zedomax.com &#187; Microcontroller

DIY Accelerometer Controlled Marble Maze!

Here’s a rather very interesting DIY project that involves a marble maze controlled by a wireless accelerometer housed in a Wii Steering Wheel unit. Brilliant!

I purchased the Wii steering wheel unaware that an additional button is mounted to the back for the “B” controller input. At first I considered removing this button to prevent users from getting confused but decided to utilize it instead. During testing I found it awkward and difficult to hand off the controller or put it down without the maze going crazy as it continued to follow the accelerometer’s measurements. I decided that a “dead-mans” switch would be a useful addition so that the maze would only accept input when the button is held down. This allowed the controller to be handled without causing the maze to move unless desired.

via hackedgadgets

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

RFID Hack – How to Make an RFID Music Selector!

max — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:00:59 +0000

For RFID modders, here’s a great DIY to refer to, an RFID application that involves selecting your favorite music using RFID modules! I know some of you are working on RFID projects, this one should be very helpful indeed.

The RFiDJ project is my first attempt at an application in Imperceptible Computing. After work I like to listen to music/radio for a bit to unwind. This usually involves logging into my HTPC and selecting a playlist. For this project I attempted to change how I interact with my music and HTPC. Using RFID tags and photo frame coasters I am attempting to simplify the interface to my music.

RFID Hack – How to Make an RFID Music Selector!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Sonar DIY – How to Make Sonar-Like Radar Visualizer for an Ultrasonic Scanner!

max — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:52:13 +0000

Good morning! Here’s a rather interesting DIY that shows you how to make a sonar-like radar visualizer for an ultrasonic scanner. Now, I think this could easily be applied to other types of scanners including infrared, radio, etc…etc… Great!

First things first, we need to build our circuit. This is the easy bit! We’ll be using the Arduino to control a servo that will rotate our sensor around 180 degrees. The Arduino will then send the value from the sensor along with the current angle of the servo to the serial port.

Sonar DIY – How to Make Sonar-Like Radar Visualizer for an Ultrasonic Scanner!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Weight Hack – How to Make Smart Bathroom Scale that Logs Your Weight!

max — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:28:58 +0000

In these days of high tech gadget, I have no idea why every bathroom scale doesn’t come with an SD card slot so it will automatically record your weight over time but here’s a great hack showing you how to make a smart bathroom scale that does all.

On this project I hacked a digital bathroom scale, for write (log) my weight variations over time, on a memory SD Card. I write the information (time date + weight) on a comma separated values (.CSV) file so I can quickly build a graph using OpenOffice, Gnuplot or some other capable program.

If anyone want to build a scale like this one, I can help, my e-mail is: casainho@gmail.com. I can also build a personalized system, please contact me for price and details. I would like to see this project grow, I would like to be able to buy on the market an Open Hardware and Open Source scale like this one – please contact me if you ave any ideas.

Weight Hack – How to Make Smart Bathroom Scale that Logs Your Weight!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Arduino Hack – How to Make an NES USB Flash Drive! (with NES security)

max — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:23:23 +0000

Here’s an awesome NES hack that involves a retro-NES controller hacked as an NES USB Flash drive, also with added NES security that can only be unlocked using the NES controller itself, how brilliant!

At first, I simply wanted to turn the controller into a flash drive and be one of the thousands of videos and blogs of people turning everyday objects into external memory, but ever since I got my first arduino working, I’ve been itching to do something different. I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to add a security feature that required someone to enter the classic contra “30 lives” code before they could access the data?

Arduino Hack – How to Make an NES USB Flash Drive! (with NES security)

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Halloween DIY – How to Make a Pumpkin that Honks!

max — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:31:13 +0000

Here’s a fun Halloween DIY that shows you how to make a pumpkin that HONKS! It would be even cooler if the pumpkin honks when people are near by using sensors, still a great idea for gadgetizing your pumpkin, bravo!

Control board showing the two 555 timers, two MOSFETs, pot to control horn blast timing and other discrete elements. The first 555 timer starts when the red button is pushed and it turns on the red 12v bulbs through the 1st MOSFET (P10NK60ZFP). After 1 second this timer stops and cascades a pulse to the 2nd 555 timer which repeats the process turning on the horns through the 2nd MOSFET and relay.

Halloween DIY – How to Make a Pumpkin that Honks!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY – How to Make an Alti-Variometer!

max — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:23:37 +0000

Here’s a cool DIY tool for para-gliders and alike, learn how to make an Alti-Variometer. I’ve actually seen a para-glider who crashed into a tree by the highway the other week. If he had landed on the highway, I am sure he could have easily crashed onto on-coming cars. Perhaps this Alti-variometer could have prevented him going awry in the first place.

