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The most salvagable part of A DC motor typically just spins when you apply voltage to it. But when you carefully control that voltage, and have access to an encoder attached to the motor, you can add some intelligence to the motor and do some very interesting things with it: like making it go to a precise position. Obstruction to show position control and not just a timer-based control And combining that with one of the cheapest microcontrollers in the world makes it a little more fun, because now you can add a digital interface to the motor that allows any other modern microcontroller to easily command the motor for the cost of a single piece of tissue paper. ...

Even in the world of microcontrollers, a $0.03 microcontroller in single units is an oddity. It is very cheap. The cheapest microcontrollers you can find in single units among online distributors like Digikey or Mouser are in the region of $1. To push it below the $1 mark, your order usually has to be in the thousands. Putting it into perspective, it is a no-name smartphone for $6 in a world of $600 smartphones. ...

To buy or to build is all about the tradeoffs in light of unknowns: if you buy, you can get the product you need faster, but you sacrifice flexibility later on. You also have to consider ecosystem lock-in and being forced to build hacky workarounds to get the functionality you want. If the project turns out to be massively successful and you need a custom application, tearing down everything and rebuilding from scratch can be very painful. ...

How I built a great tool for IoT prototyping: a self-powered, wireless measurement device that measures voltage and current. GitHub - benlhy/wireless_measurements: Simple, Compact Wireless MeasurementSimple, Compact Wireless Measurement. Contribute to benlhy/wireless_measurements development by creating an account on GitHub.Git·Hubbenlhy Hardware Repo The Gist IoT devices have two big constraints: they are wireless, which draws power, and they are often battery powered, which means that they don’t have much power to draw upon. Managing the power draw then becomes an important feature in any IoT project. I built a device that can help me do exactly that. ...

Prerequisites Install Inkscape Download SVG2Shenzhen - https://github.com/badgeek/svg2shenzhen Install Follow the instructions on installing SVG2Shenzhen to Inkscape. Use SVG2Shenzhen allows you to create vector drawings on multiple layers of KiCAD. Start at 1. Prepare Document where you select the layers that SVG to Shenzhen will add to your module. Draw on each layer as needed Go to 2. Export to KiCAD - select the folder that you want to save the module to, and save as module. Leave the other options at default values. Hit apply. Open KiCAD, and add the Module as the footprint library under preferences Go to PCBnew and add the footprint of the image to the board. And that’s it! ...

In 2020 what I managed to do: Learned D3 through two applications: building a binary tree and a most commonly paired ingredients graphic. Finally gained a toehold in understanding Javascript frontend technologies React and Vue through building a few different services: a bus arrival page, a page that ranks my tea preferences based on weighted factors, and a display page for my home automation network. Built a Bus Arrival App that serves as a testbed for learning new technologies. Finally started to understand how backend services work by building a NodeJS app to handle data for the Bus Arrival App. Implemented my first serverless function for the Bus Arrival App because I didn’t need a whole VM just to run a script. Built an understanding of how Bluetooth Low Energy works by building a wireless soil sensor and integrated it with a NodeJS backend that collects the information with a Python script and posts it to InfluxDB which then displays it on a Vue app. Tore apart a few things to find out how they worked: A table lamp, a wireless switch from IKEA, another wireless control from IKEA. Investigated low power and energy harvesting options for devices that have to live without grid power for a long time. Built a soil sensing circuit to monitor the health of several plots wirelessly Designed a pretty Chicago ‘L’ PCB that reflects when the trains move in and out of the station. This year has been heavily focused on software and electronics.

In my quest to achieve True Wireless™, I recently got interested in cellular modules because they provide the ultimate in wireless connectivity - there are no modems and no routers required. I thought searching for a cellular module would be like any other wireless technology that I’m familiar with: start from the hobby-level products from Adafruit and Sparkfun and gradually work my way backwards to discover what are the best cellular modules based on observed usage in other products. This method saves me a lot of time and effort in narrowing down the selection choice. ...

I recently ran into an issue where my code stopped compiling after I added a few new features. After some digging, I realized that KEIL was complaining that the evaluation license that I was using was not valid because the CID code no longer matched, and the code was too big for the evaluation license. After some digging around I found that if some of your parameters have changed since you applied for the license (like if you updated your computer), then it is possible that the error could occur. Licensing User’s Guide: Licensing Errors ...

Why spend $300 to $500 on a mediocre, mid-range laptop or desktop when you can have a highly portable, powerful Windows machine? Whether it is looking for yourself or for a loved one, consider a used Thinkpad. They regularly come onto the used market for cheap as companies renew their stock of Thinkpads, and they offer a very good price to performance ratio. Because they are older, you can also find old and used peripherals to trick out the Thinkpad for a song. ...

While conducting the fairy light teardown, I came across the YX8018 IC which was seen in many other teardowns regarding garden lights. These are small stakes with a solar panel. You stick them in the soil and they light up at night. Fairy Light TeardownTearing apart a solar powered fairy light unit to see what makes it blink and shimmer.West Side Electronics·Benjamen Lim It costs $0.08 per IC, and it is a simplified joule thief circuit that requires only an inductor to work. This IC is also readily available, as compared to the one I found in the fairy light circuit, which I couldn’t get a hold of. ...