USBTenki is an electronic project to interface sensors to an USB port for collecting weather related data such as temperature. The firmware supports many different sensors and interfaces. It is up to you to decide what your USBTenki will support.
I consider the project useful but i don’t seem to have any practical application around me. i really looked for one, because the project is easy to build and i would of liked to make on, but since i cannot find an application for it, I’m gonna skip it.
USBTenki: Versatile USB Sensor: [Link] - [Via]
The circuit is very simple. The RGB LED is hooked up to the PWM outputs on PORTB1 , PORTB2 and PORTB3 of the ATMega8. There is also a resistor between the LED and the ATmega8 to limit the current to 20mA. There is also a link to the datasheet of the RGB LED that is used in this project.
The code for the fading LED is written in assembler with the AVR Studio 4. In this example the LEDs will fade in and out one by one. The PWM timers of the ATMega8 are used to let the LED’s fade in and out. To use the PWM timers you first need to initialize the timers at the begin of the program code. The speed of the fading in and out can be changed with changing the clock speed of the ATM8.You can copy and paste the textfile into the AVR Studio 4.
Fading RGB LED with PWM Controll: [Link]
LCD2USB is a open source/open hardware project. The goal of LCD2USB is to connect HD44780 based text LCD displays to various PCs via USB. LCD2USB was meant to be cheap and to be made of easily available parts. It is therefore based on the Atmel AVR Mega8 CPU and does not require any difficult to obtain parts like separate USB controllers and the like. The total cost (without display and pcb) are about 5 to 10 Euros. LCD2USB currently comes with a simple demo application that works under Linux, MacOS X and Windows.
HD44780 LCD Connected To USB: [Link]
This project teaches you how to build a lamp that can change color, and can be controlled by a computer. Simple Python and C programs for your PC or Mac are provided that let you program color patterns into the lamp. Implementing the weather forecast and other ideas are then up to you. Web scraping with wget is easy if you understand a scripting language. The whole project should cost under 100 euro, half of which is for the lamp (glass ball, LED module, microcontroller, and odds and ends), and the other half for the flash programmer if you don’t have one. So considering you already have a programmer, the project should not set you back too much.
Computer controlled RGB Lamp: [Link]
AVR-Doper is an STK500 compatible In System Programmer (ISP) and High Voltage Serial Programmer (HVSP). It was designed with a USB to Serial adaptor because many of the modern computers don’t feature a serial port. Another cool feature is that the entire design is based on free development tools.
AVR-Doper: [Download Project] - [View Project PDF] - [Via]
Read about a cool usb to serial adapter here : USB to Serial Adapter
