Toymaker Television: XBee Test Communications Set Up

tymkrs is doing great work over on her tumblr. Really worth following if you’re into electronics and hardware. Here she’s testing out the Parallax XBee platform.

So to test the thing, the Parallax XBee tutorial suggests setting up the following:

The XBee connected to the PC using the XBee USB adapter (Base node) and a Remote node XBee with power and a loopback will be used. For the loopback, DOUT is connected to DIN which will cause any received data…

February 18 2012 • 01·02 pm • 2 notes
#electronics   #xbee  

Must-Have Android App for Electrical Engineer

via 5m0k3:

There are a lot of resistor calculator type apps in the Android Market. I’ve had a difficult time finding a decent electronics app. However, I have now found my go-to Android app for electrical engineering work.

ElectroDroid is loaded with features. It offers the basic color code features, and…

February 09 2012 • 08·20 pm • 4 notes
#electronics   #circuits   #android   #app  
DangerousPrototypes posted this a few days ago, its an application note from Microchip called BodyCom. It appears to allow communication between devices using the body as a medium, and mentions that the devices do not even need to be in direct contact with the body to achieve this. I think this could be really useful for all the soft circuits and wearable projects out there. Definitely worth a look if you’re designing a wearable device.
August 04 2011 • 08·30 am • 11 notes

DangerousPrototypes posted this a few days ago, its an application note from Microchip called BodyCom. It appears to allow communication between devices using the body as a medium, and mentions that the devices do not even need to be in direct contact with the body to achieve this.

I think this could be really useful for all the soft circuits and wearable projects out there. Definitely worth a look if you’re designing a wearable device.

#electronics   #microchip   #bodycom   #wireless communication   #wearable   #app note  

Toymaker Television: Low Pass Filter - How do they work - Part I

Toymaker Television have been posting some great articles lately on various aspects of electronics. Aimed primarily at makers and inventors, they work through the basics in a nice fashion that everyone can understand. Great stuff!

tymkrs:

So I dance around this issue a lot because filtering is so important both in sound and radio implementations. And all of this is just to get rid of extraneous noise or signals that happen to be bombarding the inputs. So let’s take a more indepth look at these

Low pass filters do what they say,…

August 01 2011 • 01·31 pm • 7 notes
#electronics   #low pass filter   #how to  
July 03 2011 • 04·58 pm • 1 note

A couple of weeks ago I posted the first embedded schematic from my CircuitBee project. The testing phase has been going well, and in the meantime I’ve been working hard on an Eagle to KiCAD schematic converter. Users can now export their Eagle schematics to KiCAD format and upload them to the CircuitBee system!

This has finally let me realise my original goal for this whole project and release the Illuminatrix Slave Board schematic you see here in a format I’m happy with. This schematic makes use of a PIC16F, and 4 MAX6964 LED Driver chips to control 16 RGB LEDs.

If you’re an Eagle user, go grab the script and please let me know if you have any problems with it.

#illuminatrix   #eagle   #kicad   #eaglecad   #eagle2kicad   #schematic   #electronics   #circuit   #circuitbee  
June 16 2011 • 06·58 am • 6 notes

Ah blinky lights. My favourite.

This rather sweet little PCB from instructables user ledartist is really quite pretty with 168 RGB LEDs being colour shifted with a high resolution PWM to get a really smooth effect. An excellent job, and a great video to show it off too. Nice work!

#electronics   #led   #rgb led   #blinky  
June 15 2011 • 04·16 pm • 15 notes

For those of you that use KiCad, I’ve just started an initial testing phase of my long time pet project CircuitBee.

It lets you embed circuits into your website or blogs (or tumbles!) just as you would a Google Map or YouTube video. Simply upload your circuit, it converts it and then lets you embed it in your blog.

It will be going open to all soon, but right now its invite only. If you use KiCad get in touch with me and I’ll send you an invite code.

(Source: circuitbee.com)

#circuit schematic,   #circuit   #electronics   #embedding   #kicad   #schematics   #html5   #canvas   #javascript  
A while ago we posted about the IOIO breakout board for all Android devices to communicate with external hardware. Shortly after, Google announced the Accessory Development Toolkit (ADK) which allows you to do roughly the same thing, in a more official manner, on newer devices. Last weekend the makers of IOIO have bridged the gap between the two projects and added ADK support to the IOIO. Making it possible to make hardware accessories that support all Android devices which are compatible with the ADK standards. Great work guys!
June 07 2011 • 07·08 am • 7 notes

A while ago we posted about the IOIO breakout board for all Android devices to communicate with external hardware. Shortly after, Google announced the Accessory Development Toolkit (ADK) which allows you to do roughly the same thing, in a more official manner, on newer devices.

Last weekend the makers of IOIO have bridged the gap between the two projects and added ADK support to the IOIO. Making it possible to make hardware accessories that support all Android devices which are compatible with the ADK standards. Great work guys!

#adk   #android   #ioio  
diydrones.com have posted a preview of one of the first Android hardware accessories that I really want. Its a breakout board to let you control upto 8 RC channels. This lets you control your favourite UAVs, radio controlled cars, or any other RC device from the comfort of your Android phone/tablet. They have some great suggestions on how this could be used in hardware projects, such as having your phone doing image analysis and object tracking, taking the heavy computational lifting off the UAV and onto your device. I really want one of these, but I have no RC devices to control with it. Suggestions anyone?
May 14 2011 • 09·31 am • 5 notes

diydrones.com have posted a preview of one of the first Android hardware accessories that I really want.

Its a breakout board to let you control upto 8 RC channels. This lets you control your favourite UAVs, radio controlled cars, or any other RC device from the comfort of your Android phone/tablet.

They have some great suggestions on how this could be used in hardware projects, such as having your phone doing image analysis and object tracking, taking the heavy computational lifting off the UAV and onto your device.

I really want one of these, but I have no RC devices to control with it. Suggestions anyone?

#electronics   #android   #adk   #radio control   #rc  
This excellent guide to home PCB etching by Brad Lyuster of Louisville’s LVL1 hackerspace is well worth a look if you’re interested in making your own PCBs for a project. I’ve actually used a very similar method for the Illuminatrix projects master controller PCBs. We used Ferric Chloride etchant however so didn’t get such wonderfully coloured photos!
May 05 2011 • 10·01 am • 3 notes

This excellent guide to home PCB etching by Brad Lyuster of Louisville’s LVL1 hackerspace is well worth a look if you’re interested in making your own PCBs for a project.

I’ve actually used a very similar method for the Illuminatrix projects master controller PCBs. We used Ferric Chloride etchant however so didn’t get such wonderfully coloured photos!

#electronics   #pcb   #etching