Arduino Archives - Page 5 of 30

This OpenSCAD Script Helps You Design Hot-Swappable Keyboards

July 21, 2021 by CrackedConsole

If you want to design your own hot-swappable mechanical keyboard, this OpenSCAD script can help.

Mechanical keyboards are all the rage these days, and for good reason. They are more pleasant to type on and may even help to prevent repetitive stress injury (RSI), which is a problem that affects many office workers. Cheap keyboards have membrane switches, which are mushy and force you to push a key hard to ensure a key press is registered. Mechanical keyboards, on the other hand, have mechanical key switches that have a clean and consistent “break” point. Some keyboards even let you swap out the key switches to customize the feel. If you want to design your own hot-swappable mechanical keyboard, this OpenSCAD script can help.

Boilarm – Never again do you have to check whether your water is boiling.

July 20, 2021 by CrackedConsole

Never again do you have to check whether your water is boiling. Put on your headphones and let your phone notify you!

Have you ever had to wait for your water to boil to make some pasta, but you hate waiting for it? Or, has it ever happened to you that you put the water pot on the stove, put on your headphones and forget you ever left it there? If these bring some resemblance to you then we have the perfect product for you!The Arduino BLE paired with our mobile app allows you to do other important things while the water is heating up. When the water boils, the app simply tells you that the water is boiling, even if you’re in another room.So put the water on the stove, turn on our device, put on your headphones and relax. We’ll take of the rest. 🙂

How to make an Arduino custom I2C slave sensor/device

July 20, 2021 by CrackedConsole

In this video, I’m exploring the idea of having your own I2C slave devices and sensors where a helper Arduino is used just for the sensor and the main controller does all of the control logic.

In my case, the slave I2C device is a dedicated controller for a motor speed controller (AC dimmer) that monitors the AC zero-crossing point and it listens on a specific I2C address for the speed at which the motor should run.

By using two separated Arduino Nanos, I can utilize the interrupt pins on both controllers where the one on the slave device will monitor the zero-crossing signal and the other one can be used for interfacing with the UI through a rotary encoder.

Clothing Iron Transformed Into PCB Hot Plate

July 19, 2021 by CrackedConsole

Electronoobs shows how to convert a conventional clothes straightening iron into a PCB reflow hot plate.

When you see the word “iron” here on Hackster, you probably think of a soldering iron, used to construct a wide variety of electronic projects. To the rest of the world, however, an iron instead means something that is used to straighten clothing – an item that is produced in mass quantities, and which is both widely available and inexpensive.

Arduino MIDI Mouse Controller

July 18, 2021 by CrackedConsole

I hate throwing away old electronics that still work but are no longer supported by modern appliances. My idea for this project came after finding an old PS/2 port roller ball computer mouse that I no longer had a use for. I’m a musician in my spare time and currently recording an EP with my metal band HELL SHEEP. I’m using MIDI controllers to create synth parts for our tracks on pro tools. Many people use a MIDI keyboard to write MIDI parts on the computer. I’m no pianist so I have been experimenting with different methods of writing MIDI, including using chess games and cellular automata. Trying to think of a way to re-use the old computer mouse, it occurred to me that it could be repurposed with Arduino as a nifty MIDI controller.

(For those of you who don’t know what MIDI is, check out this great video by Collin’s Lab.)

A USB Cable Tracer

July 14, 2021 by CrackedConsole

Test and diagnose your USB cables with this Arduino-based device.

While USB (Universal Serial Bus) connections are in many ways a huge improvement over the parallel, serial, and specialized ports of old, “universal” is still a bit of an overstatement. With a variety of physical form factors and ever-evolving standards, there’s more to making a proper connection than simply plugging any cable in.

Making things even more complicated, just looking at a USB cable’s form factor isn’t always enough to tell whether it will properly power and transfer data to and from your device. Perhaps a particular Micro cable is only for charging, leaving out the data pins, and thus leaving you frustrated as to why you can’t program a certain board. Or maybe a cable is broken internally. To get to the bottom of these potential connection issues, TechKiwiGadgets has come up with the Arduino Cable Tracer.

More info is available in TechKiwiGadget’s project write-up, along with a wiring chart and Arduino code.

Arduboy on ATMega4809

July 9, 2021 by CrackedConsole

Porting Arduboy to the ATMega4809 and making it run on a Arduino Nano Every.

After learning about the Arduboy challenge, we (team Karooza) decided to join in the fun and port Arduboy to a new microcontroller. In the spirit of staying with true 8 bit gaming we chose the ATMega4809. This relatively new microcontroller is also used in the Arduino Nano Every, making it available to the average maker. For this very reason we also chose the Nano Every as our initial target. Then we designed a PCB which handles battery charging, boosting to 5V and breaking out the buttons, LEDs and piezo speaker. Using slightly off-center pads the Nano (with headers) can plug into the breakout board without needing to solder it (a cool idea we borrowed from the Curiosity Nano board).

World’s Worst Smartwatch

June 29, 2021 by CrackedConsole

The Singularitron is something of an oddity, to put it lightly. It is simultaneously the worst smartwatch I have ever seen, and also an interesting, highly novel piece of hardware with a certain je ne se quois that has me pining to get my hands on one. Unfortunately, you cannot just pick up a Singularitron at your favorite retailer… well, possibly if your favorite retailer is Sanford and Son Salvage, but aside from that, you have to build your own. Comfortable with that? Well, you still probably cannot make one, because the display has not been manufactured for many years. Impractical? Yes, absolutely, but that is just what developer Zack Freedman was shooting for with this wonderful, awful smartwatch that was designed primarily to be an eye-catching piece for conferences.

Making a Multiplexed Flip-Dot Display

June 29, 2021 by CrackedConsole

Flip-dot displays, which use a matrix of actuators to move mechanical pixels into place, are very interesting. At one time they were even very common for transportation displays and the like, where information changes only incrementally.

While modern makers do experiment with such displays, the basic problem with setting one up is that each display unit requires its own actuator. So a 10×10 display would require 100 servos, electromagnets, etc. to flip the dots – a number which increases with the resolution. Various forms of multiplexing are used to simplify the design of electronics displays, so could the same be done with electromechanical flip-dot outputs?

This sensory extension puppet lets you detect magnetic fields like a bird

June 23, 2021 by CrackedConsole

Birds have an amazing sense of direction that aids in migrating across vast distances, and scientists think this is due to their ability to detect magnetic fields — just like a compass. Chris Hill on Instructables wanted a way to experience this for himself by using a sensor and some sort of feedback mechanism to feel a magnetic field’s directionality and strength.