Soldering Iron Project

The article can guide you on how a soldering iron is made on your own. Moreover, it'll not value you an excessive amount of. scan on to grasp a lot of.

The soldering iron could be a battery operated one. A relay is added in order that the battery is turned off once the adaptor is plugged to a socket. A soldering iron is needed to solder the battery holder, switches and also the wires. If a soldering iron isn't offered, the wires is twisted along and lined using insulation tape. however this could not be the simplest approach.

The hardware needed for this project is listed below:

Soldering iron tip

6V battery holder

A Switch

Wooden box

E-10 lamp base

Soldering iron

Solder

Firstly, the look ought to be created. Since the iron will hande solely a current of regarding one.7 amps, parts that take plenty of current shouldn't be used. All the parts are mounted in an exceedingly wood box. This makes it moveable and simple to use. In case this must be reworked into a plug in iron, all that must be done is to switch the battery pack with a six volt DC wall wart.

That's it. The soldering iron is currently able to be used. The circuit is changed to suit any specific necessities.

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Semi-Automatic Paintbrush

Got a replacement InkShield and progressing to build an Open hardware project? Then why not strive creating the Semi-Automatic Paintbrush. browse on to grasp a lot of concerning this.

Any work of art are often copied using this and therefore the elements that are needed to form this is often listed below:
IR camera
InkShield
Ink cartridge
IR LED.

Any work of art are often copied using this and therefore the elements that are needed to form this is often listed below:
IR camera
InkShield
Ink cartridge
IR LED.

The software that's run on a desktop for this purpose is understood as paintbrush.py. The software plays the role of mapping the camera focus with the co-ordinate system of the canvas. Four LEDs are placed at every corner of the canvas and therefore the mapping is calibrated by hitting a key when needed.

The region of the image is captured by tracking the motion of the LEDs. the mandatory commands are send to an Arduino with the InkShield by means that of a script written for this purpose. The script tells the arduino that nozzle to fireplace and additionally the grey level that must be achieved by the firing nozzle. so as to avoid flooding, the painted areas are tracked.

Thats all it's. The paintbrush is complete. this is often a lot of of a fun-based project and may be tired some spare time using the elements mentioned earlier. the desired script is out there on github. The InkShield library employed by the

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Low-cost Macro Lens

For all photography and video enthusiasts, a macro lens is quite simply a basic necessity. A macro lens is incredibly helpful to produce detailed pictures of tiny objects or options. despite the fact that nearly each photographer or video recorder wants one among these, they're quite expensive and hence not everybody will afford it.

Nevertheless, there's the simplest way to create yourself a macro lens. Everything may be achieved by using any lens, 2 plastic bottles, super glue, and duct tape. A photography or video device to that the lens has got to be connected is additionally needed.

1st of all, the neck of a bottle is cut employing a hot knife. Another piece of plastic that's the same as the form of the bottle’s neck is cut out from a special bottle. This plastic section is placed at the lowest. This forms the bottom on that the lens can ought to be placed.

The lens are held near the bottle neck using super glue. once holes are created at applicable positions at each ends of the device, it's currently able to be connected to any camera. It may be connected permanently using super glue, or quickly with some duct tape.

The lens device are placed directly over the quality lens, permitting the camera to require a definite photograph of tiny options using the first programming.

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How to Make an AVR Perform Multiple Tasks

This article describes a way to create an AVR perform multiple tasks. Beginners who want to urge an in-depth information in AVR assemble language programming will seek this project. The assembly language helps to utilize all the functions and capabilities of the processor. browse on to grasp a lot of.

The most vital and major functionality of an operating system is performing multiple tasks on the CPU. what's being done here is time sharing multitasking which too on an AVR. An Atmega32 is ready up to perform Round-Robin Multitasking. Quasi-parallel execution of multiple tasks is feasible through Round-Robin Multitasking. The tasks are time-sliced and don't seem to be tired parallel.

The project demonstrates how the switching mechanism is finished between seven individual tasks. The RAM is split between the amount of processes that are running. A timer is employed here and a trigger is executed when it reaches a compare worth. the required registers are pushed onto the stack.

Now comes the method of switching between the varied tasks. A backup of the present stack pointer is needed as this helps to spot the previous task that was being executed. concerning fifty bytes of memory is formed offered to store the task index. this is often the stack pointer backup table.

