5/21 Hacked Gadgets - DIY Tech Blog

Please add updates@feedmyinbox.com to your address book to make sure you receive these messages in the future. Hacked Gadgets - DIY Tech Blog Wireless LED Scrolling Display May 20, 2009 at 3:37 pm   Ryan from Ohararp has put together a modular Wireless LED Scrolling Display that looks very flexible and uses that cool ioBridge that we are starting to see used more and more. "A uPic is used to talk to the led drivers (8xMax7219’s) through the serial port (in this case an XBEE)." (more…) Automated House Climate Control - Whole Home Information Awareness May 20, 2009 at 1:06 pm   As homes get bigger it’s harder to balance the heating system. You can close and open vents all you want but all it takes is a few closed doors to throw off the entire system. Jason Clark from Cyborgworkshop has overcome this issue by designing an Arduino controller that monitors sensors in all areas of his house. Servo motors then control dampers which put air where it’s needed. Have a look at the build log of the Whole Home Information Awareness project for some climate control inspiration. "At a high level, temperature and humidity sensors in each room of the house instruct a micro controller to open and close the vents in a specific way to balance out every room in the house. The end goal is that no room will be more then 1.5 degrees and 5% relative humidity different from any other room. No more hot guest bed room and cold living room. To safely pull this off I’ll need temperature and humidity sensors in the return vents of each room, servo motors connected to the main damper controls for each vent, an air flow and pressure sensor in the HVAC main line to keep the motor from getting burned out, an Arduino to gather all of that sensor data together and a Linux box to process the data, control the sensors and create graphs of what’s going on." (more…) Led Matrix Dice - Shake to Roll May 19, 2009 at 5:18 pm   This Led Matrix Dice made by Itay Donenhirsch looks very cool. Give it a shake to roll a new number. "The cube is driven by three 1.5V small button cells (which are sold here as batteries for EasyPark computerized parking ticket). The brain of this gadget is a ATmega168. The ATmega168 is programmed using avr-gcc and avr-libc. The MCU is connected to the matrices using a ULN2008 as a current sink and a 74LS164 as led driver. For extra fun I pulled a speaker from a Nokia mobile phone and connected it as well." Arduino Drum Kit May 19, 2009 at 4:26 pm   This Piezo Drum Kit from Spikenzie Labs looks like it could provide days of fun. They provide interface software that allows you to output MIDI data from your Arduino that this kit is connected to. Thanks for the tip Andy, send us some pictures when yours is built! "The kit contains the electronic parts required to make a drum kit. This includes the circuit board, resistors, diodes and pins. You supply the Arduino and the material to make the actual drum pads. Below you will find the easy instruction on how to make traditional looking drum pads, but you could also stick the piezos (the part the sense the hits on the drum) to many different surfaces. Imagine, playing your desk, lamp and telephone !"   This email was sent to xfeedr@gmail.com.  Create Your Account Don't want to receive this feed any longer? Unsubscribe here.