WiFi & Bluetooth Bot Control

November 29, 2013 by 6 Comments

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Looking for an easy way to control that Arduino powered robot you built? We just caught wind of a pair of apps for Android that look pretty handy! WiFi Bot Control and Bluetooth Bot Control.

So, what are they?  They’re configurable apps that are capable of taking in an IPCam video signal, and sending various commands via a URL string (or a bluetooth signal) for an Arduino to interpret. It comes standard with a joystick control protocol and 8 customizable command buttons. On the robot end of things you’re looking at a fairly basic setup consisting of an Arduino, a WiFi module, a motor shield and motors, and an IP Camera. The rest is up to you!

It looks pretty easy to set up, and the lite version is free! That’s good enough reason for us to try it out. The full version is $1.99 which isn’t a bad price to pay for a nice GUI for your project. See it in action after the break with a robot called Eddie.

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Build And Control Your Own Robot Army

November 29, 2013 by 10 Comments

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[Sarah Petkus] has a simple dream. She wants to build and command her own delta robot army. It all began with an illustration she drew of a woman hovering over a field of flowers. The flowers in this case had incandescent light bulbs as blooms. [Sarah] decided to create her image in the real world as an interactive art installation. Her first attempts at moving light flowers were based on a pulley system, which was unreliable and not exactly the graceful movement she imagined. Eventually [Sarah] discovered inverted delta robots. She changed her flower design to a delta, and began building her own delta robots out of parts she had around the house.

A chance meeting with the folks at SYN Shop hackerspace in Las Vegas, NV kicked the project into high gear. [Sarah] switched from using R/C ball links as joints to a simple ball bearing joint. She created her entire design in CAD software and printed it on the hackerspace’s 3d printer. She now has six working prototypes. The robots are all controlled via I2C by an Arduino compatible Nymph board. Six robots doesn’t exactly constitute an army, so [Sarah] had to find a new way to fund her project. She’s currently setting up a project for Kickstarter. [Sarah] will be selling kits for her robots, with the proceeds going toward the realization of her dream of a field of robotic light bulb flowers – Assuming the deltas don’t become sentient and try to take over the world first. [Sarah] posts progress updates to her blog, and has a dedicated site (which we featured on Sunday as part of a Links post) for information about her upcoming Kickstarter campaign.

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RFID RGB Lamp Goes The Distance

November 29, 2013 by 5 Comments

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[Philippe Chrétien’s] project makes it to our front page just based on its completeness. When you hear about a multicolored lamp which changes based on an RFID tag you might not get too excited. When you look at the refined electronics and the quality of the wooden enclosure it’s another story entirely.

As we’ve said many times before, coming up with the idea for a project is the hardest part… especially when you just want to start hacking. With his kids in mind [Philippe] figured this would be something fun for them to play around with, opening the door to discussing the electronics concepts behind it.

He prototyped on a breadboard using three N-type MOSFETs to drive the colors of an RGB LED strip. The proven circuit was laid out and etched at home to arrive at the clean-looking Arduino shield shown off above. The entire thing gets a custom enclosure cut using layered plywood, a paper template, and a bandsaw.

Need a use for this once the novelty has worn off? Why not mod it to use as a motion activated night light? Alas the actual project link for that one is dead, but you get the idea.

PS4 Controller LEDs Suck (the Battery)

November 29, 2013 by 30 Comments

The new Playstation 4 Dualshock controllers are super high-tech. They have bright shiny lights on them to prove it.

But [xn0] from neograf.com had a suspicion about these new-fangled controllers. That LED light bar is awfully bright, how much power does it consume?

As it turns out, quite a bit. After dismantling one of his controllers he discovered the LEDs are connected to the main PCB with a ribbon cable — super easy to detach. He then performed some rather unscientific tests of leaving the controllers on over night. His empirical conclusion? If you leave the controller with lights on it will die within 24 hours, if you disable the lights, it will still be at approximately 66% battery capacity after the same amount of time.

