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Hardware hacking how-tos

Video – Turning Good Gnomes Evil

August 8, 2011 by 23 Comments

Image of gnomes with glowing eyes

In this video [Jack] will show you how to take a garden gnome and a solar light to create a FrankenGnome that is sure to creep out your friends and neighbors. This Hackaday original video is the first in a new series of videos that we will now be posting on a weekly basis.

You’ll notice a few symbols at the beginning of these videos. These symbols are there to help you understand what the video is all about. In the upper left corner, we have the skill level. These will range from 1 for very basic projects to 4 for highly advanced projects. The upper right corner breaks the video into two categories. The first category is ‘feature adding’. In these videos we will be taking off-the-shelf items and modifying them to do something new. The other category is ‘skill building’. In these, we will be exploring different topics in depth. At first, the skill building videos will be mostly about electronics and software. In the future when we have excavated more room in Hackaday Headquarters, located deep beneath a mountain in remote [REDACTED], we will start doing videos showing you topics with a more mechanical nature. The other icons represent the major skills involved in the project.

Check out the video after the break.

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1 Chip USB AVR Development

August 7, 2011 by 30 Comments

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an AVR microcontroller with USB device support built in so you would not need a separate programmer or serial link? Well in fact there are quite a few of them, and this awesome tutorial (google translate) is a quick and easy crash course in using the ATMega 16/32U4 micro controllers.

These 8 bit AVR’s (16k and 32k) have the usual list of features you would expect in a Mega AVR. 26 GPIO pins and a pretty easy to solder 44 pin surface mount package, the micro controller also has a USB 2.0 Full-speed/Low Speed Device Module and allows programming though a standard bootloader.

Once you have a pretty standard board assembled you need Atmel’s FLIP RS232, USB, or CAN device programming software (Windows or Linux) and your favorite AVR IDE setup, you’re good to go!

Join us after the break for a quick video.

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An Arduino Board For Your Tiniest Of Projects

August 4, 2011 by 29 Comments

1inch_by_1inch_mini_arduino_board

Instructables user [dustinandrews] just took the wraps off his latest creation, a DIY Arduino Pro Mini clone.

Actually, to call it an clone is technically incorrect – while he aimed to produce a tiny Arduino-compatible board, his goal was not to replicate the Mini’s design. Instead, he developed a 1” x 1” board from scratch, covering the construction process in great detail.

When you are working with components this tiny, the only reasonable way to get things done is via solder reflow. He walks through the steps he took to produce the board, which should be enough to guide those doing reflow for the first time through the process without too much trouble.

The end result looks pretty nice, and when he puts it up side by side against the Arduino Pro Mini, his board can definitely hold its own. While his design lacks an on-board power regulator and reset button, he does provide two more analog I/O pins than the Mini, along with several other enhancements.

SMD Soldering With Gas

July 28, 2011 by 24 Comments

[desimon] had a wanted to use some accelerometer chips, but their 3x3mm 16-VFQFN packages made it pretty darn hard to solder by hand. While there are endless ways to approach this, we found this one peculiarity interesting from his use of a gas torch, though it is pretty much hot air reflow.

A PCB for the tiny devices is etched and tinned, the pads have a healthy but not overdone amount of solder applied to them. A liberal coat of flux, rough alignment of the chip and a few gentle passes from the torch and the hobby grade solder melts while the surface tension pulls everything into final alignment.

Having personally used a hot air gun a number of times (and also burning my hand about the same number of times) the localized heat of the torch does make more sense, and there is virtually no heat up time for it either, though it appears just as easy to scorch the board. It is a live flame so be careful!

A Beginner’s Guide To Magnetometers

July 14, 2011 by 9 Comments

magnetometers_for_beginners

The folks over at LoveElectronics recently published an article that explains some of the ins and outs of magnetometers for those who are interested in trying one out, but might not understand how to use them.

A good part of the article focuses specifically on how to manipulate the HMC5883L magnetometer from Honeywell, but a lot of the information can be applied to other makes/brands of compass sensors. They start out discussing in very basic terms how the compass works, then delve into some specifics on how to interface the chip with an Arduino, courtesy of a breakout board that they sell. The breakout board is actually quite simple, so any number of custom iterations could be built for your own testing purposes.

They walk through the use of an HMC5883L-specific Arduino sketch they produced, making it easy for beginners to start getting useful data from the compass units. While a pre-made sketch might seem like a bit of a cop out, it at least gives the curious/motivated beginner a chance to look at some completed code in order to see how things work.

If you are interested in cutting your teeth on some additional beginner concepts, check out these other how-to articles and tutorials.

Electronics Tutorial Two-fer: Soldering Skills And Wires

July 5, 2011 by 27 Comments

electronics_tutorial_twofer_soldering_skills_and_wires

There is a plethora of electronics tutorials scattered about online. Sometimes it can be hard to separate the good ones from the bad, and the enlightening from the misinformed. We recently came across a pair that we found helpful, and thought they would appeal to anyone starting off in electronics.

In this video tutorial, [Dave Jones] at the EEVblog covers soldering, detailing good practices and common mistakes to avoid when working with through-hole components. As the second video in a series he picks up where part one left off, excitedly demonstrating the ins and outs of good soldering skills.

Hackaday reader [grenadier] is working on a series of beginner’s electronics tutorials, and this week’s entry covers wiring. He discusses wire types, gauges, and even provides a nifty self-computing chart that calculates power loss based on the length and gauge of the selected wire. Before wrapping things up, he briefly touches on fuses and the pitfalls of choosing wire that’s not up to the task at hand. While you’re over there looking over his tutorial, be sure to check out the Junkbox, there’s plenty of awesome stuff to be had!