[Adam] made a remote camera trigger that uses a laser. He had to install CHDK on his camera, which we’ve featured in a how-to, in order for it to work. CHDK allowed for a remote shutter trigger through the USB port. The laser bounces off a mirror and onto the photoresisitor hooked up to an Arduino. When the beam is broken, the Arduino sets off the trigger. He also plans to use the trigger to tweet over ethernet. Embedded is a video demonstrating its functionality.
[ross], a reader is working on a CD changing and ripping robot. The arm picks up a CD and the platform then rotates, stopping in front of the tray to drop the CD. A JB welded tire pump provides the vacuum pick up, while a brake light acts as a resistor to trick a PC power supply into operation. A Motor Shield beefs up an Arduino in order to drive the servos.
[Synoptic Labs] stumbled upon an RGB light strip with individually-controllable LEDs. The strip uses 5 volts and is controlled by an HL1606. Because the strips are hard to find, this chip is mostly undocumented and he had trouble driving the strip. He was unable to get it working until he met with [John Cohn], who had previously reverse-engineered the serial protocol. Working together, they released a library for the Arduino to drive the strip. So far, the library only supports fading each LED, the only known functionality. If more strips like these were available, constructing LED matrices would be much easier. Embedded below is a video of the strip fading through the rainbow.
[Oomlout] has created an Arduino Experimentation Kit that uses basic sensors, buttons, and LEDs to teach electronics and programming. Printed overlays are secured on a breadboard, indicating components and connections. The Arduino is then used to drive the circuit. Examples include driving motors, using shift registers, and making beeps with a piezo element. These are backed up by explanations and code. The breadboarding kit is very similar to the classic 300-in-1 project kits marketed to beginners. In addition, all of the materials are released as open source. Kits are also available that include everything needed to create the circuits.
Related: Opensource Robotic Arm
[via Hack a Day flickr pool]
[Hazard] wanted a full color POV display for his bike wheel. Adafruit’s SpokePOV is single color and Monkeylectric’s original version didn’t display images. He also balked at the cost and decided to manufacture his own version. It uses 16 RGB LEDs on a single layer board he manufactured himself. It’s an entirely through-hole design to make assembly easy. It uses a hall effect sensor to synchronize the image display. The two main components are an ATmega328p microcontroller, which should make it Arduino compatible, and a TLC5940 PWM LED driver. It’s a very well documented build and certainly a good looking effect.
[via adafruit]
[Bill2009] has made some nice progress on a control panel for his motorcycle over at the arduino.cc forums. It can show speed, tachometer readings for the wheel and engine, as well as indicate the current gear. He reads the square wave coming off of his tachometer input and pulses from a reed switch mounted on the wheel to calculate all this. To top it all off he can monitor the data via a Bluetooth module attached to the board, which is much better than trying to balance a laptop on your knees while cruising down the highway. He is working on getting the size down so that he can mount the whole assembly inside of his motorcycle. He also plans to add new software features like wind resistance calculations and0 to 60mph timing.
Liquidware has put together an interesting kit called the WiNet. It has a battery powered touchscreen controlled by an Arduino. Using an XBee shield, it can send commands to a paired XBee and Arduino attached to a computer. The computer can also update the touchscreen display. This is demoed in the video below. It’s a unique interface, but the TouchShield alone costs $174 so we’re guessing you’re going to be pretty damn confident in your project before you go this route.
