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| A guide of the top ten inexpensive gifts for makers and crafters. All these stocking stuffers are under $10 and all are the types of useful, thoughtful presents that every tinkerer needs at least one of, and would not mind a duplicate. |
Showing posts with label electronic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electronic. Show all posts
Saturday, November 24, 2018
10 Gifts Under $10 for Makers and Crafters
Here are ten, inexpensive stocking stuffers that will please any tinkerer or maker. They are all small but very useful, the kind of thoughtful gifts everyone needs but not everyone would buy for themselves. Better yet, they are the kinds of items every maker would be grateful to have duplicates - one at each workstation.
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Simple DIY Low Pass and High Pass Filters
I needed a simple way to filter some sound effects and pass the bass notes through to the next stage of the project. I could resample the sounds in software, or pass it through a through a commercial module. But I needed something small, simple and cheap - preferably something I could build myself and put on a breadboard as part of the project.
Found these two videos from Afrotechmods on YouTube. He always does a great job of explaining electronics, and these two videos gave me the info I needed to start designing and building my own low pass filters.
These are the simplest, passive style filters, But their simplicity is just what I needed, just cut off the treble and keep the bass, no need for an equalizer with sliders, no power supplies etc. Just two components per filter - a resister and a capacitor - my kind of circuit.
There are more detailed tutorials, like humanharddrive's, but these two videos gave me what I needed to start researching.
Found these two videos from Afrotechmods on YouTube. He always does a great job of explaining electronics, and these two videos gave me the info I needed to start designing and building my own low pass filters.
These are the simplest, passive style filters, But their simplicity is just what I needed, just cut off the treble and keep the bass, no need for an equalizer with sliders, no power supplies etc. Just two components per filter - a resister and a capacitor - my kind of circuit.
There are more detailed tutorials, like humanharddrive's, but these two videos gave me what I needed to start researching.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
EL-Wire plus 3d Printed Bracelet Project
Found some pics of an early jewelry experiment combining EL-Wire and 3d printing. This bangle, or maybe a bracelet, has got to be one of the simplest designs I've done with this combination of technologies, but it's still effective.
There is very little non-structural plastic in the design. That's not usually an important consideration in my jewelry making --- in fact, I get way too elaborate with both structure and decoration.
But when I design something as a 3d print I tend to think more like an engineer. So the simple design is pleasing to me because it means I found a basic concept that works. I like it when the most basic form works with no extra parts or decoration needed.
Or maybe I'm just happy because I like it even without a single gear or wing or key or even an antiqued brass raven skull. Not everything has to be Steampunk.
This first-test version is a simple sine-wave-shaped 3d print. The EL-wire runs through a series of holes in the center of the wave faces. This holds the EL-wire in place with friction. And it breaks up the linear shape of EL-wire visually.
It's also textured and bright enough (bright pink plastic) to look fun and read well in daylight. It's comfortable to wear and durable. Not bad for a first test of concept.
(Also check out my EL-wire party night light project)
I know these early devstage pics aren't the best, so I'll try to find the actual objects again and grab some better images soon.
There is very little non-structural plastic in the design. That's not usually an important consideration in my jewelry making --- in fact, I get way too elaborate with both structure and decoration.
 |
| The EL-wire loses some of linear appearance thanks to the undulating repeating pattern |
But when I design something as a 3d print I tend to think more like an engineer. So the simple design is pleasing to me because it means I found a basic concept that works. I like it when the most basic form works with no extra parts or decoration needed.
Or maybe I'm just happy because I like it even without a single gear or wing or key or even an antiqued brass raven skull. Not everything has to be Steampunk.
This first-test version is a simple sine-wave-shaped 3d print. The EL-wire runs through a series of holes in the center of the wave faces. This holds the EL-wire in place with friction. And it breaks up the linear shape of EL-wire visually.
 |
| The EL-wire runs down the center of the sine wave shaped 3d-printed bracelet. |
It's also textured and bright enough (bright pink plastic) to look fun and read well in daylight. It's comfortable to wear and durable. Not bad for a first test of concept.
(Also check out my EL-wire party night light project)
I know these early devstage pics aren't the best, so I'll try to find the actual objects again and grab some better images soon.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Microsoft MakeCode Can Be Embedded
Just found out that you can embed an interactive model from Microsoft MakeCode. Now you can let other people play with your project on your blog - check it out below.
Click on the buttons (center) or click on the gold pads at the edges of the board. Watch the lights and listen for sounds. I put together these simple routines to demonstrate possible solutions to some questions asked at a recent meeting. It took me all of three minutes.
This board is Adafruit's Circuit Playground. It's my new favorite starter board for new programmers. I'm an advanced beginner and I really like it too. It's simple to use, but powerful enough for me to enjoy prototyping on it.
