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16×32 RGB panel + Arduino Shield are now also available at Elecrow

Posted on October 10, 2016 by R-B 2 comments

Our Chinese partner, Elecrow, now also carries our 16×32 RGB LED matrix panel + Arduino driver shield. They also offer worldwide shipping at much lower costs. The RGB matrix panel has 512 bright RGB LEDs arranged in 16 rows and 32 columns. Row and column driver circuits are built on the back side of the matrix panel. The data and control signal pins are accessible through a HUB75 (8×2 IDC) connector. It requires 12 digital I/O pins of Arduino Uno for full color control. The display module also comes with a RGB connector shield for Arduino Uno and necessary cables for easy wiring

Pallete: An open source tongue computer interface.

Posted on October 10, 2016 by R-B Leave a comment

Designed by Dan Levine, Pallete is a fully open-source wireless computer interface to allow the mobility impaired to control computers, Android tablets and phones using the tongue. It uses infrared sensors to track tongue motion, a microphone to detect tongue taps, and Bluetooth technology for communicating with computers. Dan’s smart mouthguard is also a winner for the Assistive Technologies award of the 2016 Hackaday Prize. It is open sourced, all the design source files and instructions are available online. Moreover, it uses off-the-shelf components, so any developer/builder/hacker can follow the instructions and build Pallette. We hope to establish a community around tongue-control technology, so the people in need

Open source glucose meter shield

Posted on October 10, 2016 by R-B 2 comments

M. Bindhammer won an award for the Assistive Technologies category of the 2016 Hackaday Prize contest for designing an open source Arduino shield that can measure blood glucose level using electrochemical test strips. His glucose meter shield receives the blood sample through a One Touch Ultra test strip and prints out the glucose level on the Arduino IDE serial monitor window. Here is a demo video of the glucose meter shield. Typically the electrodes are coated such that an enzymatic chemical reaction occurs at the electrode surface and this reaction dictates the resulting current. The details of the electrochemistry can be quite

HID IR Keyboard using PIC18F25J50

Posted on October 9, 2016 by R-B 2 comments

A PIC18F25J50 based USB HID IR keyboard from Suraj Bhawal uses a TSOP IR decoder IC to receive IR signals from an IR remote and convert them to HID inputs. For this project, I used a PIC18F25J50 microcontroller with a TSOP IR decoder. I used this microcontroller because of three reasons. First, this mcu is available in tiny QFN package which helps reducing the overall board size. Second, this mcu supports usb communication without using an external crystal/resonator which again helps reducing the board size. And third, is that I have several of these laying around in my stock. The list of

DIY Buck-Boost converter

Posted on October 9, 2016 by R-B Leave a comment

A buck-boost (also known as step-down and step-up) converter is a type of DC-to-DC converter that combines the principles of the buck and boost switched mode power supplies in a single circuit. What this means is the input voltage could be either higher or lower than the desired output voltage. The Buck-boost converter is very useful in battery-powered systems, where the battery voltage can vary quite a bit depending upon its charge condition and usage, to derive a stable DC supply for an electronics circuit. GreatScott‘s new Youtube video tutorial explains the basics of Buck-Boost converters and shows how to build