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Why do we have all of these redundant LED segments in the clocks around us. Just to show one digit of time we use 7 LEDs. If you are looking for a less is more solution to showing the time then you need to have a look at the Blinky Clock that John Boxall created. It is being run from a ATmega328 Microcontroller and a DS1307 Real Time Clock. This isn’t a clock that you can glance at to read the time but wouldn’t it be nice to point to it when your guest ask for the time. “Using a minimal Arduino bootrom system, a DS1307 real time clock IC and an RGB diffused LED, we can make a clock that blinks the time, using the colours of the LED to note different numerical values. For example, if the time is 12:45, the clock will blink red 12 times, then show blue for a second (think of this as the colon on a digital clock) then blink four times in green (for forty minutes), then blink three times in red for the individual minutes. If there is a zero, blink blue quickly.”
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DeviceKnit is here to make full use of all the gadgets around you. These days we have a ton of gadgets and electronics around us. More devices that are purchased have ways to talk to other things, this could be done with Ethernet, Bluetooth or some other means. How are other people that have the same gear as you linking them together to make their life fun and easy? I looked through a few of the entries and found the one pictured below, I also played with this cool Remote app on my Apple iPod Touch, it lets you control iTunes from anywhere in your house and command your music collection. In my case it was just for fun since the computer that is running iTunes isn’t connected to my stereo but it is cool to play with from across the room.
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Apple makes such nice sexy products but dam them for making it so hard for us to work with them. Apple has vendors who make accessory products that work with Apple products and to give them a leg up Apple has incorporated some ridiculous technology. This additional technology adds speed bumps to generic electronic products from working properly with their devices. Limor Fried has reverse engineered what needs to be done to control charging an iPhone and iPod. “We did some experimenting (see the video up top) and determined that in fact the different voltages/resistances did effect the charging rates! Using the 2.8V&2.0V setup resulted in a 1 Amp charge rate and the 2.0V&2.0V setup resulted in a 500mA charge rate. This made us very happy, because 500mA is within the capability of the MintyBoost chip. We redesigned the PCB to allow us to have 4 resistors on the datalines and put two 75K and two 49.9K resistors in each kit.” |
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Protostack has just released a new version of their popular AVR Development Board. They have listened to user suggestions to improve the design. “All in all there are 6 changes
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Frank Pirz documented the build of his CNC machine which is based these plans. It was interesting to see that the 80/20 Aluminum was cut using a simple miter saw. The electronics case is a old computer case which is exactly what I also did, purchasing a large electrical box is quite expensive and computer cases are plentiful. Unlike most things, the older the case the better since older cases are built like a tank the modern ones are built like the tin foil wrapped around a baked potato. The end machine appears to be very stable and has a nice beefy look. 
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Colin Karpfinger who brought us the Eagle PCB Design Ordering Tips last time is here with some more PCB help. This time Colin is helping us design a PCB Trace Antenna. One of these days you are going to make a product or project that needs to communicate without stringing a bunch of copper. To me antenna design is magic, some squiggles on a board talk to some squiggles on another board and just like magic the two systems are talking to one another. The only time I have done some wireless communication I picked up a wireless communication system that took in RS-232 and spat it out the other side. Worked like a charm and to me it was just like I was using a wire. Next time you are thinking of making a wireless project you should think about tackling building the wireless side also. “Engineers love to refer to wireless as ‘black magic’. Which is partly true. But with the right tools and the willingness to f*** it all up (a few times), you’ll be making your mark on the 2.4GHz band in no time. This guide is a ‘Trial and Error’ approach to antenna design. It won’t be perfect, and won’t cover a lot of the ‘hard’ topics. You probably won’t even feel smart after reading it. You may even feel a little dirty. But you WILL be able to design an antenna to ‘good enough’ standards, for 2.4GHz communication (wifi, zigbee, ANT+, etc).”
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If you can’t get enough information about electronics then there is a new Electronics Podcast you need to listen to. There have only been two episodes and it is so new that it is yet to be named. The show is hosted by Dave Jones of the EEVBlog and Chris Gammell of Chris Gammell’s Analog Life. You will probably remember Dave from some of his videos that we have featured here in the past. For now you can find the episodes listed here: |
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