8 ms·

Miscellaneous Arduino bits and pieces

158 points by Jerry2 9y ago

retSava 9y ago
meta: I really like these kind of blogs which are more or less a braindump with heart to it. I'm sure there are many nice nuggets of wisdom and experience if you go through the posts. To take an example, http://vwlowen.co.uk/arduino/spectrum-analyser/spectrum-analyser.htm http://vwlowen.co.uk/arduino/spectrum-analyser/spectrum-anal... about taking a simple 2.4 GHz module and building a spectrum analyzer, is a nice post. You can tell he enjoyed doing it.
- retSava 9y ago
  meta-meta: reading my own comment above, I can see how it is actually quite similar to those auto-generated spambot-comments in format, I hope it doesn't say much about my inner self :S. Then again, that's just what a spambot would say.
  - dnel 9y ago
    You're in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it's crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on it's back. The tortoise lays on it's back, it's belly baking in the hot sun, beating it's legs trying to turn it'self over, but it can't, not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - retSava 9y ago
      Love it, looking forward to the sequel that seems to keep the same look and feel. (awkward reply to "why is that?" though)
      - dnel 9y ago
        way to dodge the question replicant!
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    Excellent post, with good informations and circumscribed.
- graystevens 9y ago
  Thanks for picking this one out, it looks perfect to have a tinker with whilst trying to diagnose my wifi issue here at home. I suspect I have a tonne of interference, but the HackRF route seemed a little over the top. This is much better!
  - retSava 9y ago
    Beware that depending on what kind of trouble you might have, the update rate of that analyzer might be several orders of magnitude too slow. Interference is likely nowadays, with wifi in every apartment and everywhere, but one thing to consider is if you have any really old equipment on your wifi? If you have eg an 802.11b thing on the network, the router (perhaps the other devices too) downgrade to 802.11b too, to have a common denominator. Interesting to hear your results, please do share later!
- johansch 9y ago
  If you can stand the video format, this one is unusually rewarding for being a youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/mikeselectricstuff https://www.youtube.com/user/mikeselectricstuff I started with this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-sGpTpkxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-sGpTpkxE "My old BBC Micro system" ... which kind of established his credibilities in my mind, and then I just kept going, devouring his entire channel. Recommended - this guy knows his stuff, and unlike certain other youtube channels in this genre there is no annoying bravado.
  - codeulike 9y ago
    A rack version of a BBC Model B, nice.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Watching that BBC Micro video made me sorry i missed that era. Doing anything like that these days would be just, ugh, painful. Too many layers, both hardware and software, to dig through to get anything close to brass tacks, and we keep adding more every odd year or so...
    - retSava 9y ago
      Don't be sad, there are plenty of opportunity still! And, there's much more easily found information and help :) A suggestion is to buy eg a MSP430 Launchpad ($10) or STM8 development board (<$1 on Aliexpress) and write simple programs for those. Those cpus are very simple and great starting points.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      You can simulate those old 8 bitters easily enough on modern hardware and re-live that time to your hearts content. You'll become an ace at optimization and memory conservation.
    - bonzini 9y ago
      One of my long-time project ideas is a BASIC interpreter (Commodore-style) for the ESP8266 or one of the more powerful Arduinos, with statements to control GPIO pins or I2C devices and a web-based REPL. It would be great for teaching.
- dnel 9y ago
  When the Web 5.0 is all hosted on Facebook, the best and more impassioned learning material will still be hand-written in HTML 4 on some old radio ham's personal web site that's been lovingly crafted for some 30 years.
amelius 9y ago
I have a nice project idea: build a replacement for HP's iLO (integrated lights out) system. Basically, all it needs to do is provide remote power and reset buttons for a server. An advanced version could also provide a remote keyboard, mouse, video, and port for an USB stick. The main reason why I'd want this is because HP's support system is a mess, iLO is expensive, and restricted to HP servers. I think it could be done with a Raspberry Pi, and hopefully with minimal soldering inside the server itself.
- the-dude 9y ago
  Ideas have little value.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    every valuable project starts with an idea though.
    - falsedan 9y ago
      So does every worthless project. Valuable projects always have some initial action taken to make the idea a reality.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Initial action, like sharing the idea with a knowledgeable community in an appropriate moment (like here, now), to gather feedback on both usefulness to other people and viability of the proposed path of execution.
        falsedan 9y ago
        Talk is cheap, executing is valuable/hard/scary.
        Chris2048 9y ago
sleavey 9y ago
I love this kind of stuff. I recently built a slow cooker controller to make yogurt that essentially consisted of an Atmel ATmega328 (same as the Arduino Uno) controlling a relay using a DS18B20 digital thermometer. Then, when I was building it, I thought it'd be cool to have a touch screen display to set the desired temperature. Then, I figured that I might as well power the Arduino using the mains supply instead of having a separate 5V input on the box. In the end, I learned about mains filtering, switch mode power supplies, safety clearances, fail-safety, microcontrollers and programming touch screens all at the same time. Despite there being cheaper, off-the-shelf solutions available, I preferred this approach.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  And the best bit: if it breaks you can repair it yourself!
- sleavey 9y ago
  One downside I've found with hobbies like this: milling enclosures for the electronics is expensive in terms of either money (to have it done externally) or in terms of favours from your machinist colleagues. For anything beyond holes drilled with a drill press, I have to ask a friendly technician where I work. If enclosures/panels could be milled as cheaply as PCBs can be printed, that would be awesome.
  - sokoloff 9y ago
    You can use PCB as a front panel. It has arbitrary routing, colored soldermask (as background), silkscreen (as labeling). Some enclosures are extruded aluminum with screw on end caps. If your device is suited to the endcap being made of PCB, you just have another PCB (printed end panel?) to layout. Here's one example video that shows the technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj0Bv4UEFSs&feature=youtu.be&t=119 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj0Bv4UEFSs&feature=youtu.be...
    - swimfar 9y ago
      Here's another nice tutorial. It looks like it's a nice way to make sturdy custom enclosures. https://hackaday.com/2015/06/03/how-to-build-beautiful-enclosures-from-fr4-aka-pcbs/ https://hackaday.com/2015/06/03/how-to-build-beautiful-enclo...
squarefoot 9y ago
And for those wanting to use small AVR processor modules without the Arduino IDE and libraries, here's some information. Those modules cost less than €2 on Ebay, just search for "attiny85 module" http://blog.ithasu.org/2014/12/blinking-a-digispark-without-arduino-ide/ http://blog.ithasu.org/2014/12/blinking-a-digispark-without-...
- gh02t 9y ago
  A heads up for these, the ATtiny is a different family than the ATmega's in the Arduino Uno. They are not 100% compatible, and if you are a beginner that can be problematic. Also the Tiny85 in particular that these modules use expose very few pins (5 usable). That said, I use the Tiny85 all the time as they require minimal external components, so they are good to drop into a design for taking care of functions like interfacing peripherals or simple logic. For people just starting out though I'd recommend a Nano clone, they can be had for about the same price.

158 points by Jerry2 9y ago

meta: I really like these kind of blogs which are more or less a braindump with heart to it. I'm sure there are many nice nuggets of wisdom and experience if you go through the posts. To take an example, http://vwlowen.co.uk/arduino/spectrum-analyser/spectrum-analyser.htm http://vwlowen.co.uk/arduino/spectrum-analyser/spectrum-anal... about taking a simple 2.4 GHz module and building a spectrum analyzer, is a nice post. You can tell he enjoyed doing it.

retSava 9y ago
meta-meta: reading my own comment above, I can see how it is actually quite similar to those auto-generated spambot-comments in format, I hope it doesn't say much about my inner self :S. Then again, that's just what a spambot would say.
- dnel 9y ago
  You're in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it's crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on it's back. The tortoise lays on it's back, it's belly baking in the hot sun, beating it's legs trying to turn it'self over, but it can't, not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - retSava 9y ago
    Love it, looking forward to the sequel that seems to keep the same look and feel. (awkward reply to "why is that?" though)
    - dnel 9y ago
      way to dodge the question replicant!
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Excellent post, with good informations and circumscribed.
graystevens 9y ago
Thanks for picking this one out, it looks perfect to have a tinker with whilst trying to diagnose my wifi issue here at home. I suspect I have a tonne of interference, but the HackRF route seemed a little over the top. This is much better!
- retSava 9y ago
  Beware that depending on what kind of trouble you might have, the update rate of that analyzer might be several orders of magnitude too slow. Interference is likely nowadays, with wifi in every apartment and everywhere, but one thing to consider is if you have any really old equipment on your wifi? If you have eg an 802.11b thing on the network, the router (perhaps the other devices too) downgrade to 802.11b too, to have a common denominator. Interesting to hear your results, please do share later!
johansch 9y ago
If you can stand the video format, this one is unusually rewarding for being a youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/mikeselectricstuff https://www.youtube.com/user/mikeselectricstuff I started with this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-sGpTpkxE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la-sGpTpkxE "My old BBC Micro system" ... which kind of established his credibilities in my mind, and then I just kept going, devouring his entire channel. Recommended - this guy knows his stuff, and unlike certain other youtube channels in this genre there is no annoying bravado.
- codeulike 9y ago
  A rack version of a BBC Model B, nice.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Watching that BBC Micro video made me sorry i missed that era. Doing anything like that these days would be just, ugh, painful. Too many layers, both hardware and software, to dig through to get anything close to brass tacks, and we keep adding more every odd year or so...
  - retSava 9y ago
    Don't be sad, there are plenty of opportunity still! And, there's much more easily found information and help :) A suggestion is to buy eg a MSP430 Launchpad ($10) or STM8 development board (<$1 on Aliexpress) and write simple programs for those. Those cpus are very simple and great starting points.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    You can simulate those old 8 bitters easily enough on modern hardware and re-live that time to your hearts content. You'll become an ace at optimization and memory conservation.
  - bonzini 9y ago
    One of my long-time project ideas is a BASIC interpreter (Commodore-style) for the ESP8266 or one of the more powerful Arduinos, with statements to control GPIO pins or I2C devices and a web-based REPL. It would be great for teaching.
dnel 9y ago
When the Web 5.0 is all hosted on Facebook, the best and more impassioned learning material will still be hand-written in HTML 4 on some old radio ham's personal web site that's been lovingly crafted for some 30 years.

amelius 9y ago

I have a nice project idea: build a replacement for HP's iLO (integrated lights out) system. Basically, all it needs to do is provide remote power and reset buttons for a server. An advanced version could also provide a remote keyboard, mouse, video, and port for an USB stick. The main reason why I'd want this is because HP's support system is a mess, iLO is expensive, and restricted to HP servers. I think it could be done with a Raspberry Pi, and hopefully with minimal soldering inside the server itself.

the-dude 9y ago
Ideas have little value.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  every valuable project starts with an idea though.
  - falsedan 9y ago
    So does every worthless project. Valuable projects always have some initial action taken to make the idea a reality.
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      Initial action, like sharing the idea with a knowledgeable community in an appropriate moment (like here, now), to gather feedback on both usefulness to other people and viability of the proposed path of execution.
      - falsedan 9y ago
        Talk is cheap, executing is valuable/hard/scary.
        Chris2048 9y ago

sleavey 9y ago

I love this kind of stuff. I recently built a slow cooker controller to make yogurt that essentially consisted of an Atmel ATmega328 (same as the Arduino Uno) controlling a relay using a DS18B20 digital thermometer. Then, when I was building it, I thought it'd be cool to have a touch screen display to set the desired temperature. Then, I figured that I might as well power the Arduino using the mains supply instead of having a separate 5V input on the box. In the end, I learned about mains filtering, switch mode power supplies, safety clearances, fail-safety, microcontrollers and programming touch screens all at the same time. Despite there being cheaper, off-the-shelf solutions available, I preferred this approach.

jacquesm 9y ago
And the best bit: if it breaks you can repair it yourself!
sleavey 9y ago
One downside I've found with hobbies like this: milling enclosures for the electronics is expensive in terms of either money (to have it done externally) or in terms of favours from your machinist colleagues. For anything beyond holes drilled with a drill press, I have to ask a friendly technician where I work. If enclosures/panels could be milled as cheaply as PCBs can be printed, that would be awesome.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  You can use PCB as a front panel. It has arbitrary routing, colored soldermask (as background), silkscreen (as labeling). Some enclosures are extruded aluminum with screw on end caps. If your device is suited to the endcap being made of PCB, you just have another PCB (printed end panel?) to layout. Here's one example video that shows the technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj0Bv4UEFSs&feature=youtu.be&t=119 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj0Bv4UEFSs&feature=youtu.be...
  - swimfar 9y ago
    Here's another nice tutorial. It looks like it's a nice way to make sturdy custom enclosures. https://hackaday.com/2015/06/03/how-to-build-beautiful-enclosures-from-fr4-aka-pcbs/ https://hackaday.com/2015/06/03/how-to-build-beautiful-enclo...

squarefoot 9y ago

And for those wanting to use small AVR processor modules without the Arduino IDE and libraries, here's some information. Those modules cost less than €2 on Ebay, just search for "attiny85 module" http://blog.ithasu.org/2014/12/blinking-a-digispark-without-arduino-ide/ http://blog.ithasu.org/2014/12/blinking-a-digispark-without-...

gh02t 9y ago
A heads up for these, the ATtiny is a different family than the ATmega's in the Arduino Uno. They are not 100% compatible, and if you are a beginner that can be problematic. Also the Tiny85 in particular that these modules use expose very few pins (5 usable). That said, I use the Tiny85 all the time as they require minimal external components, so they are good to drop into a design for taking care of functions like interfacing peripherals or simple logic. For people just starting out though I'd recommend a Nano clone, they can be had for about the same price.