Android And Arduino RF Outlet Selector

December 6, 2013 by Marsh 14 Comments

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Cyber Monday may be behind us, but there are always some hackable, inexpensive electronics to be had. [Stephen’s] wireless Android/Arduino outlet hack may be the perfect holiday project on the cheap, especially considering you can once again snag the right remote controlled outlets from Home Depot. This project is similar to other remote control outlet builds we’ve seen here, but for around $6 per outlet: a tough price to beat.

[Stephen] Frankenstein’d an inexpensive RF device from Amazon into his build, hooking the Arduino up to the 4 pins on the transmitter. The first step was to reverse engineer the communication for the outlet, which was accomplished through some down and dirty Arduino logic analyzing. The final circuit included a standard Arduino Ethernet shield, which [Stephen] hooked up to his router and configured to run as a web server. Most of the code was borrowed from the RC-Switch outlet project, but the protocols from that build are based on US standards and did not quite fit [Stephen’s] needs, so he turned to a similar Instructables project to work out the finer details.

Stick around after the break for a quick video demonstration, then check out another wireless outlet hack for inspiration.

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A Speaking Ultrasonic Distance Sensor

December 3, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 19 Comments

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[Klaus] wanted some sort of aid for parking his car, and after running across a $4 ultrasonic sensor, decided to build his own speaking distance sensor (.de, Google Translation).

Inside [Klaus]’ device is an Arduino Uno, an HC-SR04 ultrasonic distance sensor, and an Adafruit Wave Shield. Originally, this parking/distance sensor used a small TFT to display the distance to an object, but after a few revisions, [Klaus] redesigned the device to speak the current distance, courtesy of an SD card and a soothing female voice.

Right now, the voice is set up to speak the distance from an object to the sensor from 10 cm to 1 m in 5cm increments. This isn’t the limit of the sensor, though, and the device can be easily reconfigured to sense a distance up to four meters.

The board doesn’t have an amplifier or speaker, but with the addition of a small amplifier, [Klaus]’ device is loud enough to be heard in even the noisiest environments.

Video demo below.

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Arduino Christmas Lights

December 1, 2013 by James Hobson 12 Comments

Here’s a cool hack to get you in the December holiday mood! Arduino controlled Christmas lights!

It all started because [Anx2k] had some leftover LED’s from one of his other projects, so he decided to make use of them as permanently mounted Christmas lights. He’s installed them underneath his tiled roof, and run all the wires into his attic where he has an electrical box serving as the main control hub. He uses an Arduino Uno to control them, and a 460W computer power supply to provide the juice. The LED modules themselves are Adafruit RGB pixel strings. There’s actually three of the LED modules per tile — two shining up to illuminate the tile, and one shining out.

He’s set up a ton of different patterns to run, and they are pretty awesome! Check out the video after the break.

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Arduino-Powered Steampunk Steam Gauge

November 30, 2013 by Marsh 11 Comments

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[Murphy’s_Lawyer] had some empty space on the wall in his kitchen, so he decided to fill it with a whirring Steampunk gizmo: an Arduino-driven steam gauge.

The build began as an old 10″ Ashcroft pressure gauge sourced from eBay, which [Murphy’s_Lawyer] dissected to determine the state of its guts. Finding the gauge’s Bourdon tube intact, he got to work constructing a method of generating motion without the need for actual steam. The solution was to mount a continuous rotation servo between the tube and the case. The servo lacked the strength to flex the tube on its own, so [Murphy’s_Lawyer] fashioned a simple lever out of brass to help it along.

The electronics consist of an Arduino Uno and an accompanying homemade PCB. The code for the Uno generates random motion for twirling the servo, and three LEDs built into the face reflect values generated for speed, pause and run time. The final upgrade came in the form of a new dial face, which provides some updated text as well as a cutout square that lets you see the previously obscured gears in action. Check out the video below, then see another Steampunk overhaul: the Edwardian Laptop.

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The Flow Of Time Draws On A River

November 30, 2013 by Brian Benchoff 23 Comments

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You would think Hackaday would see more projects from public art exhibitions. They really do have everything – the possibility to mount electronics to just about anything in a way that performs interesting but an ultimately useless function. So far, though, [Richard Schwartz’s] Flow of Time is on the top of a very short list of public art installations we like.

The idea behind the build is a German phrase that means something similar to ‘time trickles away’. [Richard]’s project implements this by printing the current time onto the surface of a flowing river in [Richard]’s native Innsbruck.

The build uses five micro piezo pumps to dispense food coloring from a bridge. Every minute, an Arduino pumps this food coloring in a 5×7 pixel digit to ‘write’ the time onto the surface of a river.

Surprisingly, [Richard]’s installation doesn’t require much upkeep. The pumps only use about 70ml of food coloring a day, and the entire device – including the Raspi WiFi webcam – is solar powered with a battery backup.

You can see a video of the time printing on a river below.

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WiFi & Bluetooth Bot Control

November 29, 2013 by James Hobson 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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RFID RGB Lamp Goes The Distance

November 29, 2013 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

[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.