Tindie

The ESP8266 module, with its 80Mhz processor and built-in WiFi capabilities, has taken the maker world by storm in the past few years. Along with the module itself, development boards like the Wemos D1 mini have sprung up, providing a convenient way to use it, and it can even be programmed using the Arduino IDE.

This is great if you want to read sensors from a distance, control a few LEDs, or other non-power intensive tasks, but what if you want it to physically do something? One of the easiest ways to do this would be to use a hobby-style servo, but control and power distribution can be dicey, especially as you implement control of more than one or two.

For a ready-made solution to this issue, the 16-channer D1 Mini servo shield looks quite convenient. It plugs into the top or bottom of a D1 Mini board, and can power the servos via an external power supply if needed. Communication with the board is via I²C, offloading control duties to the shield, and allowing up to 64 boards to be used together.

The ability to use 64 of this item together means that you could, in theory, control up to 1024 servos or other PWM devices (64 expansion boards each driving 16 servos). If you do end up controlling a thousand servos with these boards—or come up with other cool inventions using products you found here—please let us know! You can find Tindie on Twitter here, or tweet me directly @JeremySCook. I’d love to feature it!

Keep Reading ›

Remember back in the good old days when TVs were built with curved CRT displays, and weighed way more than their 20-something-inch screens let on? With the possible exception of some retro-gaming purists, we can all agree that televisions of today are a gigantic improvement over displays of 20 years ago. Along with this, electronic instruments have adopted this type of technology, leaving behind the brightly glowing green screens of yesteryear.

While largely obsolete, there are still quite a few display tubes floating around, and with some clever repurposing, Tindarian “howchon” has been able to turn a CRT into an oscilloscope clock. This device displays time in both an analog and digital fashion, and includes a GPS module to automatically set the time correctly. It also features an acrylic shroud so that people checking the time can see the electronic components in action.

The clock is a vector display. The electron beam inside the CRT is not scanned from left to right like on those old TVs, but is actually tracing out the design you need like you would with a pen on paper. It makes for a clock displays in both analog and digital format that looks stunning, and leaves a future project for you to play with like writing vector graphic games or turning this back into an oscilloscope for a really meta adventure.

Taking another page out of old-school technology besides CRT use, all the components on these clocks are made to be replaceable. While we might not give up our smartphones for larger devices that can be easily opened, not being able to effectively work on our devices is one of the unfortunate side effects of extreme mass manufacturing and miniaturization!

Keep Reading ›

Is it too early to be thinking of Christmas presents? Solder kits can be a lot of fun, but in the end most of them are pretty simple, connecting an LED or two to a power source, perhaps with some internal circuitry to make them blink. If you’d like something more advanced, this 3D Christmas tree LED kit provides more of a challenge. And waiting until Christmas to take on that challenge since whomever finishes the kit will want to enjoy it as a decoration.

The Christams tree kit contains three circuit boards which attach together to form two sections of a tree and a base, while a number of red, yellow, and green LEDs adorn the outside. One interesting feature about this tree is that the lights blink not via an integrated circuit or microcontroller, but using only capacitors, resistors, and transistors.

This component-based design is very educational if the concept is explained while building it, and for a simplified example of how this type of circuit works, check out the LED timer found here. Perhaps something like this could be integrated into a physics or STEM curriculum, or even expanded into a full-sized tree.

If you decide you don’t like the lighting pattern, it’s easy enough to adjust by changing a few components!

Keep Reading ›

If you’re like many commuters, you get home from work, press a button, and like magic your garage opens itself. Of course this is assuming you don’t have your garage dedicated to a workshop, or perhaps storage of junk that you’ve built up over the years, but either way, the door should open when prompted.

It’s something we generally take for granted, which is understandable since the electric garage door was invented nearly 100 years ago. Along the way there have been notable improvements like radio control and safety features to keep people from getting trapped under the closing door. With the advent of ubiquitous network connectivity, the possibility also exists to control these doors via the Internet and even your smartphone.

Of course there’s always a DIY option for enterprising hackers. For a head start on your own system, check out this EasyGarageControl board, which features Bluetooth connectivity, and the ability to control two garage doors individually via a dual-relay setup. A smartphone simply connects to the device via an app and can control the garage when in range.

