TV-B-Gone!

Hey guys,

I just received my TV-B-Gone in the mail today, I ordered it from Adafruit Industries, the shipping to Canada took exactly one week. I was very impressed at the detailed instructions. It took me about half an hour to assemble and test with a camera. I haven't had a chance to test it on a TV yet, but I plan on making a video of turning off all the TV's in Sears! I cant wait!

Nigel

Ideas...

I'm in a sorta contemplative mood, and I have come up with an interesting quote:

"Being a scientist, or an inventor, is like being a lawyer. The laws of science have been laid down years ago many have tried to outright break them and failed, they cannot be broken. the ones that are successful are the ones that find loop-holes, alter statements, try different perspectives, and sidestep these laws without ever breaking them to achieve their goal. And when one can do this, anything is possible."
~Nigel

The Scotch Tape Spirograph!

Hey guys,

I was getting sorta bored over March Break so I decided to build a laser Spirograph. I had most of the parts so it took me about 3 hours to build and tweak. I finally got a chance to use my box of pots to control the speed of the three fans. The laser is from a 2 dollar laser pointer from Active surplus, so its pretty crappy, after 2-3 minutes of use it starts to lose intensity until you can barley see it, not sure why it does this. I plan on replacing the laser at some point. Once I'm back in school I plan on building a nice little enclosure for it out of wood and acrylic. I will make a video as soon as I get a better laser.

Enclosure Project

I finally finished my project, well I finished the enclosure, but still need to finish the electronics and write the code. I decided to use pots instead of the faders because it was much easier to fabricate. I haven't rigged up the LED's yet, but plan to do it sometime soon.

Enclosure Project

Hello all,
Lately I have been very busy with school and exams and other stuff so I haven't had much time for working on electronics projects, but with the new term, I have started woodwork class, and our woodwork project is to make a nice wooden box. So I decided to make a music mixer that will control music in Ableton Live. I plan on using 6 faders and possibly some switches. The main body will be made of wood and the top will be see through, this way I can put some RGB LED's under the faders for some cool illumination. I might also put an audio jack in the side so I can use the synth program too. When I'm done the project, (which should be tomorrow, at least the enclosure) I will post some pictures. If anyone wants to make a project like this just send me an a message and Ill see if I can do a tutorial or something along those lines.

Nigel

Synth-In-A-Box

Hey guys,
I wanted a break from designing, so I spent a night creating a enclosure for my first version of the Audiuno Synth. Its really cool when you can use the synth in a enclosure, it gives it a more finished feel. I was playing around with it and I made A LOT of sounds that weren't originally meant to be made, I could even get a sorta distortion affect. I think most of this was from my analog input somehow floating and generating random numbers. The enclosure is just a old cardboard box I found laying around. I attached the pots, then spray-painted it. The audio jack is on the side of the box, along with the power cable. If anyone wants me to make a video demo just post a comment.

Synth PCB

Hi,

I have converted the PCB files into eagle so I can have them professionally fabricated. I also created a 3D rendering so you can see what the shield is going to look like without any headers.

Arduino Synth 3.4

Hello,

I updated the PCB design so that it would fit the parts I got, I also included a MIDI OUT jack so I can use the board as a midi controller. I plan on fabricating this sometime this week. I printed out a copy and placed most of the parts to make sure they all fit. The only parts that are missing are the female headers and the SPDT switches. The parts fit pretty well accept for the one sliding pot that is covering the analog headers and the power headers. I'm just going to coat the headers with something non-conductive before I solder on the pots.

Solduino - Solar Powered Arduino

Hey,

I have been thinking about the concept of a solar powered Arduino. I have a 3v solar panel from a Hydrogen fuel cell car, which I plan on using to generate electricity. I found a schematic for boosting the voltage to 5v. I'm thinking that I will store any excess power in Gold or Aerogel 1 farad capacitors. This power can then be used to ether power two servos for sun tracking, or store up power for when there isn't enough light to run the Arduino.

Arduino Synth 3.2

Hello, I just finished designing the upgraded PCB for the Arduino Synth. Its new features are:

• MIDI IN
• Audio Output
• 6 Sliding Pots
• 2 SPDT Switches
• 2 Status LED's
  

Now that the pitch doesnt need to have its own pot, I can have seperate volume envalopes for each oscillator making it much more interesting. Also with the two switches, I can implement a choice between Square and Triangle waves. Also the board is much more compact now that all the pots are attatched to the board. I havnt actually fabricated a PCB yet, but I plan to within the next week.

Future hardware Features:

• MIDI IN
• A DAC
• A LCD Interface

Here's a Parts List:

G – Ground
5V – Voltage In
L1 – Serial Status LED, Yellow
L2 – Power Status LED, Red
R1, R2 – 220Ohm Resisters
R3 – 50Ohm Resister
SW1, SW2 – SPDT Switch
AUDIO – Audio Output Jack
MIDI – Midi jack w/ Breakout Board
J1, J2, J3, J4 – Assorted Jumper Wires
IC – 6N137 Optocoupler 10MBit
Squares – Male or Female Headers

This board is getting to the point where I can't fabricate it myself anymore, so I'm thinking of making this into a kit with a double-sided silkscreened PCB. Please Give me some input.

Thanks

Arduino Robot Platform 1.1

Hello,

I have finished making the first prototype of my robot platform. It was pretty simple to make. I had a few bugs such as bridging 5v and Ground pins and frying my Arduino. I had to go and get another one, luckily there is a Electronics shop 20 minutes from my house that sells them so I was able to start working the next day.Hey you learn from your mistakes! The main parts are:

- Arduino

- Freeduino Motor Shield

- Cardboard Chassis

- Lithium Battery

- Battery Adapter

- Gear Box

- Wheels

I also bought some different light sensors and soldered them up so they each had female headers, makes it a lot easier to prototype. I bought the LCD screen for two dollars from my local electronics surplus store. There is even an Arduino Library to run it so it is really easy to use. (Library: http://www.arduino.cc/playground/uploads/Code/OptrexLCD.zip.) I set it up so that it displays analog input from a photo diode. The first picture is with ambient lamp light. The second picture is with the diode covered by my finger. The next step is to create a line following sensor PCB and fabricate it. Then use the PID Library to write a line following program.

Arduino Synth V2.1

I first saw this synth at http://code.google.com/p/tinkerit/wiki/Auduino. It sounded really cool so I decided to make my own "shield". It had 5 pots that ran off of it. This was my first time fabricating a PCB so I had to redo it a couple of times. But my finished product workes pretty well. I plan to add a MIDI interface and a better audio plug (non-existant right now) I would also like to make it into a version of this shield just with more features. I am working on a schematic and will post it soon.

Arduino Intro

Hello,
I have been working for a couple months with the Arduino and have decided to start a blog to document my projects. The most recent projects are:

Arduino Synth - A simple Granular Synthisizer that has two oscillators.

Arduino Robot Platform - A robot platform that I can attatch different sensors to.

Arduino Solar Tracker - A pan/tilt solar cell that provides power to the Arduino.

I will continue to update how each of these projects are doing.