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Archive for the ‘ethernet’ Category

There’s a school of thought that says that to fully understand something, you need to build it yourself. OK, we’re not sure it’s really a school of thought, but that describes a heck of a lot of projects around these parts.

[Tim] aka [mitxela] wrote kiloboot partly because he wanted an Ethernet-capable Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) bootloader for an ATMega-powered project, and partly because he wanted to understand the Internet. See, if you’re writing a bootloader, you’ve got a limited amount of space and no device drivers or libraries of any kind to fall back on, so you’re going to learn your topic of choice the hard way.

[Tim]’s writeup of the odyssey of cramming so much into 1,000 bytes of code is fantastic. While explaining the Internet takes significantly more space than the Ethernet-capable bootloader itself, we’d wager that you’ll enjoy the compressed overview of UDP, IP, TFTP, and AVR bootloader wizardry as much as we did. And yes, at the end of the day, you’ve also got an Internet-flashable Arduino, which is just what the doctor ordered if you’re building a simple wired IoT device and you get tired of running down to the basement to upload new firmware.

Oh, and in case you hadn’t noticed, cramming an Ethernet bootloader into 1 kB is amazing. If doing big things in small codespaces floats your boat, check out the winners from our own 1kB challenge.

Speaking of bootloaders, if you’re building an I2C slave device out of an ATtiny85¸ you’ll want to check out this bootloader that runs on the tiny chip.

Network switches come in two different flavors: managed, where you have some interface to configure and monitor the equipment, and unmanaged where the device just does what it is supposed to do and you can’t really control it. [Tiziano Bacocco] wanted to manage his cheap unmanaged switch, so he did what any good hacker would do: he opened it up.

Inside the Digicom 10/100 switch he found an IP178CH controller IC and a quick search turned up a data sheet. [Tiziano] noticed there were three ways to configure the switch: Some hardware pins could control very basic functions; an EEPROM (absent on the PCB) could configure the device; or the chip would accept commands via a synchronous serial port.

Since the datasheet covered the protocol required, [Tiziano] commandeered an Arduino Pro Mini and used it to send commands to configure the switch. A few resistors and some quick code allowed him to control VLAN and other functions on the switch via the USB port. Of course, he mentioned you could use a Raspberry Pi if you wanted a network interface–or maybe that’s a good excuse to use one of those Ethernet shields you got on clearance at Radio Shack.

If you aren’t clear on why you care about a managed switch, see the video below. Of course, your switch might not use an IP178CH, but we’ve covered a similar hack for a TL-SG1005D chip before, too.


Filed under: Arduino Hacks, Network Hacks

An engineering student at the University of Western Macedonia has just added another appliance to the ever-growing list of Internet enabled things. [Panagiotis] decided to modify an off-the-shelf bread maker to enable remote control via the Internet.

[Panagiotis] had to remove pretty much all of the original control circuitry for this device. The original controller was replaced with an Arduino Uno R3 and an Ethernet shield. The temperature sensor also needed to be replaced, since [Panagiotis] could not find any official documentation describing the specifications of the original. Luckily, the heating element and mixer motor were able to be re-used.

A few holes were drilled into the case to make room for the Ethernet connector as well as a USB connector. Two relays were used to allow the Arduino to switch the heating element and mixer motor on and off. The front panel of the bread maker came with a simple LCD screen and a few control buttons. Rather than let those go to waste, they were also wired into the Arduino.

The Arduino bread maker can be controlled via a web site that runs on a separate server. The website is coded with PHP and runs on Apache. It has a simple interface that allows the user to specify several settings including how much bread is being cooked as well as the desired darkness of the bread. The user can then schedule the bread maker to start. Bread Online also comes with an “offline” mode so that it can be used locally without the need for a computer or web browser. Be sure to check out the video demonstration below.