[Vlad-Andre] used some of his free time to build an alti-variometer. He does some para-gliding near restricted air space and wanted a backup altitude warning that would help keep him below the mandated altitude. His solution uses the SparkFun Weather Board in conjunction with their BlueSMiRF dongle to measure altitude and transmit it via Bluetooth. From there, he wrote a program to grab the transmitted data with his cell phone and display the information. His application also has the ability to set altitude warnings and log changes over time.

via hackaday

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY – How to Make an Alti-Variometer!

Cool Hacks from HackedGadgets This Week!

max — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:15:40 +0000

Alan from HackedGadgets has been one of my long-time friends, now like 3+ years. Anyways, here’s some cool hacks from HackedGadgets this week that you might have missed:

DIY Game of Life using PIC microcontroller – This one is a cool game hack.
How to connect PS/2 keyboard to a microcontroller. – Here’s a great guide outlining the steps required for adding a keyboard input device to your microcontroller.
DIY Coil Gun Speed Meter – Got a coil gun? Learn how to measure its speed with this hack.
DIY AVR Photo Frame – This is a bit going overboard with an AVR but heck, if you got an AVR chip sitting around, you might as well make use of it.
DIY GPS-guided ATV – This is a cool project, controlling ATV with GPS location!
Robot Pancake Maker – This is my favorite for the week from HackedGadgets. Hmmm…. Yummy!
DIY High Altitude Project – Great project for ballooning yourself up there without actually doing so.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Cool Hacks from HackedGadgets This Week!

Amazon Hack – Kindle 2 Hacked to Run Ubuntu Linux!

max — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:56:59 +0000

It looks like Jesse Vincent has hacked an Amazon Kindle 2 to run a custom version of Ubuntu Linux! Well, the Kindle 2 does run on ARM, there’s a lot of linux software out there that’s running on ARM including the Palm Pre but this is pretty amazing indeed.

I could not find any further details on how to accomplish this but I can say one thing, if you can make use of Kindle 2’s EDVO connection, you might just have hacked a “free” per-say, linux computer that uses very little energy. Jesse tells not to think about it but I say go ahead and try it out, why not? (Turn the GPS off before you do and setup anonymous proxies.)

This guy makes it sound too easy, maybe it is?

What you see there is a Kindle 2 with the Ubuntu 9.04 port to ARM running in a chrooted environment. On the screen you see xdaliclock in front of an xterm with the remains of a “top” command and a few mildly embarrassing typos.

To open up the Kindle, I used the USB networking debug mode Amazon left hanging around when they first shipped the Kindle 2, a statically linked telnetd and a cross-compiler to bootstrap myself. From there, I built a daemon that can convert DRM-free PDFs and ePubs into something Amazon’s reader on the Kindle can deal with.

After that, I started to get curious about what else might be possible. It only took a few evenings to get a moderately usable Ubuntu environment running.

Mostly, the Kindle is a lovely little Linux box. Getting X working took a bit of hacking, but everything else “just works” with very little configuration.

via gizmodo, boingboing

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Amazon Hack – Kindle 2 Hacked to Run Ubuntu Linux!

Arduino Hack – How to Make a pH Meter!

max — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:57:17 +0000

Here’s an awesome Arduino hack that shows you how to make a pH meter. I was thinking that this could be great for automating the pool maintenance where you have to check the water’s pH level among other things. That could be a LOT of money, automated water stabilizer!

Now, I gave you a great idea for a niche business, someone go please make it! (well, I guess there’s such thing as automatic pool cleaner already, oops!)

For example, it is necessary control the pH of an aquarium. Some species of fish can not live out of a range of pH. So, we need read it and make the write correction of the pH. Other areas or applications where is important to know the pH are hydroponic, fermentation processes like beer and wine production, environmental monitoring of soils, water of rivers, lakes, and rain, sewage treatment tanks, monitoring of solution and buffers in laboratories of chemistry, and etc.

via hackaday

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Arduino Hack – How to Make a pH Meter!

Ethernet Hack – How to Make a Remote Garage Monitor!

max — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:57:41 +0000

Are you one of those people who forget to close your garage door before leaving on a vacation to another country?

Well, do not worry as there’s a cool hack that shows you how to make a remote garage monitor so you can check it anywhere including your iPhone or Palm Pre.

Also, you can probably add a simple relay and open/close the garage door remotely.

Problem: My garage is detached from my house, difficult to see if the doors are open from the house. Or maybe I am in a hurry to ride to work and forgot to close the door.

