Archive: Electronics
Page 1 of 167 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 >>
November 29, 2007
Battery-learnin'
Everything you ever wanted to know about batteries, but were afraid to ask.
Battery University - [via] Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 29, 2007 05:00 AM
Electronics |
Permalink
Timing diagram font
PC Services writes -
When dealing with documentation of electronic circuits, it has always been difficult to put down basic timing diagrams into documents. Obviously with newer oscilloscopes and the like, it is often possible to capture events to insert into documents, but many aspects of documentation involve specifications, technical manuals and other documents to show parts of what is happening or is intended to happen, even some reports require diagrams which are not always easy to extract from imported data.Timing diagram font - Link.To this end I started off using Xwave a Truetype® font created several years ago by Joseph Palmer and is still available. I found this lacking in some aspects for my purposes, so created a new font. You may find that Xwave is more suitable for you, but I needed to be able to label parts of the signals like data values, have better transitions to and from Tri-state levels, as well as add breaks in the middle of the diagram (like ellipses '...' in quoted text). The final thing breaks means when doing a diagram of events like video processing it becomes possible to create a diagram which can skip sections of a video frame or line easily.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Nov 29, 2007 04:00 AM
Electronics |
Permalink
| Comments (1)
November 27, 2007
RFID poker table
From HackedGadgets:
James Brown, Shawn Ironmonger, Michael Moninski and Dan Moore from Purdue University put together quite the gambling machine. They made a Smart RFID Poker Table that could keep track of where chips where placed on the table..."Our project aims to simplify the poker playing experience by providing each player at the table with information about the game in process. Using RFID, the Smart Poker Table will track the movement of poker chips in play and use this data to inform players of the state of the game. The Smart Poker Table will also record statistics on a web page for future reference."
Smart Poker Table - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 27, 2007 08:13 PM
Electronics, Gaming |
Permalink
| Comments (3)
New Robotmakers video
Roger Pellegrini writes:
Wanted to send you a note about a second video I did, also starring the wind-up toy robot and synths [featured in the first Robotmakers vid], but with some content that could be of interest to Makers. Back in the mid-1980's, I dug a couple of first generation laserdisc players out of the trash, and took them apart. The laser in these early players was an 8" he-ne tube, considerably more powerful than the tiny laser diodes in modern CD/DVD players. Also of interest were the orthogonal mirrors, mounted on galvanometers that were used to align the laser. By salvaging the power supply and combining these elements, you can cobble together a home laserium effect that works surprisingly well. If you power the x and y orthogonal mirror elements with the left and right channels of a stereo amplifier, you get a working oscilloscope. Of course, with synthesizers at hand, you can manipulate the projected imagery in interesting ways and it was bright enough to use on stage with a band I played in.In the new Robotmakers video, there are scenes (e.g. 30 seconds into the video) where I used the laser to create an interesting special effect seen in various sci-fi movies and in The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" from "The Kid's are Alright" film.
- First, create a circular image using the laser by feeding one channel (ie mirror) a simple waveform and the other channel a delayed version of the same waveform. For example, a sine and a 90 degree out of phase sine powering the x and y mirrors will produce a circle. The resulting light path will create a cone in space.
- Second, create fog. Not having a fog machine handy, I used a household steamer to spray steam from off-screen into the path of the laser.
- Place your actor (or Personal Apprentice) in the cone walking away from the source towards a camera placed within the cone, facing the laser source.
- Turn off lights, and enjoy! The actor will appear to be walking within a tunnel of light whose intensity varies according to the density of steam or fog.
The Modern Android Cybernaut - Robot, Lasers & Citizen Kane - Link
Related:
- Bot rock with the Robotmakers - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 27, 2007 02:56 PM
Arts, Electronics, Music |
Permalink
| Comments (1)
Super-symmetrical Symet
Bumped into this while poking around YouTube. An exemplary build of a Trimet BEAMbot, as covered in my BEAM projects in MAKE Volume 06. The near-perfect symmetry of the construction (often overlooked by some builders) leads to a really smooth, consistent motion. The builder used 1000 uF caps and the FLED (Flashing LED) variant of the Miller Solar Engine. More pics of this and other BEAM robots at the Flickr link below.
Related:
- BEAM coverage on MAKE: Blog - Link
Beam bots - Link
From the pages of MAKE:
- A Beginner's Guide to BEAM - The BEAM design approach creates nimble robots from simple components, with no programming required. Subscribers--read this article now in your digital edition!
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 27, 2007 07:00 AM
Electronics, Robotics |
Permalink
November 26, 2007
Understanding Arduino Interrupts
uC Hobby has a piece up on the use of interrupt routines in Ardunio programming:
Often when working on microcontroller projects you need a background function to run at regular intervals. This is often done by setting up a hardware timer to generate an interrupt. The interrupt triggers an Interrupt Service Routine (ISR) to handle the periodic interrupt. In this article I describe setting up the 8-Bit Timer2 to generate interrupts on an Arduino ATMega168. I walk through steps required for setup and inside the ISR function.
Arduino Interrupts - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 26, 2007 01:21 PM
Arduino, Computers, Electronics |
Permalink
Nixie wall clock
Nifty wall-mounted nixie tube clock posted to the MAKE Flickr Pool.
