It’s not uncommon to happen across vintage measurement equipment at the local flea market or garage sale. Often with an irresistible aesthetic, and built to last decades, these tools nonetheless tend to be sidelined when modern multimeters are available. [Build Comics] had just such a piece on hand, and decided to repurpose it with some modern […]
VINTAGE AMMETER BECOMES PLANT MOISTURE GAUGE Continue Reading
Makers and electronic enthusiasts looking for a new project to keep then visit this weekend, maybe interested in this excellent Arduino -controlled robotic arm capable of precision moves small enough to pick up and plays chess pieces. Watch the demonstration video below to learn more. “If you’re tired of playing chess on a screen, then
Arduino controlled robot arm precise enough to play chess Continue Reading
dropController has the kind of documentation we wish would spontaneously generate itself whenever we build something. [Martyn Currey] built a robust rig for water droplet photography, and we don’t want to dismiss the hardware, but the most impressive part might be the website. It might not be very fancy, but it’s thorough and logically organized. You
DROPCONTROLLER SETS THE BAR FOR DOCUMENTATION Continue Reading
Some of us are oblivious to how often we touch our faces. The current finding is we reach for our eyes, nose, or mouth every three to four minutes. Twenty times per hour is an awful lot of poking, picking, itching, and prodding when we’re supposed to keep our hands away from glands that can
FACING THE CORONAVIRUS Continue Reading
Spectrophotometry is an important scientific tool, most commonly used in biology and chemistry. It’s a method to measure the amount of light absorbed by a chemical solution at various different wavelengths. While it’s typically the preserve of expensive lab equipment, [Daniel Hingston] built a rig to do the job at home. The heart of the rig
ARDUINO RIG DOES SPECTROPHOTOMETRY Continue Reading
There was a time when any electronics student would have a slide rule hanging off their belt. By the 1970s, the slide rule changed over to an electronic calculator which was a pricy item. Today you can buy calculators at the dollar store. [JohnAudioTech] pulled out an old Radio Shack vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) calculator and found
AN OLD CALCULATOR LIVES AGAIN Continue Reading
Working with graphics on microcontrollers has always meant focusing on making the most of limited resources. Particularly in the 8-bit era, all manner of tricks were used to get low-performance chips to achieve feats beyond their lowly station. However, these days, we’re blessed with 32-bit workhorses with clock speeds in the tens, or even hundreds,
NEW ARDUINO JPEG LIBRARY FOCUSES ON SPEED Continue Reading
While most analog televisions come with composite video inputs on a yellow RCA jack, the feature is not universal. This problem was even more prevalent in the 1980s, and most home consoles got around the problem by instead feeding video to the television’s tuner with an RF modulator. [Manzel Seet] had just such a television
DRIVING A PAL TV OVER RF THANKS TO PWM HARMONICS Continue Reading
Feature creep is typically something to be avoided, since watching a relatively simple project balloon into a rat’s nest of complexity often leads to ineffective, or even abandoned, projects. On the other hand, if you can maintain a tight focus, it’s not always a bad thing. [cbm80Amiga] shows us how to drill down and add
OVER-ENGINEERED SINGLE BUTTON TIMER Continue Reading
Microwaves used to be simple to use. Set the dial for the desired time, and hit start. Then, everything went digital and the average microwave now takes between four and six button presses in precise order just to start heating. Music players have gone down a similar path, and those that grew up in the
EASY-TO-USE MUSIC PLAYER RELIES ON RFID Continue Reading
