Arduino Buyers Guide And The Seeeduino

November 26, 2008 by Eliot 17 Comments

seeeduino

Make has assembled a buyers guide for the many different types of Arduino devices. The Arduino is an open hardware platform designed to make prototyping easily accessible. The design allows for other people to modify, expand, and improve on the base, and many people have started producing their own versions. The guide features a lot of the hardware we’ve covered in the past like the LilyPad, Arduino Pro, Sanguino, Duemilanove, Ethernet Shield, and Freeduino.

Out of the pack, the Seeeduino (pictured above) definitely caught our eye. It’s a low profile SMD design much like the Arduino Pro. They’ve taken advantage of the space saved by the SMD ATmega168 by adding more useful headers. In addition to the ICSP, you get the pins in UART order and an I2C header. Vcc is switch selectable for 3.3 or 5volts. The reset switch has been moved to the edge plus two additional ADC pins. Our favorite feature is the new spacing on the digital pins. Arduino digital pin headers have an inexplicable 160mil gap between the banks. The Seeeduino has the standard row for shield compatibility, but has an additional row spaced at standard 100mil spacing for use with protoboard. At $23.99, it’s competitively priced too.

Fuzebox, Open Source Gaming

November 25, 2008 by Eliot 14 Comments

fuzebox

Adafruit has just put their Uzebox based console into production. The Fuzebox is an 8bit game console based around the ATmega644-20PU microcontroller. Full 256 color 240×224 resolution video output is provide by either a composite connection or svideo. There is an SD card slot on board for future expansion. The chip takes care of all the I/O, so you just need to write your game code in C on top of it.

The kit looks easy to assemble. Almost all of the components are through-hole. The video chip is SMD and comes presoldered to the board. The kit has two SNES controller ports included, but you can use NES ports too. There are three ways you can load your program onto the board: 6pin FTDI, ICSP10, and ICSP6.

Stupidly Huge POV Display

November 22, 2008 by Eliot 28 Comments

pov_gear

[Mario Mauerer] and friends were commissioned to build this 2m persistence of vision display (translated) for a party (in a hight-voltage lab no less). Dubbed “Display from Hell”, it uses 100 blue SMD LEDs to generate the POV images. They’re connected to an ATMega64 via shift registers. Their target speed is 600rpm for a flicker free image, which means the propeller tips are moving at 140mph. The board can be updated wirelessly via IRDA and plans for adding SD storage are in place. You have to see and HEAR this thing in the video embedded below. Continue reading “Stupidly Huge POV Display” →

Reflowing With A Toaster

October 22, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 12 Comments

This Reflow toaster oven project(pdf) was part of a contest back in early 2007, but it is new to us. We’ve seen several approaches to reflowing, but a bread toaster hasn’t been one of them. This has a nice controller with a large Nokia 3310 display too.

[via Projects-Lab]

Jar Of Fireflies

October 18, 2008 by Eliot 14 Comments

[Randomskk] has been attempting to make electronic fireflies for quite some time and finally settled on a design he liked. His jar of fireflies uses an ATtiny13 to control a set of 12 matrixed LEDs. The green SMD LEDs are each soldered to a pair of thin wires that hang down into the jar. The software picks an LED at random to flash and then flashes it 1-3 times. The random seed is incremented each time the jar is turned on, so you’ll get 255 different patterns. The power is just a standard coin cell. The project is fairly simple electrically, but the LED soldering could prove difficult. It was inspired by this firefly jar project. Check out [Alex]’s synchronizing fireflies too. A video of the jar is available below. Continue reading “Jar Of Fireflies” →

Parts: 0.1uF Decoupling Capacitors

September 29, 2008 by Ian 30 Comments

Most ICs need to be decoupled from their power supply, usually with a 0.1uF capacitor between each power pin and ground. Decoupling is usually used to remove noise and to smooth power fluctuations. Every project will need a few decoupling capacitors; our mini web server project has three ICs that require a total of 11. This can be an expensive part to buy in singles, so it’s crucial to stock up online. Read more about our favorite bulk through-hole and surface mount decoupling capacitors after the break. Continue reading “Parts: 0.1uF Decoupling Capacitors” →

SMD Soldering Practice Kit

August 24, 2008 by Eliot 9 Comments

Here’s an interesting kit put together just to help you work on your SMD soldering skills. It’s got 49 SMD LEDs on the front with a programming header and switch jumper. The back has an ATtiny26L and a coin cell. At only 3V, power management is essential; all of the example programs are only addressing one LED at a time (imperceptible to the human eye). If you turn on too many LEDs at the same time, the voltage drop could cause the AVR to reset. Included example programs are a scrolling marque, bouncing balls, and Conway’s game of life. SparkFun has tutorials for regular SMD soldering and using a reflow skillet. The video below shows the kit builder attaching just one LED using the heat and slide method.