The Next Generation Arduino Nano

October 10, 2019 by Sharon Lin 40 Comments

While we certainly do love the Arduino Nano for its low-cost and versatility in projects, it’s unarguable that every tools has its gripes. For one maker in particular, there were enough complaints to merit a redesign of the entire board. While Arduino may or may not be interested in incorporating these changes into a redesign of the development board, there is certainly room for a new manufacturer to step in and improve some features.

[Kevin Timmerman] takes a look at lower-cost clones of the Nano made in China to highlight a few interesting key differences that make the clones – cheaper but still compatible with legacy systems – more attractive.

The PCB manufacturing for the Arduino Nano currently places components on both sides of the board, requiring two operations for solder paste, pick-and-place, and reflow. Naturally this increases costs, simply designing a two-layer PCB with components on top lowers the price of manufacturing.

Since the ATmega328PB was released, it has proven to be a better and cheaper MCU for manufacturing than the ATmega328P, the current MCU used by the Arduino Nano and clones. While the newer MCU is not backwards compatible like its predecessor, it has additional UART, GPIO, counters, and other features that allow users to take advantage of new libraries and peripherals.

Rather than featuring the typical voltage regulator used by Arduino boards (used to allow the board to be powered by a voltage source greater than 5V), a switching regulator allows for less energy loss but a higher component cost. A better solution than both of these would be to simply not have a voltage regulator. While this may be controversial, there are sufficient battery power sources for this design to work (4 cells of AA or AAA NiMh batteries or a mobile phone charger).

The Arduino Nano uses a bootloader for handling programming the MCU, which requires the USB to serial bridge to be disconnected from anything that could interfere with the programming. Thus, programs using the COM port on the computer must release the port, including the serial monitor. Rather than using the bootloader, ICSP (in-circuit serial programming) and DebugWire are possible alternatives that connect the ICSP pins to the CH551 development board or programming via the reset pin.

There are a number of other spec and firmware improvements suggested in the writeup, as well as comparison between the Arduino Nano, Arduino Every, and Chinese clones. It’s definitely worth a look!

Mt Everest Lamp Recreates The Famous Peak

October 5, 2019 by Lewin Day 7 Comments

Anyone who has travelled to distant mountain peaks has marvelled at the beauty of the natural, rugged terrain. [apoorvas15] is no different, and created a lamp that celebrated the awe of the largest mountain on earth.

When it comes to reproducing an accurate geometrical representation of the landscape, the easiest approach is to reach for some variety of CNC machinery. Here, a 3D printer is used to create a translucent shell replicating the mountain. A reverse shell is then laced on the bottom to create an effect akin to that of a reflection in a lake. The assembly was fitted with WS2812 LEDs run by an Arduino Nano, and suspended from a stainless steel frame for an attractive floating look.

It’s a great piece, one that would look suitably impressive on any desk or coffee table. The 3D printer has served many makers well when it comes to producing attractive home lighting. We’ve seen many great builds — from the 8-bit to the floral-inspired. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Mt Everest Lamp Recreates The Famous Peak” →

Kinetic Lamp Sheds Light On Scientific Principles

September 5, 2019 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

This thing right here might be the coolest desk toy since Newton’s Cradle. It’s [Stephen Co]’s latest installment in a line of mesmerizing, zodiac-themed art lamps that started with the water-dancing Aquarius. All at once, it demonstrates standing waves, persistence of vision, and the stroboscopic effect. And the best part? You can stick your finger in it.

This intriguing lamp is designed to illustrate Pisces, that mythological pair of fish bound by string that represent Aphrodite and her son Eros’ escape from the clutches of Typhon. Here’s what is happening: two 5V DC motors, one running in reverse, are rotating a string at high speeds. The strobing LEDs turn the string into an array of optical illusions depending on the strobing rate, which is controlled with a potentiometer. A second pot sweeps through eleven preset patterns that vary the colors and visual effect. And of course, poking the string will cause interesting interruptions.

The stroboscopic effect hinges on the choice of LED. Those old standby 2812s don’t have a high enough max refresh rate, so [Stephen] sprung for APA102Cs, aka DotStars. Everything is controlled with an Arduino Nano clone. [Stephen] has an active Kickstarter campaign going for Pisces, and one of the rewards is the code and STL files. On the IO page for Pisces, [Stephen] walks us through the cost vs. consumer pricing breakdown.

We love all kinds of lamps around here, from the super-useful to the super-animated.

