Most microcontrollers are time-agnostic, meaning they are unaware of the time around them, but that’s ok as most things we make have no need for it. But… every once in awhile you come up with an idea that requires knowing the actual time. Mostly this is used for data-logging, or creating this year’s newest clock. […]
ESP32 is the hottest new wireless chip out there, offering both WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy radios rolled up with a dual-core 32-bit processor and packed with peripherals of every kind. We got some review sample dev boards, Adafruit and Seeed Studio had them in stock for a while, and AI-Thinker — the company that […]
In past tutorials, we have covered temperature, color, time, direction, but never distance or proximity. I think I strayed away from this because most of the lower cost proximity sensors are pretty drop-dead-simple to use and thought it might not be that useful. But the time has come, I’m writing about some distance/proximity sensors. While […]
If you want an article on general 74hc595 shift register usage with detailed explanition on how it works/what it’s doing, you want this article here: http://bildr.org/2011/02/74hc595/ The following code and library are compatible with arduino software 1.0+ ONLY. You can download the newest version of the arduino software here. Earlier this year we did an […]
This is an incredibly quick post, and it is actually here simply because this thing was a pain to figure out how to hook it up. But, I wasn’t able to do anything with it more than the Arduino library was able to do out of the box. So, if you have this screen sold […]
Before we begin, just note, that while this all works, I believe the output is scaled wrong. The noise floor is very high. But from everything I have found it looks like this is how it is. We have covered, accelerometers, GPSs, compasses… But no gyros. Why? Not sure, but I figured today I would […]
Light, location, temperature… What’s next? Well, how about Barometric pressure? You know.. that thing that determines so much of our weather. Well the BMP085 Barometric Pressure sensor, available at SparkFun is a great little sensor capable of sensing such small changes in barometric pressure it can be used as a pretty precise altimeter as well. […]
Most notable for its inclusion in the Kindel and other E-Readers, E-Paper has recently become very popular. But until very recently been out of reach to being used in personal projects. Luckily for us, SparkFun started selling and E-Paper display, and breakout board finally bringing this great technology to a place where we can slap […]
The ESP8266 has become one of those ubiquitous parts that everyone knows. However, the new ESP32 has a lot of great new features, too. If you want to take the ESP32 for a spin, you should check out [Neil Kolban’s] video series about the device. When we say series, we aren’t kidding. At last count, there were […]
The ESP32 is looking like an amazing chip, not the least for its price point. It combines WiFi and Bluetooth wireless capabilities with two CPU cores and a decent hardware peripheral set. There were modules in the wild for just under seven US dollars before they sold out, and they’re not going to get more […]