MakeCode also has options for Minecraft and Lego Mindstorms plus several other platforms. So be sure to check it out if you want a simple way to learn basic coding.
I'll definitely be posting more about this great board and the MakeCode syatem.
Click on the buttons (center) or click on the gold pads at the edges of the board. Watch the lights and listen for sounds. I put together these simple routines to demonstrate possible solutions to some questions asked at a recent meeting. It took me all of three minutes.
This board is Adafruit's Circuit Playground. It's my new favorite starter board for new programmers. I'm an advanced beginner and I really like it too. It's simple to use, but powerful enough for me to enjoy prototyping on it.
MakeCode also has options for Minecraft and Lego Mindstorms plus several other platforms. So be sure to check it out if you want a simple way to learn basic coding.
I'll definitely be posting more about this great board and the MakeCode syatem.
Friday, May 11, 2018
8-Bar plus 24-Ring equals NeoPixel Belt Buckle
Sometimes being slightly disorganized works in your favor. I keep a tray filled with every size and shape of NeoPixels. The tray lives near my electronics work station. When I find a nifty part and want to see if a NeoPixel will fit that part, I simply reach into the tray and grab an example to test.
The collection comes in very handy so I leave the LEDs in the tray at all times. I know I should put them back in their anti-static bags and put the protected LEDs back in the main collection. But I don't because, well... because I'm kind of lazy.
This week, I started playing with electronics again after taking several months off for other project types. And when I pulled out some NeoPixels to test fit onto a part I got a pleasant surprise.
The 8-pixel bar and the 24-pixel ring had stuck together and came out of the tray as a pair. The combination created a perfect shape for a belt buckle, or broach, or maybe a hair ornament. I'll have to cover them of course, and hook them up to an Arduino. I just finished playing with decorative round covers exactly for this purpose.
Finding this combination by accident is funny. I have tested all the ring sizes in various combinations. There are enough different sizes of NeoPixel rings that you can make many combinations of concentric rings - including an LED clock with 60 pixels for the second hand.
But for some reason I had never combined or even tested the bar together with the rings. I felt silly, but happy because the universe had gifted me a new combination without me even searching for it. I think maybe I'm supposed to make a few pieces of light-up jewelry as my transition back into my electronics hobby.
Find out more about NeoPixels at Adafruit. (the 8-bar and 24-ring are two of my favorites). By now, Adafruit has the same configurations in RGB, RGB plus white (in several Kelvin colors) and even a version with faster refresh rates called DotStars.
If you've never hooked them up to your Arduino before, grab yourself some NeoPixels and start lighting up your world.
The collection comes in very handy so I leave the LEDs in the tray at all times. I know I should put them back in their anti-static bags and put the protected LEDs back in the main collection. But I don't because, well... because I'm kind of lazy.
This week, I started playing with electronics again after taking several months off for other project types. And when I pulled out some NeoPixels to test fit onto a part I got a pleasant surprise.
 |
| Notice how perfectly the 8-pixel bar and the 24-pixel ring fit together |
The 8-pixel bar and the 24-pixel ring had stuck together and came out of the tray as a pair. The combination created a perfect shape for a belt buckle, or broach, or maybe a hair ornament. I'll have to cover them of course, and hook them up to an Arduino. I just finished playing with decorative round covers exactly for this purpose.
Finding this combination by accident is funny. I have tested all the ring sizes in various combinations. There are enough different sizes of NeoPixel rings that you can make many combinations of concentric rings - including an LED clock with 60 pixels for the second hand.
But for some reason I had never combined or even tested the bar together with the rings. I felt silly, but happy because the universe had gifted me a new combination without me even searching for it. I think maybe I'm supposed to make a few pieces of light-up jewelry as my transition back into my electronics hobby.
Find out more about NeoPixels at Adafruit. (the 8-bar and 24-ring are two of my favorites). By now, Adafruit has the same configurations in RGB, RGB plus white (in several Kelvin colors) and even a version with faster refresh rates called DotStars.
If you've never hooked them up to your Arduino before, grab yourself some NeoPixels and start lighting up your world.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Shop through our Amazon links to help support this site.
Shop through our Amazon links to help support this site.
Also find me on:
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Tearing Apart Three Toy Guitars
I've wanted to make a real working MIDI guitar out of cheap toy guitar for a long time. I finally have the boards and most of the skills to do it, now I just need a good vessel for my creativity. To find that perfect container for my electronic musical madness, I tore apart three different toy guitars to find one that has the kinds of basic parts that I can hook into and hack easily.
