Electronics-Lab.com Blog

 

Check out this nifty automated strip cutter for surface-mount components built by some Dutch students from printer parts (stepper motor and LCD display), an Atmel ATMega8 controller, and a servomotor.

[Youtube] Automated SMD component cutter – [Link]

This video showing how to make a vacuum tube by hand. The page and captions are in french, but it’s pretty interesting to watch. A small spot welder, some fairly basic glass working tools and a vacuum generator are required, but the technology is definitely within reach for the dedicated hardware hacker. [via]

[Video] How to make a vacuum tube - [Link]

Oscilloscopes built on 8 bit microcontrollers don’t give much power but they can serve is specific areas where signal frequency is really low. This one is built by using PIC18F2550 microcontroller which can give 12MIPS calculation power maximum. Actually scope is mostly limited by internal ADC. In this project 60kHz of sampling rate was reached. This is still enough to view few kHz signals. Analog signal enters directly to ADC input without any amplifier or buffer circuitry. So voltage is limited to 5V. In other hand design is kept really simple and can be repeated on any PIC18F2550 based development board. Firmware can be downloaded by using bootloader which can also be found in project page. [via]

Low budget graphical LCD oscilloscope – [Link]

Got some scavenged stepper motors from printers/disk drives/etc lying around? Some probing with an ohmeter, followed by some simple driver code on your microprocessor and you’ll be stepping in style.

Drive a Stepper Motor with an AVR Microprocessor - [Link]

This is a video demonstration of simple speech recognition using FPGA. The video features a simple speech recognition algorithm implemented on an Altera DE2 board. This was part of a design project course in electrical engineering at McGill University.

Speech recognition using FPGA - [Link]

 

KapteinKUK have modified his wall clock by adding 12 LEDs controlled by ATtiny2313 microcontroller. LEDs are flashing randomly driven patterns with some variable intensity driven by PWM channel. Download asm code and circuit here. Dont forget to set internal clock to 1MHz. Nice toy for Christmas rush.

Cool LED flashing effects on a clock - [Link]

Cool Music Driven Laser Pointer Light Show! – video powered by Metacafe

Sleepydog sent in this cheap and easy, make a very cool laser light show driven by your favorite music.

[via]

 If you thought Sandia’s Mini-Robots were tiny, the pico (which they inspired) is even tinier at half the volume. It’s also much more impressive, with a top speed of 0.5 foot per second and a 15 minute runtime, and it’s 100% home built by Zac Wheeler from commercial available (until recently, anyway) parts.

Pico: It’s Small, Fast, Smart, And Suicidal - [Link]

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The DelFly II is basically a 16-gram “ornithopter” [that] can fly for at least 15 minutes (at a maximum speed of 30mph) or hover in place for 8.” Video after the break.

The DelFly II, developed by the Delft University of Technology, is one of those miracles of construction that, at first glance, doesn’t seem to be physically possible. In a 16 gram package, this ornithopter can fly for at least 15 minutes (at a maximum speed of 30mph) or hover in place for 8. It can take off and land vertically, and can even fly backwards. It’s fully out of sight controllable thanks to realtime onboard streaming video (!). Since it uses flapping wings, it’s quiet, efficient, and robust enough to fly comfortably in wind and survive collisions with objects. Check out the video:

[YouTube] DelFly II – The Tiny Robot Spycam - [Link]

[via_1]  [via_2]

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 2.2″ QVGA Smart LCD - μLCD-320-PMD2

4D Systems designs and manufactures intelligent, cost effective modules for any embedded microprocessor based system or as an independent stand alone system. Our All-in-One smart display modules offer a simple 2 wire interface to any host processor and the command set is easy to use and understand.

 The μLCD is a compact & cost effective all in one ‘SMART” LCD module with an embedded graphics controller that will deliver ‘stand-alone’ functionality to your project.

The ‘simple to use’ embedded commands not only control background colour but can produce text in a variety of sizes as well as draw shapes (which can include user definable bitmapped characters such as logos) in 256 or 65,536 colours whilst freeing up the host processor from the ‘processor hungry ‘ screen control functions.

This means a simple micro-controller with a standard serial or USB interface can drive the μLCD module with total ease.

4D Systems – 2.2″ QVGA Smart LCD - [Link]

[via]

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