MSP430-based wristwatch project

[Nav] is working on a scratch-built wristwatch. Although it is based on an MSP430 microcontroller, it’s not the ready-to-hack ezCronos that you might be thinking of. Instead, [Nav] started with a different TI development tool that we’ve looked at before, the ez430-F2013.

The breakout board for the F2013 is small enough to meet his needs, but still provides … Read the rest

Hackaday Links: September 28, 2011

Disposable coffee maker

[Sepehr] didn’t have a coffee maker, and the local coffee shops were all out of joe. He got his fix by making a drip coffee maker out of disposable cups and knives.

Flexible braille display

Thin film technology is being developed to help the visually impaired. This flexible OLED display has embedded muscle cells which create Read the rest

Ambilight clone built from Arduino and ShiftBrite modules

[Don] put together a guide that will help you build your own Ambilight Clone for about $40 plus the cost of an Arduino. He’s using it with the HTPC seen above, and utilized modular concepts in building it so that you can easily disconnect your Arduino board when you want to use it for prototyping.

For RGB light sources [Don] … Read the rest

Which resistor values should you order for all circumstances?

A hard drive crash, and some other happenings that aren’t entirely clear to us, led [Devbisme] to put in a parts order. As he wanted to make the most of his shipping costs, he decided to fill out the order with parts that he’ll use eventually. He’s been working with surface mount designs and wanted to move from using resistors … Read the rest

Sustainability Hacks: Solar battery/smartphone charger

[Michael] took a battery charger meant to be connected to mains power and converted it to work with a solar panel. This was a traditional 4 cell charger which charges the batteries in pairs. He kept that functionality, but added USB charging with a special over-current feature. That’s because his Android phone has a fast and slow USB charging … Read the rest

Making a simple addressable array from LED strips

led_array_from_led_strips

[Patrick] was prepping for some future projects he had in mind, for which he will need a simple 2D array of addressable LEDs. While it is certainly possible for him to build his own LED array and control hardware, he thought he would try out some off the shelf products to see if something might fit his needs.

He picked … Read the rest