This first version is going to be a standalone MIDI guitar. The sound will come from a MIDI board inside the guitar. There's no need for a computer or software. It's basically a glorified toy guitar, but with a lot more control. I have hooked up my MIDI board up to an Arduino and gotten them to work. It was a lot of fun, but tapping on buttons just wasn't as much fun as shredding on a guitar. I finally decided to take the next step.
Check out the video to see what I find inside these thriftstore toy guitars. And stay tuned for project updates.
This first version is going to be a standalone MIDI guitar. The sound will come from a MIDI board inside the guitar. There's no need for a computer or software. It's basically a glorified toy guitar, but with a lot more control. I have hooked up my MIDI board up to an Arduino and gotten them to work. It was a lot of fun, but tapping on buttons just wasn't as much fun as shredding on a guitar. I finally decided to take the next step.
Check out the video to see what I find inside these thriftstore toy guitars. And stay tuned for project updates.
Thursday, March 8, 2018
DIY Thermal Vision Camera for < $100
Now, you too can see heat maps of human bodies or car engines like Predator - or identify cold spots and drafts in your house like a home-energy expert. And with a little DIY electronics knowledge, you can do it really inexpensively.
A big price-drop on Panasonic's AMG8833 8x8 Grid-EYE thermal sensor array has finally allowed hobby electronics suppliers to create a fun and useful thermal camera at a price everyone can afford - less than $50. Compare that to the more than $250 for a FLiR dev board with an 80x60 grid.
As you might expect at this price point, there are limitations. The sensor is only 8x8 pixels and has a range of less than 25 feet (7 meters). You will not be able to identify enemy paintballers from across the battlefield, and you can't get a full-house image of your heat loss. It requires a brain (Arduino or RasPi) with I2C, libraries and a graphics screen. Most people reading this probably already have a microcontroller and screen, so that's no big deal. But faster processors will give you smoother video feeds.
Adafruit has two versions of the sensor module: a tiny breakout board (item# 3538) and a Featherwing daughter board (item# 3622) made to snap right into any of their Feather boards. And of course the best thing about getting the Adafruit version is their high quality libraries and well written tutorial. They even have a tutorial on hooking it up to a Raspberry Pi
Sparkfun has also released a breakout board (SPX-14568) from their experimental SparkX labs. It uses their QWIIC connection system and also has a library for Arduino.
All the tutorials I've seen so far use a graphic display. But you could display the output on NeoPixels, on a servo-array or translate it into sounds. You could draw images with sparklers. Since you also have access to the raw data you could store time lapses. Combine this with traditional movement and distance sensors for more accurate navigation for your robots, or add another layer to your home security system. If you can code, you can create anything you want.
For less than $50 you get a useful sensor that's far more than a toy - definitely worth checking out for a wide variety of uses.
 |
| Although the sensor is only an 8x8 array, you can interpolate the readings to emulate a finer grain, and with a little coding, adjust how the temperatures are shown. |
A big price-drop on Panasonic's AMG8833 8x8 Grid-EYE thermal sensor array has finally allowed hobby electronics suppliers to create a fun and useful thermal camera at a price everyone can afford - less than $50. Compare that to the more than $250 for a FLiR dev board with an 80x60 grid.
As you might expect at this price point, there are limitations. The sensor is only 8x8 pixels and has a range of less than 25 feet (7 meters). You will not be able to identify enemy paintballers from across the battlefield, and you can't get a full-house image of your heat loss. It requires a brain (Arduino or RasPi) with I2C, libraries and a graphics screen. Most people reading this probably already have a microcontroller and screen, so that's no big deal. But faster processors will give you smoother video feeds.
Here's a great teaser video from Adafruit on how to make this into a cute camera version.
Looks cool right, then see the full tutorial and make one of your own.
Adafruit has two versions of the sensor module: a tiny breakout board (item# 3538) and a Featherwing daughter board (item# 3622) made to snap right into any of their Feather boards. And of course the best thing about getting the Adafruit version is their high quality libraries and well written tutorial. They even have a tutorial on hooking it up to a Raspberry Pi
Sparkfun has also released a breakout board (SPX-14568) from their experimental SparkX labs. It uses their QWIIC connection system and also has a library for Arduino.
All the tutorials I've seen so far use a graphic display. But you could display the output on NeoPixels, on a servo-array or translate it into sounds. You could draw images with sparklers. Since you also have access to the raw data you could store time lapses. Combine this with traditional movement and distance sensors for more accurate navigation for your robots, or add another layer to your home security system. If you can code, you can create anything you want.
For less than $50 you get a useful sensor that's far more than a toy - definitely worth checking out for a wide variety of uses.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Shop through our Amazon links to help support this site.
Shop through our Amazon links to help support this site.