An MSX With A Nintendo Controller

August 12, 2019 by Jenny List 5 Comments

Console owners inhabit their own individual tribes depending upon their manufacturer of choice, and so often never the twain shall meet. But sometimes there are those what-if moments, could Mario have saved the princess more quickly through PlayStation buttons, or how would Sonic the Hedgehog have been with a Nintendo controller? [Danjovic] is finding the answer to one of those questions, with an interface between Nintendo 64 controllers and MSX hardware including the earlier Sega consoles.

In hardware terms, it’s a pretty simple device in the manner of many such projects, an Arduino Nano, a resistor, and a couple of sockets. The clever part lies not in its choice of microcontroller, but in the way it uses the Nano-s timing to ensure the minimum delay between button press and game action. The detail is in the write-up, but in short it makes use of the MSX’s need to attend to video lines to buy extra time for any conversion steps.

The MSX computers have had their share of controller upgrade courtesy of Nintendo hardware in the past, we’ve seen a Wii nunchuck controller talk to them before, as well as a SNES one.

Header image: [mboverload] (Public-domain).

Persistence Of Vision On An Old Fan

July 23, 2019 by Lewin Day 8 Comments

Persistence of vision is a fun feature of the human visual system, which allows us to blink a bunch of spinning LEDs at the right time to spell out messages that appear to hang in the air. [TN_Inventor] took a stab at his own POV build, using an old desk fan as a base.

The initial build relied on a rotor made of MDF and some very old-school LEDs. The rotor was heavy and unbalanced, causing issues for the motor, and the dim LEDs weren’t visible in normal daytime conditions. Like any good maker, [TN_Inventor] persevered and iterated the design.

The next revision instead relied on protoboard itself for the rotor, greatly reducing the weight and making it easier to balance. The problem of getting power to a rotating mechanism was sidestepped entirely, with a small lipo battery being mounted on the rotor itself. High-brightness white LEDs were employed, making the effect much more visible. This was helped further thanks to the use of transistors to run the LEDs directly from battery voltage, rather than obeying the current limits of the Arduino Nano’s output pins.

The build presents well, with the final POV board being built into the chassis of an old desk fan. Rather than use the original motor, instead a smaller 12 volt geared device was used, powered separately from the main board. The familiar form factor of the desk fan is a great way to finish the project off, and gives it an interesting industrial aesthetic.

POV builds can go a long way – we’ve even seen volumetric displays built in this way. Video after the break. Continue reading “Persistence Of Vision On An Old Fan” →

Simple Simon Says Looks Sharp

July 12, 2019 by Lewin Day 4 Comments

Simon was a popular toy, launching at the very end of the 1970s, and cribbed from earlier work by Atari with their game Touch Me. The gameplay is simple, and while we suspect it won’t last quite as long as the several thousand years we’ve so far had chess, it’s still around today. [DIY Machines] decided to bust out the 3D printer and whip up their own version.

Simon has long served as a great test project to get to grips with various maker skills, and this build is no exception. An Arduino Nano runs the show, and gets an OLED display to display the current level. Large glowing arcade buttons serve as the control, with their lights flashed as per the original game. Sound is courtesy of a simple buzzer.

It’s a build that doesn’t do anything wild, but presents very well. This is down to the smoothly finished and nicely designed case, as well as the choice of quality human interface components. Everyone loves mashing arcade buttons, and that’s what they’re built for – so they’re always a safe choice.

We’ve seen a lot of straight-down-the-lines Simon projects, but this DDR-ified version is a fun twist on the standard form. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Simple Simon Says Looks Sharp” →

A Doom-esque Port To The ATmega328

June 29, 2019 by Lewin Day 11 Comments

Doom holds a special place as one of the biggest games of the 1990s, as well as being one of the foundational blocks of the FPS genre. Long before 3D accelerators hit the market, iD Software’s hit was being played on computers worldwide, and later spread to all manner of other platforms. [David Ruiz] decided to build a cutdown version for everyone’s favourite, the ATmega328.

Due to the limited resources available, it’s not a direct port of Doom. [David] instead took some sprites and map data from the original game, and built a raycasting engine similar to that of Wolfenstein 3D. Despite the limited memory and CPU cycles, the basic game can run at between 8-11 FPS. There are fancy dithering tricks to help improve the sense of depth, a simplified enemy AI, and even a custom text library for generating the UI.

It’s a great example of what can be done with a seemingly underpowered part. We’ve seen similar work before, with Star Fox replicated on the Arduboy. A hacker’s ingenuity truly knows no bounds.