Electronics, Robotics and Computing Tutorials for Everyone!
I have been playing with my FPGA development boards again. I favour the open source programming environment based upon Yosys called Icestudio. The website is below: Icestudio I am a member of their forum and one of the other members wanted a support for their FPGA development board called the Alhambra II: I already 3D printed one which was very well designed by one of the other members - Fernando…
I recently (about six months ago) had to update a high power test rig. The original test rig had been in service for over 25 years and was showing its age. It wasn't working properly due to interference from external sources which was causing the control of the test equipment to malfunction. The rig was used to control a power converter product during temperature and vibration stress testing. The…
In March 2017 I 3D printed a Robot arm. The original post is here: https://langster1980.blogspot.com/2017/03/another-robot-arm.html I saw the arm in amongst a pile of boxes covered in dust and looking rather sad. In a moment of pure nostalgia...and possibly guilt I decided the robot arm needed a new lease of life and some purpose. To be fair this is also true for me. I rarely make time for…
I often need to create diagrams showing how to make wiring harnesses for test cables in work. I have tried previous versions of WireViz and found it to be useful but needed a little more work. I am not a coder by any stretch of the imagination and YAML (Yet Another Markup Language) syntax is new to me. Here is the Hackaday article on WireViz:…
I haven't written a post in ages...my apologies but I rarely have time these days or anything of interest to post about...my work has taken over. I hope to get back to writing and doing more things for myself but I have no idea when. I suspect I will have to make myself get back into blogging. It is useful as an aide memoire to myself if nothing else. A colleague asked me to plot some sensor data…
The next step in the DMX patio lamp is to create a PCB with the neopixels on it. The previous posts for reference are: https://langster1980.blogspot.com/2022/07/designing-dmx-controlled-patio-light.html https://langster1980.blogspot.com/2022/07/dmx-to-neopixel-arduino-shield.html I am going for 32 LEDS but I may change my mind. It depends really on the size and spacing achievable as well as…
In a previous post (nearly a year ago!) I mentioned I was going to design an Arduino shield to allow DMX control to Neopixels. I actually did design a board but never wrote a blog post about it. Here is where I rectify that. The previous post - in case one is interested! I decided to design my own DMX shield for the Arduino R3 as although there are commercial off the shelf versions available they…
A friend of mine has approached me to make him some Patio lights. He wants them to be interactive! I'm thinking the best idea would be to make him some sort of DMX controlled light with WS2815 LEDS. I can build on the previous design work I have already done which should save me some time. For the enclosure my plan is to take an existing garden rock lamp and re-engineer it for this purpose. This…
I was approached by a bloke on facebook for a price to design a simple breakout PCB for a 3D printing project he is working on. As the board was relatively simple and it was for an open source project I decided to do it for him for free. In return I get to blog about it! The board itself was part of a 3D printer dual extruder purge controller. The purge controller uses servo motors to control when…
I've been playing about with RS485 and DMX for some time now. I am particularly interested in being able to control NeoPixels via DMX. The amount of software and experience available for using DMX to control lights and LEDS in particular is vast. YouTube is full of lighting shows and displays which range from humble but functional to truly epic and vast. Here are a couple of videos which I thought…
I am out of practice at many things it would seem at the moment... I recently had to verify a colleague's design and honestly failed miserably. Things that I consider basic in terms of electronics I didn't see and couldn't quickly do. To that end let us start from a simple area and attempt to cover as many aspects as possible...at least that way I will hopefully improve in my skills and prevent…
I was recently contacted by Seeed Studio to see if I would be happy to review their new Grove Beginner Kit for the Arduino. I have been a customer of Seeed Studio in the past and I'm always happy to review kit. About Seeed Studio Seeed is the IoT hardware enabler providing services over 10 years that empower makers to realize their projects and products. Seeed offers a wide array of hardware…
In order to test the latest venturi tube properly I have had to recalculate the areas of the different tube sections. I performed several calculations to find out the areas of the first and second sections of the tube. 2D Cross Section of the Venturi Tube Design (Mark 4) The blue shaded area is a cylinder. The formula for calculating the cross sectional area of a cylinder is: The area of the blue…
After printing the new venturi tube with internal conical sections I have removed the support material and attempted to use it. There are some design issues which need attention. I made the pressure port pieces too small and have had to improvise with a couple of plastic M4 nuts glued on. To be honest that seems to work quite well so I might do that again as its easier that printing connection…
I have looked at the previous post on designing a venturi tube and performed some more research. It has come to my attention through testing experimentation and research that the venturi design I made is not fit for purpose. It is unfortunately entirely my fault as to why that is the case. I didn't do enough research and I didn't listen to my conscience. I was rushing to get things done...this is…
The previous post dealt with the mathematics behind a venturi tube. This post will cover how to use the tube I designed with an MPXV7002 sensor via a ADS1115 16 bit ADC. I will be honest I haven't had any experience with the STM32 Blue Pill or the ADS1115 ADC but I'll get there and I will blog about my adventures along the way. Hopefully someone else will find what I have learned and achieved (or…