Now suppose, task one is interrupted by the timer, the CPU registers and also the standing registers are pushed. The task index is checked at this time and also the stack pointer of future task is currently obtained. currently this task starts executing and this continues for a number of microseconds till it's interrupted. This cycle continues and this provides an effect that every one tasks are being performed parallely.

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iPod Controlled Sports Car

One of the most interesting things you can do with the iPod touch is using it as a remote control for other devices that is why some created remote control applications.


The entire device was rewired to allow the owner to start the car, open the doors and trunk, roll down the windows, control the radio, the car alarm and even the engine. The range of this is limited because the communication is through Bluetooth. What makes this car different from other remote controlled; it can be controlled via voice commands.

It is conceivable that an iPod touch could replace the fanciest of universal remotes and it is worth a try for all the hobbyists out there. 

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Voice Activated Home Automation

Voice recognition is no longer in infancy, especially since Siri just launched on the new iPhone 4S (although similar technology is available on Android too. This project shows you how to use it to automate your home without spending big bucks.

The core of this project is a VRBot speech recognition module.  Next, the project creator used some low-cost wireless light switches (you could also use relays).  The VRBot speech recognition module recognizes 32 custom voice commands.  Once a command is recognized, a wireless switch is activated via a radio receiver.  The setup is simple after you spend some time understanding the wireless communication protocol between the different modules.  See the project blog to engineer the whole thing yourself. [link]

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Temperature Candle Using LED

LED based projects require a lot of skill and hence only experienced circuit designers try out these circuits. But there are also a few circuits in this genre that can be done by amateur electronic hobbyists. The temperature candle is one such circuit. Read on to know more about this.

The hardware components that are required to build this circuit are listed below:

• Microcontroller
• Temperature Sensor
• RGB LED
• PCB

The circuit design is pretty simple. The LED is made to flicker by the microcontroller and the color is based on the ambient temperature at that point. The temperature of the room can be known by observing the color of the LED.

The temperature value is obtained in degree Celsius. This value is received as a result of pressing the reset button on the PCB. This value can also be obtained by providing power to the device. Once the device is powered up, the change in temperature is indicated. The blue LED is triggered for a temperature increase of 10 degrees. The red LED is triggered for a temperature increase of a single degree.

Suppose, the ambient temperature is 23 degrees celsius, The circuit works in such a way that the blue LED is made to blink twice and the red LED is made to blink 3 times. Soon after this, an orange colored flicker is observed as the LED goes into canfle mode.

Since through hole components are used in this circuit, it is very cheap to construct and the components can be easily soldered. The circuit also contains a jack for connecting to a Microchip Pickit 3 programmer / debugger. This reduces the complexity involved in code modification and download.

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Arduino Based Capacitive Touch Screen

Arduino based projects are quite complicated and is no cake walk for beginners in this field. Interfacing a tablet with the microcontroller is a daunting task. Let see how its done here.

The primary focus should be on using the appropriate drivers for the tablet. This makes it a USB host. As seen in the video, light can be a medium of communication between the tablet and the microcontroller. A photo diode or photoresistor is what is needed here and this should be pressed against the screen.

Building a touch sensing capability can help in providing communication between the microcontroller and the tablet. Capacitive touch screens function by sensing the capacitance changes on the screen. In this case, a large conductive brass plate is used to simulate touch. The surface area of the conductor used here to simulate the touch sould be large.

Testing can be done by touching the scrren with a wire and holding the other end. This may not work. This is made to work by sticking a piece of aluminum foil on to the screen and connecting the free end to the pin that is available on the arduino. The video shows the working of the capacitive touch screen. The setup is quite fragile and a little more circuitry could improve its reliability. Thus the capacitive touch screen is done.

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Easy to Use FM Radio Receiver

The project is a user-friendly and cheap FM radio receiver which produces the desired audio signals using integrated circuit to achieve the pre-processing units. During operation, the user is allowed to change stations and interact with the receiver by integrating a keypad and an LCD for communication. There are several functions that this radio receiver can perform including adjusting the threshold when picking up stronger or weaker stations, setting up 3 favorite stations for quick tuning, scanning up/down for next strong signal station, and tuning up/down a frequency.

A keypad is designed for controlling the receiver and the buttons are mapped to their corresponding functionality while the other buttons are not connected. The 4 main sub-components of the receiver include the LCD, the keypad, the favorite station storage, and the communication with receiver. Each of them is being controlled by their software components. The antenna transfers the incoming radio signal to the AR1010 FM radio receiver. To communicate with the AR1010, the I2C protocol is used since the sample code is available online. Also, the AR1010 is powered by 3V. The button presses on the keypad are scanned by the program.

