SEP18
Huge AVR development board
There are hundreds of AVR developments boards available on the market today. What makes this one different is the amount of space available for prototyping and the adherence to a common form factor. This common form factor allows the AVR 28 pin board to be "stacked" with other Protostack boards, thereby increasing the available space and introducing a third dimension to your design.
Some of the notable features include power tracks that are routed throughout the board, de-tangling of I/O ports, AVCC filter block and dual ISP interfaces.
SEP16
Triac regulation using PIC microcontroller
Sometimes there is a need for a regulated AC power source. This can be accomplished with a triac and a microcontroller.
This device uses PIC16C54 microcontroller to control a triac. One push-button has the UP (increase) function, the second one has the DOWN (decrease) function and the third one is for ON-OFF. The ON button will increase the number seen on 7-segment LED display from 00 to 99 which represents triac firing in percentages. Triac can power universal load such as light bulbs, motors and similar.
Source: Drago_Zg
SEP15
Phone modding for paranoids
There was this document about how it is possible to eavesdrop people using their GSM phones even when they are turned off or not in a call. Some people took this info seriously and decided to neutralize this threat.
Removing battery from a phone is also possible but that disables the phone completely and makes call receiving impossible. The idea is to simply short-circuit the microphone contacts when phone is not in use. So, reed switch in combination with a magnet is used to make the whole thing work.
Source: Dan
SEP1
Tiny GSM alarm system published
After GSM call alarm and GSM SMS alarm as two independent modules, I introduce the Tiny GSM alarm system. The main characteristic of this new version is that this device can operate standalone or as a module for existing alarm system. In previous versions we had only the "enable" pin that armed/disarmed the system. Now, aside from that pin we can arm/disarm the system by calling it with our phone.
AUG26
IN-8 single nixie tube clock published
After receiving one IN-8 tube from a friend, I decided to build myself a clock. This clock is more an ornament than a useful machine because it consists of just one digit (tube) so it displays current time every minute for three times.
It is built inside of an old wooden box and it's powered from a 7V DC wall adapter. Under a nixie tube there is a very bright green LED which makes everything look more beautiful. When time is not displayed, this LED blinks with 1 second period (seconds counter).
AUG21
The minimalist oscilloscope
This is actually more fun project than useful. It is a single channel triggered oscilloscope that is realised using PicAxe 08M microcontroller. This oscilloscope waits for a measured signal, takes 42 measurements of that signal, store it internally and display results on LCD screen. LCD is from a Nokia 5165 and the whole device can be built for $6. Source code is available for download so it can be tuned and further modified.
Source: Ken_S
AUG20
Garage parking sensor
Parking into a garage can be very difficult task for some drivers. Instead of an old trick with a tennis ball hanging off of the wall, a clever little device is built that allows driver to park his car just right.
The main component of this device is PING))) Parallax ultrasound sensor and Basic stamp (PIC) microcontroller. There are three LEDs on this "parking helper" that display current position of a car in a garage. Green LED marks parking zone, yellow LED warns driver to slow down and red LED marks the stop-zone. When red LED blinks that means that the driver is too close to the wall and should back up a little.
Source: Chris Savage
AUG13
AVR based video game platform
For all electronic gamers there is a new game platform for game development.
Platform is based on AVR microcontroller without any other external active components, and it's quite impressive. Color picture is generated on RGB monitor with simple D/A converter made out of 9 resistors. Along with hardware author has also developed a very powerful API that allows us to code our own games. Here we can see a Super Mario clone that runs on ATmega168 and it works pretty smoothly!
Source: Jaromir Dvorak