Solution: Parallax BS2 based monitor. I can check the status of my garage doors form the web, and with a plugin to Nagios I get paged if it open more than 15 minutes.

Ethernet Hack – How to Make a Remote Garage Monitor!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Circuit DIY – How to Make a Tilt Measuring Inclinometer!

max — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:08:23 +0000

Here’s a really cool DIY that shows you how to make a tilt measuring inclinometer. I do highly like how Nicholas Kwan didn’t use an accelerometer but used cheaper, basic circuit parts. This could be the “alternative” way to put an accelerometer function in your projects without spending much money but with a LM555 timer chip.

The idea behind this was to design a capacitor using a petri-dish and aluminum foil covering half the petri-dish and using water as the dielectric. Because the capacitor had only half the water to fill it and only half of petri dish had aluminum, the capacitance across the capacitor would be different with different angles. When the dielectric between the capacitor plates is 100% water, the inclinometer’s angle is treated as zero degrees. When none of the water is between the plates and is all of it is between the plastic sides, then it is considered to be at 180 degrees. The capacitance is used by a LM 555 Astable circuit, which in turns generates a frequency for the microprocessor. The microprocessor measures the frequency in Hertz, converts it to an angle in degrees through a pre-generated lookup table arrived at experimentally, then displays it on a 4-digit 7-segment display.

Circuit DIY – How to Make a Tilt Measuring Inclinometer!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY POV Blue LED Display!

max — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:18:31 +0000

Take a moment and watch these awesome displays of the DIY POV blue LED display that will animate a dog. (or horse) Awesome huh?

Improvements are:
The rotation speed is 25/s instead of 7/s like in the earlier version, thanks to a cooling fan motor, which can give about 10W power and enough torque at 1800rpm. Also the power supplying is changed for the rotating part. It gets negative through the axe, positive through a sliding contact. The rotation speed is monitored, so the image does not collapse when it decreeses.

DIY POV Blue LED Display!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Arduino Hack – How to Connect Sensors to Pachube!

max — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:52:44 +0000

Do you want to learn how to connect sensors via Arduino to the free online monitoring site, Pachube? This could be a great way to monitor any of your Aduino projects, even if you are on the other side of the globe.

I recently discovered Pachube and have just fell in love with it.
This is a video of my first Pachube project and what I’ve been able to do. I connected two light sensors to an Arduino. One sensor measure light levels in my room, the other measures light levels outside.
The Arduino is connected to a computer running Processing, and it forwards the sensor data to Pachube.

Arduino Hack – How to Connect Sensors to Pachube!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY RGB LED Strip

max — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:29:31 +0000

For circuit enthusiasts out there, you might be surprised to learn that there’s this awesome DIY RGB LED Strip. This reminds me of my Christmas Wreath project, I could easily implement this instead without the fan.

Non-addressable RGB strip (meaning you can turn the whole strip a particular color but not any individual LED) is becoming easier to find in the market but a RGB strip where you can actually control each LED individually has only been the subject of geek fantasy. Every time I’ve done something public with common RGB strip, someone has come up to me and said “oh wow man, can you control those LED’s individually?”. No, sorry, with those strips you couldn’t — but with this strip you can!

via hackaday

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY RGB LED Strip

The Cideko Air Keyboard

David Allen — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:00:35 +0000

The title does not actually do this device justice, launched at the Computex 2009 in Taiwan this is a full wireless keyboard, but it is more than that. It is a remote control and a mouse too.

Being a USB device, no software is required. The Air Keyboard is a simple plug in play device that has a possible range of about fifty metres and uses two AA batteries that are supposed to last up to fifty hours. Works with both Mac and Windows, but unfortunately there are no details on prices etc.

Source [Techna Bob]

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

The Cideko Air Keyboard

Motorcycle Hack – How to Make a Motorcycle Control Panel!

max — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:11:59 +0000

I am not really sure what the point of gathering data on a motorcycle would be for, (as I rather just go really fast) but you can surely make one of these motorcycle control panel from Arduino and gather data for fine-tuning your motorcycle.

Hey, I’m really pleased with how this is going. This is still a prototype but it’s functionally complete and works very well. It’s messy because I hacked up a generalized arduino proto-shield to mount it but there’s really not a lot to the hardware and now that it’s working I can refine it to something much smaller and neater. The functions that are there at the moment are speedo, tach, and gear indicator the speedo and tach are dead accurate and the gear indicator responds very crisply to shifting up or down.

Motorcycle Hack – How to Make a Motorcycle Control Panel!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Arduino Hack – DIY Ultrasonic Cat Water Dish Monitor/Twitter!

max — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:00:46 +0000

Check out this cool device that can monitor a cat’s water dish and also twits it to Twitter.

