October 2011

Arduino based Rotating POV Globe

We have seen a few Rotating POV Globe in the past. Scitech has a Arduino based Rotating POV Globe which looks quite nice, the refresh rate of the camera screws up the effect a bit but I assume it looks perfect in real life. “The Rotating POV Globe utilizes the arduino uno as the central control brain which contains an Atmel AVR microcontroller. Essentially we have a rotating ring which

Chain Clock

You might remember the Timing Chain Clock that was featured earlier this month. Steve Moseley left a comment letting us know that there is actually one similar to what I was saying would be cool to see. I was thinking that it would be great to have the Timing Chain Clock have three gears and chains so it could show hours and minutes. Well Youtube user Mosignose actually has built

Halloween Orange Laser Etched into a Glowing Mini Pumpkin

When you squint a bit and loose scale these mandarin oranges look a bit like small pumpkins. I wanted to rev up the Halloween spirit around the house and without a real pumpkin to carve I settled for the next best thing. That is of course a laser etched pumpkin carving onto a mini orange which is lit from the inside using an LED. I wasn’t sure how it would

PIC Microcontroller Capacitive Touch Tutorial

Youtube user misperry has been making a ton of electronic tutorial videos. These three videos go over how to use the capacitive touch modules that are built into many PIC microcontrollers. These videos go over how to design a circuit using the 16F727 microcontroller which has M-Touch, this is what Microchip calls the capacitive sense modules.

How to remove the Time Stamp from a MD-80 Mini DV Spy Camera

The MD-80 Mini DV Spy Camera is a great low cost camera, don’t expect it to be a replacement for your HD camcorder which cost you a 5 hundred bucks though since it can be found in many places for less than $20. Considering the price you get a ton of technology packed in a small device. The first thing I noticed with mine is that it has a time

Blinking and Winking Laser Cut Eye Project

If you want to wear a set of glasses that will make you look like a cartoon character look no further than Blinking and Winking Laser Cut Eye Project. They can wink, blink and if you shine a bright light at them they will squint. If you are interested in making one for yourself Ben has made the Arduino code available here. Stupid Pet Trick – Blinking LED’s from B.Light

Halloween Spooky Audio Trigger

The circuit above is the Halloween Spooky Audio Trigger, it has a door contact sensor connected to it and when it detects that the door has opened it waits for a short time before scaring the pants off your trick or treaters with some spooky sounds! The detection of the door opening is actually the simple part, the more complex part of the Halloween project is how the Nerd Kit