YourITronics

Connecting an optical mouse sensor with an Arduino microcontroller is a fairly simple task that can help you read horizontal and vertical movements. Any Arduino can be used to perform this operation and you will also need an optical mouse, of course. This tutorial is made for PAN3101, ADNS-2610, ADNS-2083 or ADNS-2051 optical sensors, but the library available is pretty extensive, so you might be able to use other kinds of optical sensors as well (the OptiMouse library for Arduino is available in the link).

Care must be taken when disassembling the mouse to take the optical sensor. It is important to know exactly what type of optical sensor you have, so you’ll have to do some digging to find out. The sensor will use 4 pins of the microncontroller, 2 for power supply and 2 for data. The data communication is serial and bi-directional, but depending on your optical sensor, the pins used from the Arduino may be different.

You may encounter interferences from sensor’s own controller used in the mouse, so disconnect it might be a good idea (the SDIO and SCLK wires). These two wires should be soldered to pins 3 and 4 respectively and pins 6 and 7 will be used for GND and 5v respectively. You will need to download the library mentioned above (the link provides a .zip with the library and example sketches that you can upload to the Arduino for verifications).

A very simple project that can come in handy in certain situations.

Optical Mouse Sensor with Arduino: [Link] – [via]

There’s nothing like an ice-cold drink on a hot summer day, is there? Especially if you’re a beer-loving dude with some free time and some hardware skills.

A fairly simple and fun project, the “Digital Thermostatic Beer Refreshment Regulator” (as entitled by its author) is based on an Arduino and a temperature sensor that control the temperature of the liquid inside the refrigerator (i.e. beer). The Arduino is actually a Freeduino SB and the temperature sensor is a LM35DZ. The beer regulator also possesses a NTE RS1-1D4-21 solid state relay to trigger 5v voltage to manage the amperage of the refrigerator.

The temperature is displayed on a SLCD162 MeLabs serial LCD Display which only uses 1 pin of the Arduino microcontroller. Other parts include some 10k and 100k resistores, pins, connectors, wires and plex-glass for the LCD stand (you can find a detailed parts list in the link). The code is written in C and it can be easily modified to adjust turning of the whole device ON or OFF to match your desired temperature of the beer. Plans for rewriting some of the code to get a more precise temperature are on the way. Also, a more complex display could be added to the project quite easily, since the current LCD is connected using an ethernet jack with Cat5 cable.

Now, I’m pretty sure you can do all these things with a common refrigerator that has a LCD display on the outside and a front panel to set the temperature, so it’s hardly a world changing project. Further more, you don’t risk getting your fingers burnt with the soldering iron or having your kitchen fill with cold beer (maybe that wouldn’t be such an issue to some, but still). However, if you’re a do-it-yourself kind of guy and want to make your own cold beer apparatus, then you can try this one. Salute!

Beverage Temperature Regulator: [Link] – [via]

Every so often you can find yourself unable to take a picture, because human reflexes can’t always handle the timing required in some circumstances. From wildlife photos of animals or lightning to various fast moving objects like bullets or even splashes or balloons popping, one can encounter many situations where hand-eye coordination or shooting skills just aren’t enough to get the job done. And here is where something like the Camera Axe comes into play.

This is an open source project, both hardware and software, that controls a camera or a flash, activating it at just the right time. The brain of the device is the ATmega328 microcontroller with Arduino Bootloader. The Camera Axe possesses a Flash Trigger to activate the flash with, a Camera Trigger for the camera itself, a Sound Sensor and a Light Sensor. The sound sensor is built using an electret microphone and its sensitivity can be adjusted with the potentiometer on the PCB. The light sensor is made with a photo transistor that detects both visible light and IR. The Camera Axe also has a RF receiver so it can be triggered remotely from about 200ft.

I have a lot of respect for open source stuff and this project makes no exception. You can find a detailed component list, schematics, pictures of the PCB, the enclosure and more pictures taken using the Camera Axe, as well as code and information about getting the board in the link below. The part list has detailed pricing for every component used, from voltage regulator and microcontroller to bolts and nuts and the whole thing costs about 120 dollars for a single Camera Axe, which is really cheap for what it can do.

A very interesting, fun, useful and detailed project, the Open Source Camera Axe is another tool for the photography enthusiast that is worth every penny. A demo video is also available in the link.

Open Source Camera Axe: [Link] – [via]

As the modern day motor vehicles grow in complexity, the need for measuring various locomotion parameters is something that all manufacturers approach, regardless of the purpose, size or price of the vehicle. Motorcycles make no exception, especially with the need for speed of most bike enthusiasts.

A project for all motorcycle-loving geeks out there, the Arduino Control Panel for Motorcycles is still in the prototype phase, but it seems to be working flawlessly. It currently has a speedometer and a tachometer which are very accurate and also a gear indicator . It uses a standard Arduino, a small LCD and Bluetooth and it is powered by the motorcycle battery.

The device is connected to the electrical system of the bike, receiving pulses from the tachometer circuit and using a reed switch for wheel rotation. It calculates the wheel speed in RPM and divides it into most recent engine RPM, obtaining a unique ratio for each gear. This is done by counting how many times the engine turns while the wheel turns once and the answer is somewhere between 4 and 12 for 5th gear and 1st gear, respectively. An interesting aspect of the coding is the interrupt handling, which is done by logging every 10th one.

As with all prototypes, this is not the final version of the project. The designer plans to make the device smaller and to incorporate it into the tank console and also to enhance it with more functions, like wind resistance. Not sure about the usefulness of the whole thing, as all bike producers install similar equipment, especially on newer models. Still, an interesting project that could be further developed.

Arduino Control Panel for Motorcycles: [Link] – [Via]

The Braitenberg vehicles, an idea developed by cyberneticist Valentino Braitenberg, are autonomous vehicles that move around using wheels and light sensors connected to them. Motion is acquired using only the interaction between the vehicle and its environment, without information processing or internal memory of any kind. Still, the Braitenberg vehicles appear to have intelligent behavior because they react to their surroundings, changing speed or direction accordingly. For that, they are regarded as the simplest form of behavior based artificial intelligence.

These vehicles can exhibit various types of behavior, similar to “aggression” or even “love”. Yes, that’s right, this is a tiny car that loves light. It follows the light source, turning after it and stopping when the light is powerful enough. The motors run at full speed if it’s dark and when light is detected by one of the sensors, the motor on that side is slowed down, so the vehicle changes its direction towards the light. When the light is bright enough, both motors are stopped and the vehicle remains still. If the light source is moved, the vehicle will start moving towards it as soon as the sensors detect the change of light intensity.

As most of these vehicles, this light-loving car is rather simple in design and hardware, using an Arduino Mini Pro on a 170 tie points Mini Breadboard, both from Sparkfun. For locomotion, the vehicle uses 2 HXT500 mini servos working at 3.7V from Hobbycity and 2 GM10 wheels from Solarbotics. Seeing is provided by 2 Light Dependant Resistors. Finally, the vehicle is powered by a 3.7V LiPo cell with 800 mAh from Sparkfun, which is enough for the Arduino Mini Pro working at 3.3V.

This has got to be one of the cutest cars I’ve seen, you can check out the demonstration video in the link.

Loving Little Braitenberg Vehicle: [Link]