Collaborate Disseminate
Proximity sensors are common enough in automation projects that we hardly give them a second thought — pick something with specs that match the job and move on. But they …read more Continue reading Souped-Up Reflective Sensor Uses Itself for Wireless Programming
Input devices that can handle rough and tumble environments aren’t nearly as varied as their more fragile siblings. [Alastair Aitchison] has devised a brilliant way of detecting inputs from plumbing …read more Continue reading Plumbing Valves as Heavy Duty Analog Inputs
No one likes a flickering light source, but lighting is often dependent on the quality of a building’s main AC power. Light intensity has a close relation to the supply …read more Continue reading Measuring LED Flicker, With Phototransistor and Audio App
In need of a waveform generator for another project, [David Cook] crammed out the old turntable to modify it for a handy hack: By adding a simple reflectance sensor to the pickup he turned it into a waveform generator that optically plays back arbitrary waveforms from printed paper discs.
For his hack, [Dave] created a 3D printed mount, which attaches a LED and a photodiode to the pickup of the turntable. The mount also blocks most of the ambient light, allowing only the reflected light from the paper disc to reach the sensor through a small slit. A little breadboard …read more