Nixie Clock III - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 26, 2007 09:00 AM
Electronics, Retro |
Permalink
| Comments (1)
Charming components
I love jewelry and art objects made out of electronic components. Here are some really sweet robot charms made mainly from capacitors and resistors.
21st Century Folk-Art by oBVIoUS FRoNT - [via] Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 26, 2007 08:00 AM
Arts, Crafts, Electronics |
Permalink
| Comments (6)
Motion-triggered paintball gun
Rather roughshod tutorial (e.g. I think he gets his wires crossed) on adding a motion detector trigger to a paintball gun using a BASIC Stamp HomeWork board, a laser pointer and a servo.
How to build motion detect to fire a paintball gun - [via] Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 26, 2007 07:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
Permalink
| Comments (2)
November 24, 2007
Track fingers with the Wiimote
Johnny Lee at Carnegie Mellon University figured out how to use the Wiimote's infrared camera to track his fingers, Minority Report style. Link.
(Thanks, Matt!)
Posted by Becky Stern |
Nov 24, 2007 06:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Gaming |
Permalink
| Comments (3)
November 21, 2007
First-Person View hobby site
In response to the virtual pilot video item we posted several weeks back, a reader sent a link to this site, a portal related to "video piloting in the newly growing and exciting hobby of First Person View (FPV or RPV) that has become popular with Radio Controlled airplanes, R/C helicopters, cars and boats." Who knew?
FPV Video Home Page - Link
Related:
- Virtual pilot video rig for R/C plane - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 21, 2007 08:00 PM
Electronics, Flying, Toys and Games |
Permalink
| Comments (2)
Mooninite-inspired LED projects
Carl Cartagena sent us links to a series of LED light-art pieces he did, inspired by the Adult Swim Mooninite signs that triggered terrorist hysteria in Boston earlier this year. I wish he hadn't splashed a URL watermark across the middle of them. Really annoying. And looking at these time-lapse vids, with a clock showing the time flying by, you realize how tedious a project with this many diodes actually is. He says the results were worth the effort, tho. He gave them away as gifts. You can see the others from the YouTube link below. Or, if you want to go to his website, his address is... crap, I can't remember it...
The turnip project - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 21, 2007 06:00 PM
Electronics |
Permalink
| Comments (4)
November 20, 2007
"Antenna Shooter!"
Check out this awesome antenna wire shooter made from a fishing reel and sling shot. If you're like me, you'll now spend the rest of the night singing "antenna shooter!" to the tune of the "salad shooter" jingle. Okay yeah, that's just me.
Antenna Shooter - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 20, 2007 07:00 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics |
Permalink
| Comments (1)
Ultra-tight freeform circuitry
Freeforming a circuit that's this highly populated gives me hives (and tests my patience), but if you have a good magnifying light, a steady hand, and take your time, you can work a lot of discrete components into a very small space. Just don't expect to do much troubleshooting/changing when you're done.
Fitting a circuit into a small space - [via] Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 20, 2007 04:00 PM
Electronics |
Permalink
| Comments (3)
MIDI foot
Designed by Paul Sobczak, Peter Arendt, and James Pachan -- The Midi Foot is a foot controlled switch box that interfaces with a computer via Midi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Nov 20, 2007 11:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Music |
Permalink
Page 1 of 167 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 >>
New @ MAKE
Making Things Talk
Programming microcontrollers used to require an expensive development environment costing thousands of dollars and requiring professional electrical engineering expertise. Open-source physical computing platforms with simple i/o boards and development environments have led to new options for hobbyists, hackers, and makers. This book contains a series of projects that teach you what you need to know to get your creations talking to each other, connecting to the web, and forming networks of smart devices. Review and buy it now! - Link.
Eccentric Cubicle
Who says office cubicles need to be dreary? In this book, author Kaden Harris of Eccentric Genius introduces aspiring and die-hard Makers to a highly entertaining parallel universe of surreal office-based projects that are sure to pique the curiosity of even the most jaded office mates. From desktop guillotines and crossbows to mood-enhancing effects and music makers, each project presents a different set of challenges and opens new avenues of Maker lore - Link.
Best of MAKE
After two years, MAKE has become one of most celebrated new magazines to hit the newsstands, and certainly one of the hottest reads. If you're just catching on to the MAKE phenomenon and wonder what you've missed, this book contains the best DIY projects from the magazine's first ten volumes -- a surefire collection of fun and challenging activities going back to MAKE's launch in early 2005 - Link.
Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders
Amateur astronomy is now within the reach of anyone, and this is the ideal book to get you started. The Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders offers you a guide to the equipment you need, and shows you how and where to find hundreds of spectacular objects in the deep sky -- double and multiple stars as well as spectacular star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies - Link.
Phillip Torrone
Senior Editor
Tel: 707-827-7311
Gareth Branwyn
Robot Maker
Jonah Brucker-Cohen
Researcher
Natalie Zee Drieu
Bre Pettis
Current Podcast
Make a Reprap Robot Part 1: The Electronics - Weekend Project Podcast
MP4 | Hi-Def | Blip | Youtube | PDF | Subscribe This week, take the first step towards making your own self-replicating rapid-prototyping robot! You can order up your boards, from the Reprap foundation or make your own since...
More...
