BuffaloFeeds » Hack A Day » February 17, 2011

Hack A Day (6 unread)

Xprotolab: oscilloscope and Xmega development board

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 3:03pm MST by Mike Szczys

Here’s a nice hands-on overview of the Xprotolab, a development board based around the AVR ATxmega32A4 microcontroller. The tiny DIP package includes an OLED display, four tactile switches, and it can be powered via a micro USB connector. The device ships ready to use as a two-channel Oscilloscope, but check out how small it is [...]
Motion tracking prop from Alien movie

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 2:02pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Erv Plecter] likes to recreate movie props that actually work. This time around he’s making the motion detector device from the original Alien movie. You’ll immediately remember this prop after seeing and hearing it in the video after the break. For our money, the most brilliant part of that movie was the use of rhythmic sounds [...]
Model rocket radio telemetry

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 1:03pm MST by Mike Nathan

[Ken] sent us his Instructable in which he used radio telemetry to monitor the status of his air-powered model rocket through a series of launches. His setup is centered around an Arduino IDE-compatible board that looks to be about the size of a Boarduino, but has the benefit of an embedded 915 MHz radio module. [...]
More ambient lighting monitor hacks

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 12:02pm MST by Mike Szczys

[Christian Pigeon's] first big project was to build this ambient light system for his computer monitor. This is based on the same concept as the Phillips Ambilight system which illuminates the area behind a television to match the color on the edges of the screen. We’ve seen clones before, but this is the first one [...]
Fingertip heart rate monitor

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 11:00am MST by Chris Nelson

[Embedded lab] has a nice tutorial on building your own heart rate monitor. The monitor works by shining infrared light into the fingertip and looking at the changes in the reflected infrared signal caused by a heartbeat. The IR detector produces a very small AC signal so a couple of op-amps are used to filter and amplify the signal. [...]
Your first Digital to Analog Converter build

Posted: February 17th, 2011, 10:00am MST by Mike Szczys

Have you ever built a Digital to Analog Converter before? This is a circuit that can take the 0 or 5V coming off of several digital logic pins, combine them together, and spit out one analog voltage that represents that value. If you’ve never made one, here’s your chance. [Collin Cunningham] over at Make put [...]