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General information: Arduino Uno Jump to top of page

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General information: Arduino and Electronics Guidebooks, Component Datasheets Jump to top of page
Tools: Fritzing Jump to top of page
Tools: Oscilloscope Jump to top of page

My current oscilloscope is a handheld Hantek 2D72; it combines an oscilloscope with a arbitrary function (waveform) generator (AF(W)G) and a digital multimeter (DMM). There are two channels, with a bandwith of 70 MHz and 250 million samples per second. The vertical resolution goes from 10 mV to 10 V. The AFG supports sine, square, triangular, and trapezoid waves. Power is supplied through two ICR 18650 3.7 V rechargeable Lithium batteries.

Downloads:

           

Before that, I had a second-hand Philips Fluke PM3055 (60 MHz) portable analog oscilloscope. Its dimensions are 387 x 531 x 147 mm, with a weight of 7.5 kg. It's CRT (80 x 100 mm) is coloured green, and the control panel features operations for 2 channels (with a maximum input voltage of 400 V each). In addition, there are 2 1x-10x probes, as well as a variety of Bayonet Neill- Concelman (BNC) connectors.

Download the operating manual.

YouScope demonstration (AVI, 52.28 MiB)

Sound spirals demonstration (AVI, 38.43 MiB)

Sound spirals demonstration (AVI, 52.07 MiB)

     

  

Tools: Solder fume extractor Jump to top of page

Wood version

In order to get rid of the toxic fumes when soldering, I created a fume extractor out of a custom-built finger-joint wooden box. The box contains a powerful 12V fan which is turned on and off using a toggle switch. Power comes from an external power adapter. The fan is mounted at the front of the box; at the back there is the possibility to either attach a long flexible ventilation hose, or an active carbon filter.

        

        

        

        

        

           

  

  

Cardboard version (deprecated)

In order to get rid of the toxic fumes when soldering, I created a fume extractor out of a cardboard shoebox. The box contains two 12V fans, wired in parallel. They are turned on and off using a toggle switch. Power comes from an external power adapter. The fans are mounted in the sides of the box, with extendable flaps to help direct the air flow inwards. There is a big hole in one of the sides, which stores a flexible ventilation hose that can be extended outwards using velcro.

        

  
Custom Libraries: Siemens DL1414T Jump to top of page

The DL1414T is a .112" red, 4-character 16 segment plus decimal alphanumeric intelligent display with memory/decoder/driver.

Its Arduino Uno implementation uses 7 data input pins (0 to 6), 2 pins for digit selection (7 and 8) and 1 pin for writing (9). The library provides functions for setting individual digits (both as complete characters, or their individual bits), showing a string, integer, and float, as well as ticker-taping a longer string.

  • Class methods:
    • void setDigitRaw(int digit, boolean bit6, boolean bit5, boolean bit4, boolean bit3, boolean bit2, boolean bit1, boolean bit0);
    • void setDigit(int digit, char character);
    • void clearDigits();
    • void showStr4(char c3, char c2, char c1, char c0);
    • void showStr4(String s);
    • void showInt(int i);
    • void showFloat(float f);
    • void ticker(String s);


Custom Libraries: Button Debouncer Jump to top of page

The ButtonDebouncer class provides an easy way to check the status of a series of push buttons. It allows for monitoring of debounced presses, as well as distinguishing between short and long(er) presses.


Custom Libraries: Simple Tune Player Jump to top of page

The SimpleTunePlayer class provides an implementation to play a sequence of notes via a small speaker.


Custom Libraries: Linked List Jump to top of page

The LinkedList class provides an implementation of a linked list.


Custom Libraries: RTCDS130x Jump to top of page

The RTCDS130x class provides an implementation to uniformly access the real-time clocks RTC of the DS1302 and DS1307 ICs.


Custom Libraries: SD Jump to top of page

The SD class provides an implementation to read from and write to an SD card.


Custom Libraries: GeneralTools Jump to top of page

The GeneralTools class provides general utility methods, to lower power consumption, and a lookup table with 256 entries to convert absolute LED brightness to a logarithmic one as perceived by the human eye.

Custom Libraries: CapacitiveTouchSensor Jump to top of page

The CapacitiveTouchSensor class provides an easy method to assess the state of a capacitive touch surface, based on a single pin (it uses the ADCTouch library).

Custom Libraries: Tones Jump to top of page

The Tones library provides in first instance a series of classes to generate tones, either at full volume (DefaultToneGenerator class), or at a user-specified volume (VolumeToneGenerator class) using the Volume library. In addition it also provides the TunePlayer class that allows to play songs, whereby a LED can be flashed for each note, as well as providing a callback function handle to interrupt and abort the music (e.g., using a (capacitive touch) sensor). Finally, it provides over 20 songs/tunes that can be played.

Prototyping: MOSFETs Jump to top of page

MOSFETs are metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors used for amplifying or switching electronic signals. The following two photographs show examples of a MOSFET connected to the Arduino Uno R3. Each time a pushbutton drives a yellow LED. In the first case we use a simple setup, whereas in the second one we use a more complex setup involving a capacitor.










Prototyping: Arduino in Action: Reactometer Jump to top of page

The ReactoMeter measures your reaction time. When activated, the red LED initially shines. Once it goes out and the green LED turns on (start indicator), press the push button as fast as possible. In between, the yellow LED sequence lights up. Your reaction time is measured and reported via the serial connection.

Arduino sketch



Prototyping: Potentio Meter Jump to top of page

The potentio meter controls two actuators: the red-yellow-green LEDs, as well as the pitch of the speaker. The LEDs are grouped per thirds of the potentio meter's full range.

Arduino sketch



Prototyping: LED Cycler Jump to top of page

The LED cycler traces a sequence of two adjacent LEDs from left to right and back, like a Cylon's eye. If the push button is pressed, the cycler changes its operational mode and mimicks a voice VU meter, randomly expanding LEDs from the centre on. The potentio meter controls the speed of cycling for both operational modes.

Arduino sketch

Demonstration (AVI, 35.09 MiB)



Prototyping: Light-Controlled Theremin Jump to top of page

When activated, the yellow LED is turned on for 5 seconds, during which you should move your hand back and forth over the light-dependent resistor (LDR). When the yellow LED goes out, the pitch of the speaker is controlled by the amount of light received by the LDR.

Arduino sketch

Demonstration (MP4, 32.27 MiB)