[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Hn8No5oFQ]
[Spikenzie] has put together this nice kit for controlling a DC motor with RC servo signals. He’s using a PIC12F629 to convert the signal to PWM. As you can see in the video above, it seems to work quite well. It is in a neat and tidy package and available as a kit. We have to admit though, what caught our eye was the prototype. Even though it is a kit for sale, it looks as though they plan on releasing the PCB files and code.
The folks at Openschemes.com have written up an article on how to convert a USB serial port adapter to a low voltage serial interface for interfacing with microcontrollers. Though you can always just buy one, this is a fairly quick and cheap solution, especially if you are in a pinch or don’t have access to a retailer. The specific models you should watch for, are the ones with two chips, a microcontroller and a line translater.They go through the process of finding exactly where to patch in to add an extra interface. It only takes a couple wires and you are ready to go.
Not only can you use this as your serial connection to another microcontroller, but you can actually take control of the one on the board itself. If you load it with the drivers from TI, you gain access to the flash memory and can do whatever you want. They don’t go into much detail here though, stating that they’ll write another article on that.
We thought this little bugger looked familiar so we went digging through our archives. Sure enough, we found this system in action back in January of 2008.
[via Hacked Gadgets]
Texas Instruments has issued a DMCA notice to United TI, a group of enthusiasts. They had been cracking the keys that sign the operating system binaries in an attempt to gain access and possibly expand on the features. This seems, at least a little counter productive to us. Texas Instruments doesn’t sell the operating system separately do they? These people were buying their product and expanding on it. There is no difference in their income, except possibly a gain as people flock to the one they can modify. Maybe they are charging more for an expanded feature set that is crippled in the OS.
[via slashdot]
[Paul] wrote in to show us this little project he did for his kids. His children love playing with their toy cars. In an effort to give them even more fun while playing, [Paul] built a stop light for them. He’s using an ATtiny13 to run them and has the source code available on his site. Not only did the kids get a new toy, he got an excuse to go build something in his workshop.
[vimeo = http://www.vimeo.com/3150715%5D
[Andrew Curtis] does fantastic timelapse photography. He found that he wanted to be able to move the camera while taking the shots to give motion to the final product. While this isn’t exactly a new idea, not too many people mess with it. The dolly to do it with can be quite expensive as it has to support the camera and move it in an automated and controlled fashion. [Andrew] has been working on building his own dolly and has documented the process.
[via Flickr]
Noting that so many of his electronics are using the mini USB plug for charging, [Xavier] decided to modify his Nintendo DS to charge via the same adapter. It looks like the existing adapter is basically a proprietary mini USB plug, so replacing it was actually almost a perfectly clean swap job. He has nice pictures of the process and some helpful tips as well. If you’re thinking of consolidating your charging devices, this looks like a step in the right direction.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0knvD7wx6A]
[Totoro] sent in this cool little email notification device he made. Using a paper model of Wall-E, he added some servos and connected it to his computer using a PIC. Mail-E has independent arm rotation and head rotation. He admits that the PIC processor is major overkill and plans some upgrades such as making it wireless and using a little better suited chip to control it. Not bad for a proof of concept.
