Collaborate Disseminate
[CarrotIndustries] wanted to add an audible warning for when the refrigerator door was left open. The result is a fridge buzzer that attaches to the inside of a fridge door …read more Continue reading Don’t Lose Your Cool With This Fridge Buzzer
Bicycle generator technology has advanced far beyond the bottle dynamos of years past, which as often as not would introduce enough drag when engaged to stall the bike. Granted, it’s …read more Continue reading Battery-less Bike Computer Gets Power and Data from the Wheels
The plethora of wireless technologies has made internet-connected devices the norm, but it’s not always necessary if you don’t need real-time updates. Whether it’s due to battery life, or location …read more Continue reading Download From NFC Datalogger, No App Required
We are certainly spoiled by all the microcontroller options nowadays — which is a great problem to have. But between the good old 8-bit controllers and an increasing number of 32-bit varieties, it almost seems as if the 16-bit ones are slowly falling into oblivion. [stnolting] particularly saw an issue …read more
Continue reading NEO430 Puts A Custom MSP430 Core In Your FPGA
The funny thing about clocks is that the more intriguing they are to look at, the more precious time is wasted. This steampunk clepsydra is no exception. A clepsydra, or water thief clock is an ancient design that takes many forms. Any clock that uses the inflow or outflow of …read more
Continue reading Steampunk Water Thief Clock Steals Attention, Too
The Charliewatch by [Trammell Hudson] is one of those projects which is beautiful in both design and simplicity. After seeing [Travis Goodspeed]’s GoodWatch21 digital watch project based around a Texas Instruments MSP430-based SoC, [Trammell] decided that it’d be neat if it was more analog. This is accomplished using the CC430F5137IRGZR …read more
Continue reading Returning Digital Watches To the Analog Age: Enter The Charliewatch
Real quick question: how do you increase productivity at work? The greatest (highest paid) minds would just say: do agile or scrum or something. What’s scrum? That’s where you gather ’round every morning for a waste of time meeting that kills your every desire to be productive. A while back, [Travis Goodspeed] was stuck in some lesser circle of hell like this and in an effort to be polite by not looking at his phone too much, looked at his watch too much. This led to the creation of the Goodwatch, a new bit of hardware that replaces the guts …read more
Continue reading Shmoocon: Advanced Low Power Techniques And A Watch
Hey, did you know Hackaday is starting an Open Access, peer-reviewed journal? The Hackaday Journal of What You Don’t Know (HJWYDK) is looking for submissions detailing the tools, techniques, and skills that we don’t know, but should. Want to teach everyone how to make sand think? Write a paper and tell us about it! Send in your submissions here.
Have you noticed OSH Park updated their website?
The MSP430 line of microcontrollers are super cool, low power, and cheap. Occasionally, TI pumps out a few MSP430 dev boards and sells them for the rock-bottom price of $4.30. Here ya go, …read more
Continue reading Hackaday Links: Not A Creature Was Stirring, Except For A Trackball
A lot of things tend to get stretched during the holiday season, like shopping budgets and waistbands and patience. This year, [Chris] is stretching the limits of both the mini breadboard and the humble 1.5 V LR44 coin cell with his joule thief-driven LED mini Christmas tree.
With the push of a micro momentary, the joule thief circuit squeezes enough power from an LR44 to boot an MSP430 microcontroller, which needs 1.8 V – 3.6 V. After boot, the micro takes control of the joule thief circuit and milks it whenever the voltage falls below 3.2 V. This tree may …read more
A popular purchase from the usual stockists of imported electronic modules is a digital panel meter. A very small amount of money secures a module with a seven-segment display that you can stick on the front of your power supply or project for an easy readout. Even before the advent of these ultra-cheap Chinese products there have been readily available digital meters, in a line stretching back to the 1970s with chips such as the Intersil 7106.
[Marcus Taciuc] is eschewing the off-the-shelf parts, and creating his own digital panel meter. He’s using an MSP430 microprocessor as the brain of …read more