The device is wired in parallel with the normal opener switch so that manual operation is still possible. Additionally, there’s no reason that this device couldn’t be used with a lamp or other appliance.

Keep Reading ›

While standard multimeters give a good reading on instantaneous voltage, resistance, and even current if things are set up correctly, a device that can graph how values vary over time would be quite useful. You know this instrument as an oscilloscope, and have probably debated about whether you really need to spend a few hundred bucks for one.

They can also take up valuable bench space. One option is portability and I’ve always liked scopemeters; oscilloscopes made in the form of voltmeters. While the best of these can cost more than $1000, the portability and convenience of one would be great for your yacht’s workbench—or you could look around for bargain versions that would be fine for intermittent use.

Still not sold on the idea? You could also check out this PIC-based device pictured in the image above. It comes as a DIY kit, and also features a signal generator, making it useful for more than pure input tasks. It doesn’t have the full versatility of a bench oscilloscope, but it is something of a swiss army knife of common tasks. If it fits your needs it will certainly fit your budget.

Those who need even more functionality out of a device should also check out the Evive prototyping platform. Evive includes an oscilloscope as a secondary function. It features an Arduino Mega, along with a breadboard and other accessories, allowing for a wide range of experimentation.

Another way to save space and money on an oscilloscope is to use a computer to display signal information. Take a look at the Arduino-based oscilloscope seen in the video below for an idea of how this works.

Keep Reading ›

So once again you’ve put off your Halloween hack and will have to wait until next year to present your latest animatronic gizmo to the neighbors. Or will you?

The best Halloween props and installations are really about creativity. If you have a good idea there’s still time to make it happen, as long as you get a little bit of help with the execution.

For a head start on something spooky, this kit features a motion sensor, along with RGB LEDs and an MP3 player module to make your skeleton, jack-o-lantern, or glitching robot light up and say “hello” to your guests. You’ll need to provide an Arduino board to tie everything together per these instructions, as well as a micro SD card and the actual device to be “spook-ified.”

With motion, sound, and an Arduino at hand this is a great start for just about any idea. Just last week I covered several different motor options in a guide that will point you in the right direction to make that skeleton skull swivel back and forth too. Change out the audio, wire in more LEDs, and you can move a coffin lid that reacts to the motion sensor being triggered. See where I’m going with this?

While it looks quite scary in the video below, this set of components could easily be put to use in a more inviting configuration. Perhaps Santa Claus would like to say “ho-ho-ho” while Rudolph’s nose lights up, or maybe your robot just needs to be a little more social!

Keep Reading ›

When you see a science fiction movie, you’re likely amazed at the technology. Whether this world features the ability to easily fly into space, holographic communications, incredible computer memory capacity, or robots that act just like their human counterparts, this genre has been inspiring future (and current) engineers and inventors for as long as its existed. Sometimes it’s tough to grasp just how amazing these changes are, since innovations are generally introduced one-by-one and incrementally. We just sort of adjust.

2 Kb of memory in the early 1950s. Project Whilwind by Daderot via Wikimedia Commons Public Domain.

Consider memory density, specifically the micro SD card. Measuring in at 15mm x 11mm x 1mm they’re described by Wikipedia as being “about the size of a fingernail.” Yet, a quick search reveals that high capacity cards can hold 400 Gigabytes, or 400,000,000,000,000 1s and 0s in a card that can be hard to find if dropped.

That’s a far cry from 2Kb of memory seen here in the 1950s. Even the amount of memory on a CD—around 700MB—is relatively tiny in today’s terms even though it was amazing when these disks started appearing in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Weirdly, one problem with memory now being so small is that these drives can be placed in areas that are difficult to access. Usually this means some sort of USB adapter (another amazing improvement over serial or parallel ports), but if you just want an actual SD extension cable in the form of a micro SD card, here it is! This device was conceived of when programming a BeagleBone Black, and could have lots of other applications.

For that matter, if you need to breakout either an SD card or card reader, all you’d need to do is clip and strip a few wires!

Keep Reading ›

In our modern world, we take things like lights, instant communication via smartphone, and even air conditioning for granted. Unfortunately, when a natural disaster strikes, we’re often reminded just how tenuous our grasp on these services is, and we may have to live “off the grid” for a few days or more.