Another user on the forums quickly pointed out that this test could have been as simple as using a multimeter — so he did that afterwards. The LEDs appear to draw around 40-50mA, which isn’t that much, but it is more than the controller uses while idle (30-40mA)!

We assume Sony will add a firmware option to turn these lights off in the future, but until then, if you’re really dying for an extra hour or so of gameplay, it’s a super easy modification.

[via ps3hax.net]

8-Bit Video Game Is Best Of Retro Gaming On A Shoestring Budget

November 28, 2013 by 15 Comments

[Petri] wrote in to show off the 8-bit gaming system and original platformer which he and [Antti] developed. Don’t get us wrong now, it’s impressive that the duo were able to put together what looks like a very interesting game. But we’ve seen many industry-leading video games developed with just one or two people (we’re thinking all the way back to the days of Atari). Nope, what’s most interesting to us is that the console is also their creation. We should note that the title screen was the work of their friend [Juho].

Take this with a grain of salt, as the bottom right image in the vignette obviously includes an Arduino. But isn’t it a testament to the state of open hardware and the sharing of knowledge through the Internet that this is even possible on the hobby level? And just because we call it “hobby” doesn’t mean you have to lower your expectations. This thing is full featured. Watch the clip after the break to see the ATmega328 driving a 104×80 resolution screen with a 256 color palette, while using four audio channels for the chiptunes. The thing even utilizes an original NES controller port for user input.

And for those of you who are thinking we’ve seen the same thing before, we never get tired of seeing projects where a lot of hard work has obviously paid off!

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Breadboard Friendly ARM Board Based On STM32F4

November 28, 2013 by 31 Comments

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Umm yeah… this is more like it. The STM32F4Stamp is a project which [Frank Zhao] put together to make his ARM prototyping process more like is was back when everything came in a DIP format. As you can see, it’s just narrow enough to leave one row open on the breadboard for jumper wires.

Don’t get us wrong, we do really like STM’s own Discovery Boards for the hardware they deliver at a very low price. But the dual-row pin headers on the larger versions (all except the F0 variant) make it tricky to connect your peripherals. This is pushed to the point that a large percentage of hacks we’ve seen with the Discovery boards are actually just to make connecting external hardware easier.

You may be thinking that there’s a lot missing from this board, but we disagree. Obviously there’s still a USB port which can be used to power the board via a 3.3V regulator. But since the STM32 chips have a built-in bootloader the USB connection can also be used to flash firmware to the processor. Nice! It’s open hardware if you want roll your own. For your convenience we’ve embedded the schematic after the break, along with [Frank’s] demo video.

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Maglite 18650 Battery Conversion

November 28, 2013 by 30 Comments

maglite 18650

Maglite’s used(?) to be the king of flashlights, but replacing those pesky D-cell batteries is kind of ridiculous in this day and age. So [Travis] decided to upgrade it to make use of the ever-so-common, 18650 lithium-ion battery.

Not looking to purchase any components [Travis] performed this hack using simple recycled household parts. You could solder tabs on the 18650’s so they better mimic a typical alkaline battery cell, but [Travis] notes that because most solder tarnishes the electrical conductivity isn’t always the greatest. So instead, he used aluminum foil. It doesn’t look professional, but it does the job and keeps all the components unmodified so the lithium cells can be used elsewhere if needed. To center the batteries inside the Maglite he used a few strips of cardboard from a case of beer — again, this is just making use of what was available. That being said however, if you wanted to do a professional job on it, nothing is stopping you! A 3D printed 18650 to D-cell adapter would look quite nice… Finally, in order to make the battery spring contact the smaller surface area of the lithium cells, all you have to do is flip it around backwards and slightly bend the inner spring out. That’s about it.

It’s a pretty simple hack we admit, but definitely super handy. In a past project [Travis] also replaced the halogen bulb with a high power LED, making this flashlight even more powerful — and because the LED driver accepts a broader range of voltages it lasts longer too. If you need more inspiration for retrofitting flashlights with LEDs check out this switch-mode driver board hack.

Unfortunately this hack does reduce the Maglite’s thief-head-bashing-ability with such light batteries.