1. Arduino waits for serial communication from computer connected by USB. Upon request from the computer, it will take a water level reading and send it back.
2. The computer, an NSLU2 reflashed with Debian, sends a request every hour at “0″ minute for the current water level. It takes that level and creates a text file, the text file is then uploaded to the hosted web server by way of the “scp” command.
3. The web server runs a script every hour on the “1″ minute to read the uploaded text file and update the index.html file at www root.

Arduino Hack – DIY Ultrasonic Cat Water Dish Monitor/Twitter!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY Programmable Synthesized Guitar!

max — Thu, 28 May 2009 04:01:55 +0000

Here’s a really cool DIY programmable, synthesized guitar someone made for their engineering project. Awesome!

Our basic idea is to model an acoustic guitar as closely as possible and then implement additional functions not available to the conventional guitar. This includes allowing the play of the guitar with sound being output to earphones, allowing for practice without disturbing others, as well as a chord-learning mechanism based on LED-signalled instructions and other functions. A close modeling would mean that we use push buttons to simulate actual depressing of strings at specific fret locations, calibrate vibration sensors to detect strumming of guitar strings, and faithfully recreate a representation of the guitar body. For the production of guitar strumming sounds, we used the Karplus-Strong algorithm that synthesizes a plucked string sound signal.

DIY Programmable Synthesized Guitar!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY – How to Make an LED Matrix Dice!

max — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:50:52 +0000

For all you gambling-addicts, you might be surprised to learn that there is a way to simulate crap dice on an LED matrix, here’s a cool DIY project for that.

Fact: I am a new D&D player.
Problem: Having to roll many kinds of dice, which get lost and end up it other player’s hands.
Solution: Build an n-sided dice.
Method: Take two 5×7 led displays, connect them to an ATmega168, toss in a Freescale’s 3-axis MMA7260QT accelerometer and program some code.

DIY – How to Make an LED Matrix Dice!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

The super Dell XPS 630

David Allen — Thu, 21 May 2009 20:00:31 +0000

As far as PC’s go there are simply just too many to choose from, so it depends on what you want do on the computer, it seems that gamers are the most demanding of computer users and therefore computer makers are now producing machines that are designed specifically for the gamer market.

This is the Dell XPS 630, a gaming machine that appear to have fashioned itself on “Knightrider” but it is great value, according to Dell this is about half the price of the original price tag in 2008.

So what do you get?

Powerful Intel Core 2 E8400 CPU running at 3GHz

A 6MB cache

1333MHz front-side bus

SLi Dual nVidia GeForce 9800GT with 512MB of memory

2GB of high speed RAM

7200 RPM 500 GB SATA hard drive

Pre-loaded OS, you will get Windows Vista Home Premium, 64-bit Edition

Priced at $999 but only for a short time

Source [Techna Bob]

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

The super Dell XPS 630

BUG – Tiny DIY/Open-Srouce Linux-Platform Microcomputer with Java Programming!

max — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:15:45 +0000

In my life time, I have seen many little linux-microcomputers that will allow you to do more hacking with less space.

Sorta like the ultra-tiny SheevaPlug, this BUG is an open-source linux-based microcomputer that already comes with accelerometer, camera, and even a GPS module so you can build the next generation gadget-device with it.

I happen to like it a lot, maybe I will get one soon to start hacking it.

BUG is a baby monitor. BUG is a security system. BUG is a GPS device. BUG can read barcodes, draw pictures, update your twitter feed, and control robots. BUG is a platform for learning, rapid prototyping, and experimentation. BUG is just about whatever you want it to be. So, the BUG can be anything, but what is it?

BUG is a set of tools that lets you create personalized gadgets and devices. It’s open-source and modular, letting you literally snap together the device you need. Backed by a community of enthusiastic developers, BUG development continues to grow more exciting and diverse.

Because BUG is open-source, it doesn’t impede your creativity. If you’ve got an idea for a gadget, it’s easy to throw it together. For example, your garden is being chomped on by some unseen entity. Snap a motion-detector and a camera onto the BUGbase, write some Java, and you’ve got gadget that’ll catch the family of deer that roams through your yard. Unhappy with Google maps street view? Snap on the GPS module and the camera, and code your BUG to take geotagged photos at specific intervals and roll your own. Got an RC helicopter? Snap on the vonHippel breakout-board module and the touch-screen module and code an interface to fly your helicopter on your BUG. Are you a cartographer? Snap the GPS and the touch-screen modules on, a smidgen of Java, walk to the corners of your property, and bang zoom, you’ve got a map.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

BUG – Tiny DIY/Open-Srouce Linux-Platform Microcomputer with Java Programming!