[Thanks Minas]


Filed under: Arduino Hacks, cooking hacks
Mar
07

An Arduino Device that Monitors Your External IP Address

74HC959, alert, arduino, arduino hacks, dynamic dns, dyndns, email, ethernet, external, ip, ip address, LCD, shield, shift register, smtp Commenti disabilitati su An Arduino Device that Monitors Your External IP Address 

[Bayres’] dad setup a webcam as a surveillance camera for a remote property. The only problem was that the only stable Internet connection they could get at this property was DSL. This meant that the external IP address of the webcam would change somewhat often; the needed a way to keep track of the external IP address whenever it changed. That’s when [Bayres] built a solution using Arduino and an Ethernet shield.

The main function of this device is to monitor the public IP address and report any changes. This is accomplished by first making a request to checkip.dyndns.org. This website simply reports your current public IP address. [Bayres] uses an Arduino library called Textfinder in order to search through the returned string and identify the IP address.

From there, the program compares this current value to the previous one. If there is any change, the program uses the Sendmail() function to reach out to an SMTP server and send an e-mail alert to [Beyres’] dad. The system also includes a small LCD. The Arduino outputs the current IP address to this display, making it easy to check up on the connection. The LCD is driven by 74HC595 shift register in order to conserve pins on the Arduino.

The system is also designed with a pretty slick setup interface. When it is booted, the user can enter a configuration menu via a Serial terminal. This setup menu allows the user to configure options such as SMTP server, email address, etc. These variables are then edited and can be committed to EEPROM as a more permanent storage solution. Whenever the system is booted, these values are read back out of the EEPROM and returned to their appropriate variables. This means you can reconfigure the device on the fly without having to edit the source code and re-upload.


Filed under: Arduino Hacks
Feb
05

Display Your City’s Emotional State with Illuminated Snow

alchemy, api, arduino, arduino hacks, christmas, ethernet, Holiday Hacks, holliday, LED, leds, lights, mood, sentiment, strip, twitter Commenti disabilitati su Display Your City’s Emotional State with Illuminated Snow 

[Hunter] wanted to do something a bit more interesting for his holiday lights display last year. Rather than just animated lights, he wanted something that was driven by data. In this case, his display was based on the mood of people in his city. We’ve seen a very similar project in the past, but this one has a few notable differences.

The display runs off of an Arduino. [Hunter] is using an Ethernet shield to connect the Arduino to the Internet. It then monitors all of the latest tweets from users within a 15 mile radius of his area. The tweets are then forwarded to the Alchemy Sentiment API for analysis. The API uses various algorithms and detection methods to identify the overall sentiment within a body of text. [Hunter] is using it to determine the general mood indicated by the text of a given tweet.

Next [Hunter] needed a way to somehow display this information. He opted to use an LED strip. Since the range of sentiments is rather small, [Hunter] didn’t want to display the overall average sentiment. This value doesn’t change much over short periods of time, so it’s not very interesting to see. Instead, he plots the change made since the last sample. This results in a more obvious change to the LED display.

Another interesting thing to note about this project is that [Hunter] is using the snow in his yard to diffuse the light from the LEDs. He’s actually buried the strip under a layer of snow. This has the result of hiding the electronics, but blurring the light enough so you can’t see the individual LEDs. The effect is rather nice, and it’s something different to add to your holiday lights display. Be sure to check out the video below for a demonstration.


Filed under: Arduino Hacks, Holiday Hacks
Ott
13

Arduino WebRadio player

arduino, ENC28J60, ethernet, LCD, mp3, Nokia 5110 LCD, player, radio, VS1053B, webradio Commenti disabilitati su Arduino WebRadio player 

webradio_pic2

Arduino WebRadio player is an inexpensive WebRadio player that can plays internet audio streams up to 64-kbps and is based on mp3, aac and wma audio formats.

The main components are:

  • Arduino Pro mini board
  • ENC28J60 ethernet module
  • VS1053B mp3, aac, wma decoder
  • 84×48 dot matrix LCD module (Nokia 5110)

Arduino WebRadio player - [Link]

Set
18

Arduino Network relay

arduino, control, ENC28J60, ethernet, Relay, W5100 Commenti disabilitati su Arduino Network relay 

network switch small4

by serasidis.gr:

Remote control your electrical devices through your local network or internet. The circuit contains one output (Relay) and one input (isolated input). The whole project was built by using arduino nano platform and an ENC28J60 ethernet module. It can be used the W5100 ethernet module instead of ENC28J60, by replacing the UIPEthernet library to Ethernet library.

