Author Archives: R-B

Yet another home automation project

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Saiyam’s bedroom automation box is a standalone and multi-feature home automation project using Arduino with a set of six sensors which can be used in combination with each other to control home appliances like fans, coolers, lightening systems, etc.

Home automation using Arduino

Home automation using Arduino

You just need to connect your appliance to the power socket present on the box with a plug that makes connecting anything easily. The device asks you to set a mode which means, which sensor you want to use for controlling the output (see all the modes below). Further it asks you to threshold for the sensor you have chosen (like threshold temperature for temperature sensor) which on crossing that threshold, the appliance connected either turns on or off (depending on the sensor). But that’s not it! This device can also protect your valuables at night by switching on the security mode. Still not over! It also has a timer mode in which you can just set the time in hours and minutes you want your device to be switched on. Just one more. It can also act as a weather station by sending you the temperature and humidity of the place that it is kept.

Arduino enclosure with a human machine interface

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Mircea Daneliuc from Whitehorse, Canada has tipped us off about his Arduino Enclosure with a human machine interface (HMI) consisting of an LCD and six push switches. The enclosure is a 140mm X 90mm X 63mm (5.5′ ‘x 3.5” X 2.5”) industrial grade ABS plastic with ventilation and screw terminal slots. The HMI takes only 3 analog pins of Arduino.

Arduino enclosure

Arduino enclosure

The keypad is a simple 6 button matrix keypad. It comes with a 2.54 mm pitch female Dupont connector. It has UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, ENTER and MENU buttons. These can help you navigate and change values for any menu you may need. It can be connected through a voltage devider, so it outputs a distinct value for every key pressed. Therefore you only need one analog input on your microcontroller to read the keypad.

Full featured open source industrial camera

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Apodiant’s entry for the 2015 Hackaday Prize is a full features open source industrial camera with Ethernet, USB, and serial outputs, along with an ARM processor for image processing.

Full featured open source, industrial camera

Full featured open source, industrial camera

The major parts are as follows.

CPU: i.mx6SL (With GPU, no e-paper interface). I have decided on this due to the ease of use. The Linux distribution is mature and has many active developers. The GPU can also be programmed with openGL. OpenCV will handle CPU image processing.

Image Sensor: I have chosen the MT9M021 from aptina because I have the most experience with this imager and the price is suitable for this project. The datasheets are also available without a NDA.

DC/DC will be accomplished with the NCP1082DEG/MMPF0100 ALA the imx6sl dev. board.

POE: Still a work in progress. Would like to use the smallest isolation transformer possible.

The RAM will be Micron DDR3 MT41J125M16 RE-125 (512MB) up-gradable to dual MT41J256 RE-125(1GB).

Storage: The boot rom will be a spi NOR flash. Part number and size yet to be determined.

Main flash storage is also yet to be determined, I had hoped to use eMMC, but am having problems sourcing parts.

There will also be a micro SD card slot for programming/testing/image storage.

Ethernet PHY: The LAN PHY will be LAN8720 ALA the iMX6SL dev board as they are dirt cheap and have good support.

The case design is finished and I am currently sourcing a fab shop to mill the front and back cases. The enclosure will be an off the shelf TEKO enclosures case. This will increase the price, but will make things easier for people wanting to build their own.

That is where I am at as of this point. Does anyone have any ideas for main storage? It looks like flash is a hard thing to come by these days.

PiClock: A RPi-based clock and Weather display

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Hackaday user Kevin Uhlir‘s PiClock is a Raspberry Pi-based fancy clock with weather forecasting and RADAR map display features. The clock retrieves the Weather data from Weather Underground using their API (http://www.wunderground.com/weather/api/ ) and the maps are from Google Maps API. An HDMI monitor is interfaced to RPi for displaying the information.

PiClock: Raspberry Pi based clock and weather data display

PiClock: Raspberry Pi based clock and weather data display

Continuous liquid interface production enables faster 3D printing

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The most common technique of 3D printing is stepwise horizontal layer-by-layer approach to fabricate 3D objects, which is very time consuming and is the same process used by most commercial 3D printers in the market. A team of researches led by Joseph DeSimone, a chemist at University of North Carolina and CEO of Carbon3D, invented Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) technique that can print 3D objetcs from liquid resin at game-changing speeds. Check this cool video of printing a 3D Eiffel Tower model using this approach.

Traditional 3D printing requires a number of mechanical steps, repeated over and over again in a layer-by-layer approach. CLIP is a chemical process that carefully balances light and oxygen to eliminate the mechanical steps and the layers. It works by projecting light through an oxygen-permeable window into a reservoir of UV curable resin. The build platform lifts continuously as the object is grown.

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