I kept getting more and more emails from people asking me if I could modify the firmware of the Bedroom clock I made last year to implement an easier way to adjust the time/date, so that’s what I did. In Firmware v2 H and M buttons have the following functions: H : This button will cycle selection trough hour, min,…
Leave a CommentCategory: Projects
USB Power supply Active Load Tester or short PAL Tester is unit designed for testing the quality of the power supplies.
Idea was to create low-cost, precise device for simultaneous measurement of Voltage and Current drawn from the device under test. This is one of my weekend projects that I have decided to release to the public. All source files can be found on projects GitHub page.
Device Features:
- Open Source and Open Hardware
- Modular design, easy to understand and change/adapt to your needs
- Uses widely available and off-the shelf components
- Components Bill of Material is below $10
- Integrated USB-to-Serial converter for easier interface with the device
- API for communicating with PC
- Recording Voltage vs Amps data and graphing the results
- Easy to use
Heartbeat key-chain is intended to be a small gift that your loved one can carry with her/him wherever she/he goes.
Basically top side of the PCB is touch sensitive and has one RGB LED. When the exposed copper on the top side is touched, the microcontroller detects it and begins to pulse the LED in the heartbeat like pattern.
Bill of material, schematics and source code are available on GitHub.
I am posting render images of the PCB since I’m waiting for the Fab house to manufacture the boards for me.
2 CommentsLast week I designed a small development board for PIC18F45K50. Goal was to design a small PCB for TQFP package to give away to students and teach them how to solder and how to use this nice microcontroller from Microchip. After a while, board came back from the fabrication house and they look and works great. 🙂
2 CommentsFirst, maybe you should see a little demo on YouTube to see how this thing looks in action…
Before we start…
I wanted to make this project for myself, and since this is very simple project, I placed a challenge to complete it in shortest time possible and make it work as I intended to.
From idea to finished product it took about 4-5 hours, including designing schematic, routing PCB and making it, programming the device and etc.
What is important is that finished product works like I want it to do, and it could be used as opportunity to learn something about other platforms different from some that are spamming us 24/7 like Arduino.
Don’t get me wrong, Arduino is great and all but sometimes I want to build something for myself from scratch. 🙂
One thing I want to ask you all is to share your opinion, how to make this project better, what would you add/remove, did you use it? Did you like it? Did you make/modify it? Share it with us!
Leave a CommentThis weekend I have found some RGB LED strip laying around so I decided to build custom RGB LED strip to decorate my room. The RGB controller that I’ve built is based on Microchips PIC16F1455 microcontroller. It works as ambient light in my room and also there is an option to use it as mood light (randomly change colors every…
Leave a CommentI just finished working on a remote controlled, color changing cloud. Cloud can change colors to please your mood, for example there are presets like cloudy day, rain, storm, sandstorm or it can be used to notify you when you have received an email, message on facebook/twitter or any other social media event. Also it can be used to detect…
Leave a CommentI needed a simple calculator/convertor to convert between Binary Decimal and Hexadecimal number system. I’ve created a very simple convertor in VB.net and I’m sharing it with you in case someone gets in the same spot as I was few hours ago 🙂 [FEATURES] Some features that might come in handy: 1. Double click on empty space to toggle window…
1 CommentDo you care about your security? Security of your online accounts? Your Facebook account, GMail account, Twitter account and others… What would you do if you lost them because your password wasn’t too good to protect them. I have created Random Password Generator that allows you to create passwords that are complex and good enough to ensure that your account…
Leave a CommentThis is the Light Show made from LEDs and few discrete components like resistors and transistors. It transforms audio signal into light signal with LEDs. We have used two types of LEDs, white and blue, each one for different sound channel (from stereo audio output).
Our prototype was first built on solder-less breadboard. Link to YouTube video
Components that are required for this build:
– 5 VDC regulated power supply (You can use your USB cabel)
– 2 NPN transistors (any transistors will work, we have used BC547 for our prototype) (for one channel)
– 1x300K resistor and 1x33K resistor (for one channel)