Noise Generator Ported To Run On Small AVR, Also Arduino Compatible

August 8, 2011 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

Feeling a bit left out because he didn’t have a PICAXE on hand, [Rob Miles] decided to port the Luna Mod code so that it would work on an AVR chip. He chose to build his around an ATtiny45, but also mentions that this is Arduino compatible.

This case layout is a bit different from the original Make version, but we like this look just a bit better. It might not satisfy your need for that hipster looking enclosure, but the repurposed macadamia nut box looks seems it was built for this purpose. Take a look as the video after the break to see the final product and hear it spewing newly composed cacophony. [Rob] is sharing the sketch as a dropbox file but we’ve also included our own hosted link after the break in case is stops working.

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Digital Cootie Detector

July 25, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 19 Comments

Kids love games of exclusion. This usually manifests itself in games of ‘keep away,’ having someone ‘catch cooties,’ or the ever-popular ‘No Brian club.’ [Rob] wrote in to tell us about the digital cootie detector he built. The cootie detector operates on galvanic skin response. It’s actually very similar to an E-Meter, although instead of Thetans this device measures something that actually exists.

Galvanic skin response is a measure of the skin’s conductivity. Skin conductivity changes because sweat glands will be activated when someone is nervous. This is a measure of psychological arousal, making it a great detector for games of exclusion – a kid who doesn’t want cooties will ‘psych themself out’ and give themselves cooties.

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Building DIY BlinkM Clones

June 22, 2011 by Mike Nathan 29 Comments

ghetto_pixels

If you are planning on using more than a handful of BlinkMs in a project, you will likely find that their $15 price tag quickly adds up. Instructables user [jimthree] found himself in that position and opted to create his own homebrew version of a BlinkM instead. He calls his creations “Ghetto Pixels”, and while they might not look as professional as the real thing, they get the job done just the same.

He bought a batch of RGB LEDs online for under a dollar apiece, pairing them with ATTiny45s that he scored for about $1.50 each. [imthree] popped his uCs into a programmer, flashing them with an open-source BlinkM firmware clone called CYZ_RGB. He then prototyped his circuit on some breadboard, adding the appropriate resistors to the mix before testing out the LEDs. When he was confident everything was working correctly, he assembled Ghetto Pixels deadbug-style.

When everything was said and done, they came together in a pretty compact package comparable to that of the BlinkM. As you can see in the video below, they work great too!

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Game Boy Printer USB Cable And Software

October 8, 2010 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

[Furrtek] hooked up his Game Boy printer for use with a PC (translated). The two-part hack started with a cable to attach the device via USB. A Nokia interface cable was used as a base to translate the USB signals into serial, and an ATtiny45 microcontroller added to talk to the printer. He did a great job of free-forming the circuit alterations and fitting it back into the plastic USB plug housing.The next step was to write some software. Using VB6 he coded an application that loads in an image, scales it to fit, and allows you to adjust the contrast that the thermal printer produces. For testing purposes he’s reusing old receipts. See it in action after the break.

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Small And Simple FM Radio

September 21, 2010 by Mike Szczys 23 Comments

[gpsKlaus] built this little FM radio (translated) based on the AR1010 IC. That chip is controlled via I2C by an ATtiny45 microcontroller. His tuning implementation relies on presetting 16 stations in the firmware and selecting them with the white potentiometer.

The FM chip came on a breakout board from SparkFun. Not bad at around $15 as it includes the crystal, some caps and a few resistors, and you don’t have to try and solder to the fine pitched pads on that minuscule package. We’re a little unsure of the features included in the part as the datasheet is lacking in detail and the reference datasheet that SparkFun includes in the description is obviously for a much more full-featured chip. Still, this would be a fun thing to play around with if you’ve grown tired of blinking LEDs.

If you don’t want to let an integrated circuit do all the heavy lifting try this post for a guide on building your own radio tuner.

USB Oscilloscope

March 5, 2010 by Mike Szczys 21 Comments

Here’s a USB oscilloscope project from a few years back. It’s easy to build on a single-sided PCB and very cheap because it uses just a handful of parts. At the center, an ATtiny45 microcontroller uses its ADC capabilities for the two traces and also handles the USB connectivity. The internal oscillator is used and trimmed up for accuracy by referencing the USB clock. On the PC side of things, a program written in C# displays the data coming over the serial bus. Quick, small, and useful; a schematic, board layout, firmware, and PC software sources are all available for download.

[Thanks Shri]

DIY AVR USB RGB LED Notifier

July 6, 2009 by Zach Banks 37 Comments

Giving us a chance to break out the TLAs, [Blair] sent in his latest hack where he embedded an RGB LED into his EeePC to display twitter, pidgin, and email notifications. It is based around the ATtiny45, and requires very few additional parts. He based the project on a foundation of work laid by [Dennis Schulze] on notifications and the work of [Dave Hillier] that used V-USB, a library for implementing USB on AVRs. The entire circuit was done freehand and crammed inside the netbook. He says that it is a lot easier to see notifications, even when the laptop is shut.

Related: Email notification via RGB LED