Moreover, the control is made from the Android application I wrote and it’s available on Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.serasidis.NetworkRelay).

The schematic diagram, arduino sketch, photos and demonstration video is on my web site:

Arduino Network relay - [Link]

Ago
28

Video mixing chess games on tv in Norway using Ethernet Shield

arduino, chess, ethernet, Featured, games, Norway, shield, Tv Commenti disabilitati su Video mixing chess games on tv in Norway using Ethernet Shield 

heidi-638x422

Heidi Røneid with an Arduino Ethernet microprocessor. (Photo: Tore Zakariassen, NRK)

When The Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) planned the television broadcast of the Chess Olympiad 2014 in Tromsø, Norway, they encountered a challenge: how to mix video, graphics and the results of many ongoing chess games simultaneously, requiring 16 cameras for the games going on at the same time?

montering_i_boks-638x294

On their blog you can find a long and nice post about how they found the solution using Arduino Uno, Arduino Ethernet Shield and the library for Arduino to control such Atem switchers written by Kasper Skårhøj:

At first, the idea was to use a computer with a webcam for each of the 16 games, then mix video images, background animation and results in software on each of them.

Afterwards the finished mix of images would be streamed to separate channels in our web player, so that the online audience would be able to choose which game they wanted to follow. This solution would also provide our outside broadcasting van (OB van) with 16 finished video sources composed of video, graphics and results. This would make the complex job of mixing all video signals much easier.

After thorough thinking we came to the conclusion that for our web-audience, it would be better to skip the stream of individual games, and spend our resources on building websites that could present all games in the championship via HTML in real time. This would also give the audience the opportunity to scroll back and forth in the moves and recall all the previous games in the championship. We started working on it immediately, and you can find the result on our website nrk.no/sjakk.

parti_strt-638x358

Ago
07

Add Linux, WiFi, Ethernet and USB to Arduino

arduino, Arduino Yún, ethernet, leonardo, Linux, Mega2560, USB, wifi, Yun Commenti disabilitati su Add Linux, WiFi, Ethernet and USB to Arduino 

YunShield_2-500x358

by Edwin Chen @ open-electronics.org:

The model of this shield named Yun Shield, the feature of this shield is as its name. User can add this shield into Arduino (Leonardo, UNO, MEGA2560 etc) and “turn” the Arduino into device which has similiar features as Arduino Yun: support remote upgrade and use the Bridge library.

With this shield, user can easy to set up communcation between Arduino and Internet (via ethernet , wifi or 3g etc) and add support for USB flash, video. The detail user guide/ manual can be found in the dragino website and most Arduino Yun Sketch / examples can reuse with this Shield. This shield is under production and will be ready within one months time.

Add Linux, WiFi, Ethernet and USB to Arduino - [Link]

Giu
21

LED-Pixel-FrameThere is nothing better than a project that you can put on display for all to see. [Tristan's] most recent project, a Decorative LED Matrix Frame, containing 12×10 big square pixels that can display any color, is really cool.

Having been built around a cheap IKEA photo frame this project is very doable, at least for those of you with a 3D printer. The 3D printer is needed to create the pixel grid, which ends up looking very clean in the final frame. From an electronics perspective, the main components are a set of Adafruit Neopixel LED strips, and an Arduino Uno with an Ethernet shield. The main controller even contains a battery backup for the real time clock (RTC) when the frame is unplugged; a nice touch. Given that the frame is connected to the local network, [Tristan] designed the frame to be controlled by a simple HTML5 interface (code available on GitHub). This allows any locally connected device to control the frame.

Be sure to check out the build details, they are very well done. If you are still not convinced how cool this project is, be sure to check out a video of it in action after the break! It makes us wish that you could play Tetris on this frame. Very nice job [Tristan]!


Filed under: Arduino Hacks, led hacks


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