October 23, 2009

Hi-Tec Sketch Art - Modern Day Lite Brite

  I remember playing with my Lite Brite when I was young. What looks better than sticking solid plastic pegs into fixed holes in a grid of plastic? The answer is the beautiful glow of individual LEDs soldered into a perf board! There is of course some added complexity that comes with that choice. These days I am answering lots of questions on LED applications from our LED customers, what

Spooky Halloween Eyes based on PIC 12C672

  Ever wonder how those cheap devices at Walmart sense you walking by so they can play the cricket sound or meow like a cat? Have a look at the circuit for these Spooky Halloween Eyes for some details. A slight change in ambient light is all it takes for the small device to "see" that someone is close. "The schematic is quite simple, each of the devices (LED’s, phototransistor,

DIY Steampunk Pumpkin

  Hans Scharler has been busy making a DIY Steampunk Pumpkin that is sure to please anyone who sees it. He squished tons of parts in there from some of the best DIY providers. His own ioBridge, some sensors from Adafruit, some ThingM (designed by Tod Kurt) parts from Sparkfun. "Using the ioBridge IO-204, I rigged up the fog machine to trigger when someone walked in front of the pumpkin.

MicroRAX mini T-Slot Construction

  If you played with a Meccano set when you were younger as I did this MicroRAX mini T-Slot Construction system may bring back some of those construction ideas. I have seen a larger version of this system used in industry for constructing modular systems that are very rigid and simply to modify. It looks like it could be an ideal solution to building a robot platform where the end