Planet Arduino

Depending on the music you’re listening to, watching a VU meter bounce to the music is always a good time. So why not integrate the VU meter right into the audio source? That’s what [Matikas] did, and it’s pretty fantastic.

He started with a pair of speakers he had and picked up some NeoPixel LED strips. Carefully wrapping the LED strips around the inside circumference of each speaker, the LEDs fit behind the speaker grills, giving it a cool effect when they’re on.

To control the LEDs, he’s using an Arduino Uno (Atmega328p) which measures the audio level in order to modulate the LED output. A bit of software later (shared on GitHub if you’re interested!) and the VU meters were ready for action — check it out!

As far as VU meters go, we can’t forget this awesome giant-water-tube-VU-display-of-madness.

by mi.vasilakis @ instructables.com:

Today I will show you how to make your own arduino compass by using the MHC5883L 3-axis digital compass board.

I prefer to build my own arduino based circuit by using the ATmega328p uno possessor, but this is optional for you. Buttons are used for turn on or off display leds and to change display mode of compass.

Arduino Digital Magnetic Compass – HMC5883L - [Link]

In this video we are going to build an Arduino Uno clone in a breadboard using only 5 parts.

Arduino Uno (ATMEGA328P) on a breadboard - [Link]

by Pieter @ piconomic.co.za:

If you can beg, steal or borrow an Atmel ISP programmer, then you can use the Arduino environment to develop on the Atmel AVR Atmega328P Scorpion Board. An Arduino on Scorpion Board guide, Optiboot bootloader and example sketches have been added.

If you own an Arduino Uno board, you can now try out the Piconomic FW Library risk free without abandoning the creature comforts of the Arduino environment. You can use the existing Optiboot bootloader to upload code. I have added a getting started guide for the Arduino Uno. There are examples, including a CLI (Command Line Interpreter) Application that creates a “Linux Shell”-like environment running on the Arduino Uno so that you can experiment with GPIO, ADC, I2C and SPI using only Terminal software (for example Tera Term)… it is really cool!

Piconomic FW Library 0.4.2 released - [Link]

Colin over at CuPID Controls writes:

We want to put our remote sense and control modules out into the wild and read and aggregate them as it makes sense.
Our basic system layout is as below. We’ve got multiple wireless nodes that broadcast data periodically, and a controller/aggregator that will log this data, acknowledge receipt, and do something useful with it. Eventually, we may have intermediate powered nodes that serve to mesh the grid out, but for now, our nodes just send data to the controller.
We’re currently using these awesome little RF units, called Moteinos. They are an Arduino clone that can use the standard IDE with their bootloader. They’ve got the ever-so-popular ATMega328P chip that is familiar to anybody working with an Arduino Nano or Uno.

[via]

Adventures in Moteino: Remote temperature monitor - [Link]

Making your own Tetris game is almost a rite of passage for hackers — [Kevin] has stepped up the game a little by making this awesome-flexible-triple-displayed-Tetris-watch dubbed the Ardubracelet.

At the recent Maker Faire SF our head editor [Mike] got a chance to meet with [Kevin] from Arduboy who told us about some of his upcoming projects — this wearable was one of them!

It features three super bright OLED screens on a flexible circuit board with conductive touch buttons to continue with the minimalist design. Instead of a wrist strap he’s actually made the ends magnetic to hold it in place — did we mention the battery also lasts for over 10 hours?

At the heart of the flexible circuit board is an Atmega328p, which is the same chip used in the Arduboy (a credit card sized GameBoy). This is just the first prototype but he’s planning on making it even better in the future complete with Bluetooth and some 3D printed parts to make it look a bit nicer.

Kerry D. Wong writes:

I just got myself a couple of Arduino Due boards. While they were released almost two years ago, I have not really got a chance to look at these until quite recently. Arduino Due is based on Atmel’s ATSAM3x8E 32-bit ARM Cortext-M3 processor. The processor core runs at 84 MHz, which is significantly faster than its 8-bit AVR counterpart ATmega328p which runs at 16 MHz. For an ATmega328p, the highest achievable PWM frequency is 8Mhz (square wave), so we should be able to generate much higher frequency signals on an Arduino Due. But how high can we go? Let’s find out.

[via]

On Arduino due PWM frequency - [Link]

This week FTDI Chip have announced a range of Arduino-compatible development platforms to support the company’s Embedded Video Engine (EVE) technology. The VM800P series provides engineers with everything necessary to implement Human Machine Interfaces (HMIs) featuring display, audio, touch elements and data processing aspects too.

The units can be programmed using the standard Arduino IDE (using a pre-programmed Arduino-compatible bootloader). In addition to support for various Arduino libraries, every VM800P incorporates an FTDI Chip FT800 EVE graphic controller IC and its FT232R USB interface IC as well as an ATMega328P 8-bit microcontroller running at 16 MHz. Also featured are a touch-enabled display LCD panel, a backlight LED driver, an audio power amplifier and a micro speaker. A choice of 3.5, 4.3 and 5.0-inch display formats is available which have precision fitted bezels to enable operation in industrial environments. The VM800P units also have a USB serial port for firmware upload and application communication, a battery-backed real time clock (RTC) for carrying out system timing and a micro SD socket loaded with a 4GByte SD card containing sample applications. [via]

Embedded Video Engine for Arduino - [Link]

An incredibly small board at your fingertip: raising funds on Indiegogo!

A 100% Arduino IDE compatible, 32KB USB development board small enough to fit on your fingertips and cheap enough to leave in any project.

Having used several development boards over the years we soon realized that most of them are designed to be used for a single purpose. Having hacked some to increase functionality, we reasoned that not all boards would easily allow this and soon realized the need for boards which are feature rich, cost effective, yet easy to use and deploy in numerous applications. We set out to design such boards and this is where it has led us, our first pit-stop: The µ-nex.

The u-nex is a very compact Arduino compatible board designed around the Atmega328p micro-controller. It features 32KB of flash memory with ALL the micro-controller pins being brought out to enable you to build just about anything you would want to build with an 8-bit micro-controller from autonomous flying vehicles to LED cubes. Designed from the ground up to give you maximum possible versatility.

U-nex – a Arduino compatible, 32KB USB development board for $9, on Indiegogo - [Link]

This is a great credit card sized business card and gaming console based on Arduino.

The primary trick of this design is having milled cutouts made for surface mount components to be press fit into, using the circuit board as a kind of frame. Components selected have a thickness near that of the circuit board (1.6mm). Furthermore, to minimize the board thickness, the Atmega328P is inverted so that the bulk of its height below the surface. The result of equal thickness and recessed installation provides a flush appearance. The primary benefit beyond the aesthetic quality is the device is easily slid from a wallet. The high quality boards and the excellent service from oshpark also makes this build possible.

[via]

Arduboy: The Interactive Digital Business Card - [Link]