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Making High Quality iPod - iPhone Speakers

This high quality and low cost speaker was designed to be used for iPod or iPhone with the use of old car Hi-Fi speaker and some computer components. Other materials used are shown in the image below and they include an amplifier, 240V-12V power supply, tweeters, crossovers, sealed lead acid battery, MDF, filler, Apple universal dock & remote, glue, nails, and white gloss paint.



The front baffle board was drawn on a piece of MDF in order to use it as a template to make the rear of the box. The dimensions of the box based on the speaker do not necessarily need to be exact because the speakers were quite old as it comes from an old Renault 19.

From the photo of the round bits below, the trusty circular saw was used to cut loads of 1 inch by 15 cm strips of MDF. Between the front and rear baffle, the strips were glued and nailed. The baffles were cut out using a jigsaw and the strips were kept as close to each other as possible.



The first coat of filler can take 3 batches to finish and they were applied as neatly as it can after being mixed up. Until it was somewhere near as shown below, a few more coats can be applied. A surform will be applied until it was about the right shape once the first coat of filler had set. Sanding could be done by hand or it would be better to use an electric sander if available. A jigsaw was used to cut out the speaker and tweeter holes as shown below and a flange for the speaker to sit into was made using the router.






A hole of about 12mm on the top and 3mm on the back were drilled once all the holes were cut. The edges were masked up and the baffle was spray painted in matt black as shown below. The first layer of white primer can be applied once the black was dry and the masking tape was removed. A couple of coats of normal white primer was applied and then followed by a light sand. In between, a bit of sanding was applied as 3 coats of white gloss were given.






A grill for the front had to be made for the full fake Apple. To mark out the shape on a scrap bit of 5mm laminate flooring, this was a simple matter of using the box as a template and then sprayed it in matt black. Some black nylon cloth was glued onto the panel with some spray carpet adhesive when the paint was dry as shown in the image below.

Some black drywall screws were used to screw the 13cm speaker into the box as well as the amp and crossover networks and epoxy resin was used to glue the tweeters. After soldering all the connections, the lead acid battery was glued inside as shown in the next image. The amp of the battery was powered by wiring the 12V to the battery. The iPod universal dock was glued on the top of the box with wires for USB and audio. The finished product of cool looking iPod speaker is also shown below.

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NES Controller

The article will guide you on how to use NES controller in Atari 2600 or ZX Spectrum using an Arduino. Read through the entire article to have a better idea. An arduino and a few connectors are the only components involved here. Since the source code is small, any Arduino board can be utilized. The detailed list of components involved is mentioned below:

• Arduino
• DB-9 Male connectors – 2 nos
• DB-9 Female connector
• 5 Leds for the test dongle
• 5 resistors 330 Ohms 1/4 Watt for the test dongle
• Connecting wires

The DB-9 female plus wires can be replaced by a used Atari Joystick cable if required. The NES cable also can be cut and connected to the arduino. But the wires should be identified without any confusion. The source code is compiled and uploaded to the Ardunio. IDE version 0.22 was used to develop the code. In order to observe the exact behavior of the circuit, a dongle has to be used before the circuit is conneced to the ATARI. Buttons on the NES controller are used to activate the LEDs in the dongle.

The Arduino board has to be powered if a dongle is used for testing the circuit. The joystick controller provides the necessary power that is required for the Arduino to function. No external power is required in this case. This marks the end of the design and testing. The controller is now complete and ready for use.

 

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Remote Controlled Surveillance Robot

This post will provide you with the basic information on how a remote controlled vehicle can be constructed. Read on to know more about this.

The components required to construct the vehicle is listed below:

• 1.2Ghz 1000mW Receiver+Transmitter
• USPS Priority Mail boxes
• Hitec Optima 6 2.4Ghz Receiver
• Arrowind 18A Brushless Speed Controller
• 2200mAh 20C LiPo Battery Pack
• Brushless motor
• Custom motor-reversing relay board
• Foam wheels
• 7-Inch Handheld LCD TV
• Servo

The first thing to do here is to test the wireless transmitter. All the required components are mounted on the USPS mail box. Once the test is done, the box is strapped onto a nitro RC truck. The vibrations caused prevents the truck to be driven via the wireless video feed. The best thing to do in this case is to add wheels and propulsion to the box.

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