I’ve had a cuecat barcode scanner sitting around for over 10 years. Basically it connects to a PS2 port (apparently there is a USB version) like a keyboard and spits out a barcode when scanned. Nice!. The annoying thing is that it is “encrypted”. What I set out to do is; – unencrypt the barcode
Arduino and CueCat barcode scanner Continue Reading
This has been done before. There are several good ways to do it: most use either a 555 timer chip and decimal counter chip, or an Arduino. Stefan and I used an Arduino (Boarduino, technically) which limited our scanner to 14 LEDs. No problem — 14 gives a nice scanning effect! Here’s how we wired
Cylon Pumpkin Using Arduino Continue Reading
QR codes are addicting. Smartphones are smart enough to read them from virtually any angle or orientation. But imagine taking it a step further. I had dreams of a digital LED array that I could program with QR codes, and I wanted it really big! I used 16 matrices to create the QR code that
Build Your Own Programmable LED Matrix Continue Reading
A “fan cart” is a roughly constant-force device used in introductory physics labs. It consists of a fan (usually a model airplane propeller on a brushed DC motor) mounted on top of a low-friction cart. Students use it to pretend they’re learning something about force, acceleration, energy, etc. If you’ve ever taken an introductory physics
Arduino-Controlled Physics Lab Fan-Cart Continue Reading
Once you’re getting some values from sensors, for example using Arduino, (see my previous instructable), sometimes it’s nice to see the sensor data in a graph. Here’s how in only a few steps! I made this particular Instructables using a sonar sensor (XL Max Sonar EZ/AE) but you can do it with any data values
Visualize data from sensors using Arduino + coolterm Continue Reading
In an earlier post I described an Arduino-controlled fan cart. The driver I used was an L293D quad half-H chip, because I had one handy and was out of simpler parts at the time. It’s always bugged me that I was just controlling speed on that cart, since it’s possible to control direction with an
Improved Fan Cart Using Arduino Continue Reading
This is the second part of our BaW-Bot (Bells-and-Whistles Bot) build – 5 separate instructables that look into different Arduino-related technologies, combining to create a Bot with all the bells-and-whistles. Part 1: Build an Arduino on a Board Part 2: Build the motor-controller & body Part 3: Adding Sight and Touch Part 4: Blinging up
BaW-Bot Part 2: Build the motor-controller & body Continue Reading
I’m currently helping a couple of engineering students finish a senior project that didn’t get finished last year. Long story… Anyway, it’s a bicycle brake tester being built for Paul Components. The mechanical design is great, but they had trouble with the electronics. Part of those electronics involved writing numbers to a pair of Sparkfun
Driving multiple Sparkfun 7-segment displays with an Arduino Continue Reading
One of my colleagues, Dr. Shane Mayor, has built a very nice LIDAR system for atmospheric research. It’s located at a remote site, at the end of a dirt road, and everything about the system can be controlled remotely except the main pump laser power supply. That supply has a key-switch, which has to be
Remote key-switch operation Using Arduino Continue Reading
Being a broke amateur photographer isn’t easy. Film, chemicals and paper aren’t cheap and a budget for some studio lights is non existant. So, I decided to, with the help of my trusty arduino, create my own sync controller to use with disposable camera flash circuits. By using a photoresistor the arduino can sense when the flash from your
Arduino Flash Controller for Photography Continue Reading
