECG *and* a pulse oximeter, depending on which leads are attached. It uses a single chip (LM324, a quad operational amplifier) with a virtual ground to eliminate the need for a negative voltage. As a pulse oximeter with a 12V supply it outputs clean 10V swings when pulses occur. It’s intentionally unsophisticated, and made to be easy to replicate by anyone interested in electronics. Although you could view its output on an oscilloscope, it’s designed to be output into a PC sound card for recording (if attenuated to microphone levels). I even describe how to spectrally process the data on the computer to clean it up, downsample it, and graph it in Excel or with a Python script.”

Visit Scott’s website for project details, schematic code and more video.

Via the contact form.

DIY USB Infrared Toy

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Mike writes informing us of his DIY IR Toy:

Finally got around to taking some pics of a DIY IRToy I finished last week. All the parts are 0805, since I don’t have an 0603 kit (yet).
I have it working nicely on Linux with a patched lirc, with both transmit and receive. I’m currently using it with a spare remote, from a cheap SDR stick, to control VLC. :)

You can get IR Toy v2 for $22.05, including world wide shipping.

Electronically controlled nichrome-wire cutter

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Dilshan Jayakody presents an electronically controlled Nichrome-wire cutter:

In this project we construct electronically Controlled Nichrome-Wire Cutter. The main feature of this cutter is its (non mechanical) variable temperature controller. The temperature of the Nichrome-Wire is controlled using TL494 PWM controller. In this design TL494 is oscillated with fixed frequency and only varying factor is its duty cycle, in this given design R2 is used to control the duty cycle of the frequency.

Lightweight PicKit2 using USB serial LCD backpack

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jeanmarc78 shared his Lightweight PicKit2 using USB serial LCD backpack in the forum:

Then i decided to try to use the LCD backpack which has the same microcontroller as the basis for a lightweight PicKit2 programmer.
In fact, the LCD Backpack is a quite full PIC18F2550 breakout board with a 20 MHz quartz.

The standard PicKit2 programmer application can be used on the PC side.

PiPurr remote cat interaction server

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When the cats away, the mice will play. But…. what’s the cat doing when YOU’RE away? That question led Tris of CantHack, a group of geeks from Canterbury, UK, to develop PiPurr. Tris explains, “PiPurr is a simple client-server solution. The server runs on a Raspberry Pi, for low power consumption and provides the functionality – capturing images, dispensing treats, making sounds play from the speakers, etc., and clients connect to this over HTTP and request those actions. The server is implemented as a small Python web server, using HTTPServer that, instead of serving static files from a directory, exposes a small number of URIs that correspond to those actions. This means that all that is required to access it is a browser.”

You can read more on this project and find links to the source code at CantHack’s PiPurr page. There is also an Android client app to monitor cat activities from you mobile device.

Tris notes that he plans to talk about this project at BarCamp Canterbury on the 27th April 2013 if you would like to find out more.

Via CantHack.

Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB

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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 get a coupon code for the free PCB drawer tomorrow morning. Pick your own PCB.

You get unlimited free PCBs now – finish one and we’ll send you another!

Don’t forget there’s free PCBs three times every week:

Continue reading “Free PCB Sunday: Pick your PCB”