Also find me on:
Thursday, March 1, 2018
Hack Your Game Controller - Part #1 the Teardown
Everybody dreams of hacking their game control pad and making it control something else. Maybe to run their RC car, a robotic arm, or maybe their home theater system.
Other folks need to mod their controller so they can use it better. Not everyone has full use of both hands, yet most game controllers require two hands. What if you want to reconfigure the buttons and place them elsewhere, or turn them into foot pedals.
Either way, the process of modding requires a medium level of electronic knowledge and some crafting skills. There are some good tutorials out there for hacking specific controller models to do specific things. That's great, but what if you don't have that specific controller. Or what if you want to do something different than the what the tutorial shows you.
I've seen too many people start modding their controllers and then stop because their model or their needs are too different from the tutorials. Also, I don't know of any good generic introductions to hacking and modding game controllers.
I was one of those people who gave up the first time I tried it, and it has taken me more than three years of tinkering with electronics to learn enough that I can take parts from multiple tutorials and mix them together to work with my controllers. Now it all seems so simple, not even worth writing a tutorial on.
But I recently saw another person starting the learning process and remembered how overwhelming it could be. So I thought I would do a series of simple videos to help get newbies started - to teach enough of the basic concepts so that they can pick out the useful parts from other how-to guides.
The first step is look inside some game controllers. Then poke around and notice the differences and similarities in various models. That's what this video does - we tear down three old game controllers and have a quick look around.
Just cracking the case and looking around can be really scary for first timers. Having buttons and switches falling out, not really understanding how it all works, where the electrical signals come from or where they go - it can be overwhelming.
Remember back to when you didn't really understand the difference between digital and analog signals, and you didn't "just know" which components did what. That's who these first few videos are designed for. So be patient, the real fun stuff is coming up after we cover the basics.
In this video we salvage a few parts, just cut them right off the PCB and leave the wires dangling and unconnected. Savage!!! The next video will explore how to re-use the parts we scavenge in this video. We'll look at the buttons and the joysticks and get a better understanding of digital versus analog signals.
We'll even explore how we can hook these salvaged parts up to an Arduino microcontroller. And all these concepts will be useful if you want to simply relocate buttons using your existing controllers.
As the series grows I will make a project page. There is a lot of good information out there on modding game controllers, so as the concepts are introduced I will link to these videos and tutorials.
If a few of you crack the cases of your controllers and rip parts out to use elsewhere, then this video will be a success.
Other folks need to mod their controller so they can use it better. Not everyone has full use of both hands, yet most game controllers require two hands. What if you want to reconfigure the buttons and place them elsewhere, or turn them into foot pedals.
Either way, the process of modding requires a medium level of electronic knowledge and some crafting skills. There are some good tutorials out there for hacking specific controller models to do specific things. That's great, but what if you don't have that specific controller. Or what if you want to do something different than the what the tutorial shows you.
I've seen too many people start modding their controllers and then stop because their model or their needs are too different from the tutorials. Also, I don't know of any good generic introductions to hacking and modding game controllers.
I was one of those people who gave up the first time I tried it, and it has taken me more than three years of tinkering with electronics to learn enough that I can take parts from multiple tutorials and mix them together to work with my controllers. Now it all seems so simple, not even worth writing a tutorial on.
But I recently saw another person starting the learning process and remembered how overwhelming it could be. So I thought I would do a series of simple videos to help get newbies started - to teach enough of the basic concepts so that they can pick out the useful parts from other how-to guides.
The first step is look inside some game controllers. Then poke around and notice the differences and similarities in various models. That's what this video does - we tear down three old game controllers and have a quick look around.
(Or go directly to the YouTube video on my channel)
Just cracking the case and looking around can be really scary for first timers. Having buttons and switches falling out, not really understanding how it all works, where the electrical signals come from or where they go - it can be overwhelming.
Remember back to when you didn't really understand the difference between digital and analog signals, and you didn't "just know" which components did what. That's who these first few videos are designed for. So be patient, the real fun stuff is coming up after we cover the basics.
In this video we salvage a few parts, just cut them right off the PCB and leave the wires dangling and unconnected. Savage!!! The next video will explore how to re-use the parts we scavenge in this video. We'll look at the buttons and the joysticks and get a better understanding of digital versus analog signals.
We'll even explore how we can hook these salvaged parts up to an Arduino microcontroller. And all these concepts will be useful if you want to simply relocate buttons using your existing controllers.
As the series grows I will make a project page. There is a lot of good information out there on modding game controllers, so as the concepts are introduced I will link to these videos and tutorials.
If a few of you crack the cases of your controllers and rip parts out to use elsewhere, then this video will be a success.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Shop through our Amazon links to help support this site.
Shop through our Amazon links to help support this site.
Also find me on:
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