SEP29
Miniature projector with lasers
So far we have seen many POV displays and how they operate. This time we are talking about the POV projector with lasers.
This laser projector consists of 8 red laser pointers, a drive motor for the mirror that rotates and disperses laser light onto the surface (a wall). Microcontroller does the same thing it does in the POV - turns on and off lasers in precise timing intervals so that it projects wanted text or a graphic image!
Source: Stefan Marti
SEP25
AVR development board - prize winner
For all of those who don't know, there was a prize contest held here. The contestants could only be those from nearby countries (local population).
The sponsor of this contest was Protostac with their beautiful AVR development board with ATmega168. It really makes a great package in combination with their AVR programmer. Also, for all those who like Arduino this is a great and cheap starting point as the board supports Arduino ATmegas with their bootloader.
SEP22
Dice value readout using Arduino AVR
How cool would it be to make your own true hardware random number generator? With this dice scanner we are already half way through.
This device consists of 5 IR pairs (transmitter+receiver) which are positioned under the dice. Although there are 9 possible pip positions, the value is read out by scanning only 5 of them. The brain of this thing is an Atmel Arduino and the read value is displayed on a 7-segment LED display.
Source: Steve Hoefer
SEP18
Huge AVR development board
There are hundreds of AVR developments boards available on the market today. What makes this one different is the amount of space available for prototyping and the adherence to a common form factor. This common form factor allows the AVR 28 pin board to be "stacked" with other Protostack boards, thereby increasing the available space and introducing a third dimension to your design.
Some of the notable features include power tracks that are routed throughout the board, de-tangling of I/O ports, AVCC filter block and dual ISP interfaces.
SEP16
Triac regulation using PIC microcontroller
Sometimes there is a need for a regulated AC power source. This can be accomplished with a triac and a microcontroller.
This device uses PIC16C54 microcontroller to control a triac. One push-button has the UP (increase) function, the second one has the DOWN (decrease) function and the third one is for ON-OFF. The ON button will increase the number seen on 7-segment LED display from 00 to 99 which represents triac firing in percentages. Triac can power universal load such as light bulbs, motors and similar.
Source: Drago_Zg
SEP15
Phone modding for paranoids
There was this document about how it is possible to eavesdrop people using their GSM phones even when they are turned off or not in a call. Some people took this info seriously and decided to neutralize this threat.
Removing battery from a phone is also possible but that disables the phone completely and makes call receiving impossible. The idea is to simply short-circuit the microphone contacts when phone is not in use. So, reed switch in combination with a magnet is used to make the whole thing work.
Source: Dan
SEP1
Tiny GSM alarm system published
After GSM call alarm and GSM SMS alarm as two independent modules, I introduce the Tiny GSM alarm system. The main characteristic of this new version is that this device can operate standalone or as a module for existing alarm system. In previous versions we had only the "enable" pin that armed/disarmed the system. Now, aside from that pin we can arm/disarm the system by calling it with our phone.
AUG26
IN-8 single nixie tube clock published
After receiving one IN-8 tube from a friend, I decided to build myself a clock. This clock is more an ornament than a useful machine because it consists of just one digit (tube) so it displays current time every minute for three times.
It is built inside of an old wooden box and it's powered from a 7V DC wall adapter. Under a nixie tube there is a very bright green LED which makes everything look more beautiful. When time is not displayed, this LED blinks with 1 second period (seconds counter).
