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Bluetooth-connected weight scale

Posted on January 31, 2017 by R-B Leave a comment

This design application note from Microchip illustrates the the implementation of a Bluetooth-connected weight scale using Microchip’s PIC16F1783 MCU and the RN42 Bluetooth module. It is powered by 2 AAA batteries and the measured weight is displayed and recorded on a smartphone or tablet.

Bluetooth connected weight scale

Weight scales have been used for quite a while in homes, businesses and medical facilities. With the increase in demand for health-related information, connected weight scales can now send data to smartphones, tablets and the Cloud where it can be utilized by medical providers and other care givers. Connected weight scales are being used with other home-based consumer and medical devices to improve the health and general well-being of many people.

Microchip’s Connected Weight Scale Demonstration Board shows the implementation of a Bluetooth-connected weight scale using Microchip’s PIC16F1783 MCU and the RN42 Bluetooth module. The PIC16F1783 MCU is an eXtreme Low Power (XLP), cost-effective 8-bit microcontroller with an integrated capacitive touch sensing module, 12-bit ADC and operational amplifiers.

Connected Weight Scale Demonstration Board Highlights

Displays instructions to user and measures weight in pounds and kilograms
Bluetooth module is used to demonstrate smartphone/tablet connected design capability
Low overall BOM cost due to function integration
Low-power operation utilizing Microchip’s eXtreme Low Power PIC16F1783 MCU
Powered by two AAA batteries

Autonomous Parallel Parking Car

Posted on January 31, 2017 by R-B Leave a comment

Owing to limited parking space, crowded cities require you to have really good parallel parking skills to park your vehicle in a narrow parking space. This stressful task has lately been made easier in the new automobiles with the implementation of automatic parallel parking technology based on multiple imaging cameras and laser sensors. This add-on could add a few thousand dollars extra on your car price. Alberto Gutiérrez, Shaan Shetty, and Boling Hu (students from Cornell University) built a low-cost prototype car with autonomous parallel parking capability that would enable the car to find a suitable parking space and park itself without any assistance from the driver. Their design uses Ultrasound Sensors with a PIC32 microcontroller to map the surrounding obstacles, and determines if the available parking space is sufficient to park the car.

Autonomous parallel parking car

Our system is mainly composed of five ultrasonic sensors (HC-SR04, a dual motor driver, a PIC32MX250F128B microcontroller, a TFT display and two DC motors with gear boxes. The car is capable of parking autonomously after it detects a parking space on its right side. There is one sonar on the front, one on the back, two on the right side and one on the back right corner of the vehicle. One of the side sensors is in charge of keeping the car aligned to the parking space boundaries using a closed-loop Proportional-Integral (PI) controller.

Here’s the demo of the autonomous parking car.

Arduino controlled rover with FPV live video

Posted on January 30, 2017 by R-B Leave a comment

Tamas is a 17 years old electronics enthusiast from Hungary. His latest creation, which he shared on Instructables, is an Arduino-powered rover that can be controlled with brainwaves or a joystick. The best part of it is, while it’s being operated, you will also have access to a live video stream from the mounted camera via your pair of virtual reality glasses.

Arduino powered rover with FPV video streaming

This is an all terrain vehicle, that means that you can control it on snow, sand, any kind of ground, wet surface and of course indoors. It is powered by two 18650 lithium-ion batteries with a capacity of 2600 mAh. These are connected in series so the maximum voltage is 8.4 volts, that ensures the seamless operation. Can climb hills that up to 35-40 degrees. The maximum control range with the new HC-12 serial communication module is 1.8-1 kilometers if the controllers can see each other. That’s insane! Of course the WiFi FPV’s range is only around 45-50 meters, but the HC-12 ensures a very stable communication.

WiFi enabled anemometer

Posted on January 30, 2017 by R-B Leave a comment

A wireless anemometer project using ESP8266 and Adafruit’s wind sensor is shared by graham22 on github. The wind sensor provides an analog output voltage proportional to the wind speed. The ESP8266 reads in the output voltage through its A/D channel, computes the wind speed, and displays it on a web browser upon receiving a HTTP request from a client machine.

WiFi Anemometer

WiFi switch for AC appliance

Posted on January 29, 2017 by R-B Leave a comment

Are you looking for a simple design of a DIY remote switch for controlling your AC appliances over WiFi, this Instructable provides details of making such a switch from scratch. The project uses ESP8266 WiFi module that communicates with a phone using the Blynk app. The entire circuitry is enclosed inside a box with a male plug that goes to the wall socket, and a female input plug for your device. The controller receives the power supply from the mains socket.

DIY WiFi relay switch

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