DIY Tin Can Robot Science Kit!

max — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:14:34 +0000

Very similar to the soda can DIY robot kit, this DIY tin can robot science kit will turn your regular soda can into a cute, walking tin-can robot. Even if you are not a kid, this kid could possibly let you finally kill some time on your relaxing weekends. “Just a CAN-do attitude…”

Recycle a soda can by turning it into a silly robot that can move. Kit includes parts and detailed instructions; just add a “can” do attitude! Ages 5 and up.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY Tin Can Robot Science Kit!

DIY Pulsar Mini-Synthesizer/Sequencer!

max — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:43:11 +0000

I have a confession to make, I have been corrupted by one of my best friend to spend hours in front of his 80s sequencer and make my own music. If you are a hardcore DJ/hacker/musician, you might be interested in this cool DIY Pulsar Mini Synthesizer/Sequencer that will let you make some cool 8-bit sounds ALL day long. :p

Video of the Pulsar Sequencer in action:

DIY Pulsar Mini-Synthesizer/Sequencer!

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Thank you.

max — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:39:57 +0000

It’s been exactly 2 years, 7 months, and 26 days since this site was started. In the beginning, this site wasn’t even a real blog, I used basic HTML code to create couple pages that looked like a blog.

Of course, after using Wordpress and started covering more DIYs, HOWTOs, gadgets, and other cool tech stuff, we began to grow and grow.

As you can see, the initial traffic spike was caused by some of my earlier DIYs being dugg, dugg hard on Digg and made the front page couple of times, mainly thanks to Philip Torrone at Make magazine.

Our web traffic has almost reached that level on a consistent, daily basis and we want to THANK YOU EVERYONE who’s visited, commented, or even subscribed to our blog!

We will be upgrading the homepage soon to feature those early DIYs we made that got us the ground but in the meanwhile, you can check out the “original” Zedomax DIYs, where it all started here:

You can also download the free PDF open-source e-book that contains all these DIYs here.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Thank you.

Twitter Hack – How to Make a Twitter Power Meter!

max — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:12:46 +0000

Twitter has probably been the hottest growing social networking/microblogging service this year hands-down. Needless to say, its uses are endless and great for the DIY community for tinkerers, makers and alike.

Without further due, I announce Lady Ada’s new Tweet-A-Watt power meter system so you will know exactly how much energy your “twittering” is costing you.

I did a detailed write-up over at the new Twitter Hacks blog, here’s a brief summary:

I remember meeting Lady Ada (@adafruit) at Maker Faire back in 2007, she was ALWAYS working on something new. It seems that she just released a DIY kit called Tweet-A-Watt, a wireless power meter that will tweet your power usage to any desired Twitter account, you can see a demo here of it working live @tweetawatt.

The Tweet-A-Watt is basically composed of wireless RF XBee modules, Arduino (or even your computer, I do highly recommend Comfile’s CUBLOC modules too which are easily programmed in BASIC), USB FTDI module, and other electrical components.

For those of you who want to monitor individual power outlets, this Tweet-A-Watt might be the perfect twattering tool. I do also have to add that the kit is only $90, not a bad investment for a really fun Twitter Hack project.

via TweetHacking

Got a new Twitter Hack? Send them to @zedomax2.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Twitter Hack – How to Make a Twitter Power Meter!

Arduino Hack – How to Make your Own Knight Rider Scanner!

max — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 02:25:59 +0000

My old friend Garrett Mace over at MaceTech.com (also @macegr on Twitter) has been tinkering and released his own ShiftBrite RGB LED module. It’s currently out of stock but he says he will have more of them soon. (You can also check out Garrett’s previous DIYs he did on Zedomax.com here)

You can make an easy Knight Rider Scanner with these ShiftBrites that Garrett personally made. The best part about his Knight Rider Scanner (that he made for one of his customers) is the fact that it can use all the colors that RGB can handle, meaning you can make a rainbow too if you wanted to.

Here’s a cool New Years Ball Garrett made with the ShiftBrites, way too cool. (Garrett, next time you tweet me when you make some cool stuff like this!)

After the soldering, I decided to attack a problem that a customer asked me about. He’s working on a Mustang and wants to use ShiftBrites to make a Knight Rider style scanner (2008 TV show version). I wrote some code, it allows any chain length divisible by two, any solid or mixed color, and custom leading and trailing gradients.

Here’ some video of it:

Here’s the video of working on his customer Mustang: