Collaborate Disseminate
Over the summer [ElectroSmash] put the finishing touches on the Arduino Audio Meter, a shield for the Arduino Uno that visualizes various aspects of an incoming audio signal on a set of four 8×8 LED dot matrices. Obsentisibly it’s for use on a guitar pedalboard, but thanks to the incredible …read more
Continue reading A Hard Rocking Arduino Visualization Shield
One of the great things about the Arduino environment is that it covers a wide variety of hardware with a common interface. Importantly, this isn’t just about language, but also about abstracting away the gory details of the underlying silicon. The problem is, of course, that someone has to decode …read more
Many Cloud Service Providers (CSP) and large enterprises struggle to deliver a commitment level for an application service. For a tenant, without a proper Service Level Agreement (SLA), it is impossible to manage an application for his or her own user… Continue reading Modern Analytics and End-to-End Visibility
Every few years, or so we’re told, [Scott] revisits the idea of building an electrocardiogram machine. This is just a small box with three electrodes. Attach them to your chest, and you get a neat readout of your heartbeat. This is a project that has been done to death, but …read more
Flexibility and elasticity. Both rank high on the corporate agenda in the age of digital transformation and IT is no exception. From the perspective of IT, virtualization and cloud computing have become the de facto standard for deployment m… Continue reading Keeping Pace in the Race for Flexibility
Back in the early days of radio, it was quickly apparent that the technology would revolutionize warfare, but only if some way could be found to prevent enemies from hearing what was said. During World War II, the Allies put a considerable amount of effort into securing vocal transmissions, resulting in a system called SIGSALY – 50 tons of gear developed by Bell Laboratories with the help of Alan Turing that successfully secured communications between the likes of Churchill and Roosevelt during the war.
Now, a small piece of the SIGSALY system lives again, in the form of a period-faithful …read more
Continue reading Rebuilding The First Vocal Encryption System
When designing model aircraft of any shape or size, it’s useful to know the performance you can expect from the components chosen. For motors and propellers, this can be difficult. It’s always best to test them in combination. However, with the numbers of propeller and motor combinations possible, such data can be tough to come by. [Nikus] decided it would be easier to just do the testing in-house, and built a rig to do so.
The key component in this build is the strain gauge, which comes already laced up with an Arduino-compatible analog-digital converter module. Sourced for under $10 …read more
Continue reading Brushless Motor Thrust Stand Provides Useful Data
We’ve all seen the little USB power meters that have become popular since nearly every portable device has adopted some variation of USB for charging. Placed between the power source and the device under test, they allow you to see voltage and current in real time. Perfect for determining how long you’ll be able to run a USB powered device on batteries, or finding out if a USB power supply has enough current to do the business.
[Jonas Persson] liked the idea of these cheap little gadgets, but wanted something a bit more scientific. His design, which he refers to …read more
Continue reading Open Hardware Board For Robust USB Power Monitoring
We’d seen it done with buttons, switches, gestures, capacitive touch, and IR remote, but never like this. [electron_plumber] made an LED that can be blown out like a candle, and amazingly it requires no added sensors. The project uses an Arduino to demonstrate turning a tiny LED on and off in response to being blown on, and the only components are the LED and a resistor.
How is this done? [electron_plumber] uses an interesting property of diodes (which are the “D” in LED) to use the LED itself as a temperature sensor. A diode’s voltage drop depends on two things: …read more
Continue reading An LED You Can Blow Out, With No Added Sensor
It may be nearly 40 years old, but the Atari 5200 still inspires legions of fans to relive the 8-bit glory days of their youth. There was much to love about the game console, but the joystick-and-keypad controllers were not among its many charms. The joystick didn’t auto-center, the buttons were mushy, and the ergonomics were nonexistent.
Retro-aficionados need not suffer in silence, though, thanks to this replacement controller for the Atari 5200. [Scott Baker] didn’t want to settle for one of the commercial replacements or, horrors, an adapter for the old PC-style joystick, so he rolled his own. Working …read more
Continue reading Thumbs Up for This Custom Atari 5200 Controller