The good news is that since you’re reading this, you still have time to prepare for these eventualities, and while a whole-house backup generator might be out of your budget, keeping a backup source of lighting handy is an easy step towards being prepared for the worst. Here are a few options that enterprising makers and hackers can implement without breaking the bank.

Improvised LED Candle

While LEDs can provide lots of entertainment in the form of RGB rings and extremely bright lighting, let’s not forget that they’re extremely efficient, drawing just a few mA of power for the discreet components that you likely have hidden away in your components drawer. As seen here, Scott W. Harden, decided to build his own LED candles in preparation for a recent hurricane. The best of these should run for over a month, and could even be on as of this writing!

Joule Thieves

As profiled in this post, so-called “Joule Thieves” use the tiny amount of power left over in “dead” batteries to power one or several LEDs. It’s such a clever idea that I’m surprised it’s not in more widespread use for emergency preparedness. It also seems like a good way to keep things out of landfills for as long as possible, though it would seem that this has some competition with rechargeable cells!

USB Battery Pack

While good for charging a phone or other electronic device during a good trip, having a few lipstick chargers or similar around could also provide power for backup flashlights for some time. For that matter, they can be used to charge smartphones in order to act as a source of light and information. On the other hand, given some phones’ notoriously short battery lives, charging a USB flashlight would likely provide better results if keeping the darkness at bay is all you care about.

Alternatively, if you specifically need to charge something via USB, you could kludge something together with paper clips and C batteries!

Power Tool Lighting

While several power tool manufacturers make lighting that’s meant to run on removable batteries that also fit power tools, they’re designed to shine brightly for a relatively limited amount of time. On the other hand, with a little ingenuity there’s no reason why a drill battery couldn’t be used as an emergency power source. Here’s an example that uses the housing from an actual drill as well as the battery, though something lower powered might work even better.

For that matter, you could even turn a drill into a generator, however, as with several hacks listed here, you’d need a way to solder. While it’s great to know how to get yourself out of a sticky situation using electronics knowledge, the best solution is to stock up on what you need before danger is upon you!

Keep Reading ›

We’ve all used LED and LCD 7-segment displays in calculators, home theater systems, and the like to show us pertinent information. While useful and extremely common, one alternative you may not have considered is an electromechanical 7-segment display.

These displays could be considered to be a simplified version of the flip-disc or flip-dot displays that were at one time common in mass transit systems, even being used in the game show Family Feud until 1995. In both systems a colored segment is moved into place using mechanical means, and uses no more power until the digits are adjusted once again.

While largely replaced by newer technology, you can still find these displays for sale via a quick web search. Unfortunately, they tend to be quite expensive, so if you’d like to build one using this technology plan on spending several hundred dollars or more on a multi-digit display. But check out the video below and you’ll hear (and see) why they’re so much fun to build into a project. That clicky action is addictive!

The good news is that if you do manage to obtain one or more of these devices, the Sig7Seg i2c controller for this type of device is available at a small fraction of this display’s price. It’s shown in the video taking signals from a Particle Photon, but will also work with a Raspberry Pi, Arduino board, or similar. The hardest part of driving these segments (other than getting your hands on them) is wiring the reversible voltage necessary to change to either state. This driver takes care of that with a port expander and two DMOS transistor array chips.

Keep Reading ›

Browsing around tech sites, you’ve likely heard the term LoRa, or LoRaWAN thrown around. While you’ve probably established that it’s a long range IoT specificaion, documentation on how to get started with it can be somewhat elusive. Muddying the waters further is that some telecom operators are implementing this type of network, leading to the question of whether you can implement your own private network.

The good news is that this technology operates on the open spectrum, meaning that while you can use a telecom network to help with your LoRa needs, you can also set up your own. For a great way to get started, the Dragino LoRa IoT Kit includes everything you need to set up your own network, including a LoRa gateway, two LoRa shields (one with GPS capabilities), two Arduino Uno clones, and even wiring and sensors to capture data. Importantly, the kit also provides examples to help you get up and running.

While this type of network operates at 50 kbps or less, the claimed transmission range of 5-10km using this system is extremely exciting. While it might not work for VoIP calls, reading a sensor at a distance or giving short commands to a robot are ideal applications!

Keep Reading ›