analog

167 Articles

Line Following Tank Without A Microcontroller

September 17, 2010 by 23 Comments

This line following tank uses analog circuitry to sense where a dark line is and adjust its course. Despite the opening paragraph on the schematic page (which looks to be leftover from a past project writeup) this circuit relies on a set of transistors for motor control. [Chris] does a great job of explaining the setup in detail; it boils down to a phototransistor detecting reflected light and flipping which motor is running based on what is detected. A couple of potentiometers are included to tune up the accuracy of the circuit. There’s a short clip of the treaded-terror making a loop around the track after the break.

This is another great way to try your hand at analog circuitry. Once you’ve built the body (tank or otherwise) and line tracking circuit it can be repurposed by swapping out the brains for your next project.

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Meter Clock Using The TI Launchpad

September 2, 2010 by 9 Comments

Here’s an analog meter clock using an MSP430G2211 microcontroller. [Doug Paradis] chose this processor because it is the lesser of the two that come with the TI Launchpad. The parts count is fairly low too; a clock crystal, two analog meters, a few buttons, and a voltage regulator.

He’s done a nice job putting this together. We challenge you to give this a try yourself and build on [Doug’s] features. We really liked the calibration subroutine in [Alan’s] multi meter clock. It would be fun to implement that functionality and store the calibration code in the MSP’s flash memory. You can use our ported garage door opener code if you need an example of how to store data in flash.

Beginner Concepts: Analog Circuits

August 28, 2010 by 38 Comments
We look at a lot of projects that have microcontrollers in them. That’s because microcontrollers do cool stuff, but there are still plenty of tricks you can pull off with analog circuits. [Osgeld’s] latest project explores this realm, controlling the discharge of capacitors through an LED. His setup uses just nine components and, if you’ve been collecting broken electronics from your friends and neighbors like a good hacker, you can scavenge all of these parts. Try it, you’ll like it!

Interfacing With An Analog Joystick

February 6, 2010 by 12 Comments

[Firestorm_x1] put together a tutorial about interfacing an analog joystick with a microcontroller. These analog sticks are easy to find; he got his from Goodwill but we’ve got a couple in our junk box right now. The stick uses variable resistors to report its position so it’s just a matter of reading and interpreting that data. After explaining the concepts he demonstrates how to use the joystick to control a Basic Stamp 2 based robot, the Boe-Bot. This could easily be adapted for use with other robot platforms.

Hybrid Analog/binary Clock, The MK2

January 30, 2010 by 15 Comments

[Kieran] let us know about his hybrid analog/binary clock. The circuitry behind the clock is nothing too new. An Arduino combined with a Chronodot to produce an accurate clock. What we really enjoyed however was the creative implementation of an old British Telecom Linesman’s Multimeter as the case. The analog meter acts as the seconds hand, while a another display made of LEDs diffused with stripboard is the binary clock. The end product is nothing short of ingenuitive.

Homebrew Kodachrome

December 8, 2009 by 19 Comments

What do you do if you can’t find the film that your camera uses? The answer seems pretty simple, you just make it yourself. Making film is not a simple task. There are multiple stages involved and it all has to be done in complete darkness. This project is causing a bit of stir in its respective communities. Though not completely finished yet, it is already an impressive piece. Everyone is waiting eagerly for it to be completed. You can find a few of the discussion groups linked from the flickr page.

[via BoingBoing]