Check out this octopart search engine for electronic parts. It seems to searching mouser, digikey, and other major electronic part companies for stuff.
The creator dropped out of school to make this so everyone please take a look!
P.S. I couldn’t find any Make controllers, Cublocs, or any controllers that are not being sold through the major suppliers… (maybe they can add them…)

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Wow, check out the wifi-robot from wifibot.com!

WiFiBoT comes to fill the gap between the simple toys and the sophisticated but
expensive robots that can be found today in the market. In our platforms you will find
the right compromise between cost and sophistication so you don’t overshoot your
needs with any complicated gear

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Here’s a cool little project that stores data into an SD card using solar power.

After some prodding from customers and an upcoming prototype run I decided to throw in a little breakout board that would allow 2 solar panels to be connected in parallel to a 7805 linear regulator. An LED was added with a switch so the user could identify when the board was making power. These boards can output 8V@300 mA and should easily provide more than enough votage and current to charge the batteries. This setup is perfect for backpackers and other users looking to ditch their backup AA batteries.

Only indoor testing has been conducted on these (its nightime right now) but some 23W florescent bulbs provided enough voltage to light the LED charging light of the gps logger!

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Here’s a cool blog I came across on our new wagg.it site.
It’s a custom application that will send email containing current external IP address to a specified email address automatically at set intervals.

Why do you need this?

I used to work as a network administrator at a company and had issues with DDNS (dynamic DNS) addresses where the domain name can change.
We used to use free DDNS services such as no-ip.com but this tool will allow you to bypass that and simply check your email to access your server. (Therefore keeping it even more secure…)

This can be great tool for embedded TCP/IP applications too.

What was that IP address again? How many times did you wish you had the IP of your crashing router on your home network to do a quick reset. I used to have a Linksys that would crash at least once a month at the most inopportune times and I designed this application to send me my network’s external IP address everyday or what ever intervals I wanted. Many ISPs with broadband give you a dynamic IP address and this helps you know that you are up and running and what the IP address is. It also is a nice monitor sending hourly emails for testing flaky connections. I have grown used to being able to view my external IP from my system tray and at the request of others with the same problems I created IP in Your Email application (don’t send me emails on the name).

via wagg.it

Check out this PIC based bluetooth accelerometer that you can use for your future wireless accelerometer applications.

This is a small wireless sensor platform providing a bluetooth SPP link to three axes of accelerometer data. The accelerometers are sampled by a PIC microcontroller (onboard ADC) at roughly 100Hz (rate can be changed via firmware). Data from the ADC conversion is sent to a remote computer using the PIC’s UART in conjunction with a drop-in bluetooth serial part. Even with two dual-axis accelerometers onboard there are up to 17 free I/O lines and two additional ADC channels depending on the device configuration. Three sockets provide access to all PIC signals. Over-the-air programming allows for easy firmware updates and rapid prototyping without the need to have a PIC programmer or special cable. Schematics, parts lists, and firmware sources are available online.

Check out the new RFID tags that are smaller than human hair from Hitachi Japan!

The minute devices measure just 0.05mm by 0.05mm (0.002×0.002in) and to the naked eye look like spots of powder.

They are thin enough to be embedded in a sheet of paper, Hitachi spokesman Masayuki Takeuchi says.

RFID tags store data about the objects they are attached to, and companies are vying to create increasingly tiny versions.

Recently, Hitachi unveiled another RFID tag, the Mu-chip, which measures 0.4mm by 0.4mm (0.02×0.02in).

Here’s a cool project that you can control your LCD with ethernet.

The simple “switch on/off a relay” circuit which was the only function provided by the avr web server until now did not require HTML-forms. I used simply 2 URLs http://baseurl/password/1 for switching on and http://baseurl/password/0 for switching off. This does not work anymore for the display as we want to type a text into a web page which should then be shown on the display. What is needed is a needed is a proper decoding of HTML form data.

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Check out voltmeter and ammeter LCD panel you can make using an Atmel8 MCU. Tight!

This multimeter was designed to measure output voltage and current in a PSU, where the current sense shunt resistor is connected in series with load at the negative voltage rail. It needs only one supply voltage that can be acquired from main PSU. An additional function of the multimeter is that it can control (switch on and off) an electric fan used to cool the main heatsink. The power threshold at which the fan switches on can be adjusted using One Touch Button Setup.

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For this weekend, we will show you how to make an ethernet controlled color organ that can be applied for some kind of stage lighting.

We will be using the party light we made and simply plugin the MaxPORT module to the serial port of the CuSB22R.

Click below for the full HOWTO:

Continue reading ‘Zedomax DIY 127 - Make an Ethernet controlled Color Organ!’