Frank documented a 3D printer build, called Hephaestus:
I finally did it, I designed and built my own 3D printer. This is in no way “the best 3D printer”. Instead, this was an epic and nightmare project that exercised my ability to engineer and build my own CNC machine. Along the way, I figured out what I did well and what I did badly, mistakes were made and sometimes fixed, even ignored.
Hephaestus – a fully DIY 3D printer – [Link]
BreadShield is a shield that maps Arduino pins to breadboard ties without jumper wires. It inserts into both of them, bridging them together mechanically, electrically, and firmly.
Many projects start with connecting an Arduino and a breadboard using jumper wires. But jumper wires can easily become too many to manage. They clutter easily. It’s tedious to connect, trace, or debug them. Connections can easily come loose by your clumsy fingers, transportation bumps, or your pets. Plus, the breadboard and the Arduino cannot be quickly unhooked and rehooked.
Replace your mess of jumper wires with one shield. BreadShield maps standard Arduino Uno R3 pins to one row of pins, which can be inserted into a breadboard. Enjoy having all Arduino pins on your breadboard instantly, or swapping with a different breadboard swiftly. And never worry about if the connections got messed up with the swap! Signal names are labeled along the edge of the BreadShield, so you don’t have to track back-and-forth between Arduino and the breadboard.
For example, it takes 11 jumper wires to connect Arduino with an HD44780 display. Ten of them, or over 90% of them, are eliminated when using BreadShield.
The project will launch soon on Crowdsupply.com. You can sign up on the pre-launch page to be notified when the project launches.
(update 23/05/2019) The campaign is launched on CrowdSupply.com
This project includes 10 LEDs of 1W each, and provides high intensity lighting that can be used in various applications. The board is made in Arduino shield form and can be used with Arduino Uno or Mega. Each LED can be controlled individually connected to digital pins D2-D11 of Arduino. Circuit requires 9-12V supply, it can work with lower supply by changing current resistor across LEDs. Applications include: Large size Bar-graph monitor, led sequencer, strobe, LED light effects are possible applications with this board. CN3 provided to interface PYRO sensor or any sensor to create interactive light effects.
10 x 1W White LED Shield For Arduino Uno – [Link]
This project includes 10 LEDs of 1W each, and provides high intensity lighting that can be used in various applications. The board is made in Arduino shield form and can be used with Arduino Uno or Mega. Each LED can be controlled individually connected to digital pins D2-D11 of Arduino. Circuit requires 9-12V supply, it can work with lower supply by changing current resistor across LEDs. Applications include: Large size Bar-graph monitor, led sequencer, strobe, LED light effects are possible applications with this board. CN3 provided to interface PYRO sensor or any sensor to create interactive light effects.
In order to broaden the appeal of its advanced graphics controller ICs in the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) sector, Bridgetek has entered into a three-way collaborative partnership with IoT development experts Zerynth and advanced display solutions provider Riverdi. Through cooperation between these companies’ engineering teams and drawing on their respective skillsets, customers will be better able to implement next generation smart building systems and Industry 4.0 ready factory automation equipment.
Benefiting from Bridgetek’s BT81x series devices, which incorporate the company’s multi-award winning Embedded Video Engine (EVE) technology, along with Riverdi’s touch-enabled display modules plus Zerynth’s IoT programming platform and its supporting libraries, this partnership will provide a compelling hardware/software offering that dramatically accelerates system deployments. EVE’s pioneering object-oriented architecture means that sophisticated human-machine interfaces (HMIs) can be constructed while only using minimal microcontroller and memory capacity, thus saving board real estate and curbing power consumption demands. Likewise, Zerynth’s Python-based programming platform keeps software engineering overheads down and is optimized specifically for resource-constrained IoT applications. This will enable the numerous Riverdi-supplied Wi-Fi/Bluetooth-compliant EVE HMI units within an IoT monitoring or control system to connect up to the cloud network and thereby utilize various cloud services.
The IoT presents huge opportunities for Bridgetek in terms of further automation of our living/working spaces and our factories. Bringing together proprietary EVE technology with the expertise of Zerynth and Riverdi means we now have a multifaceted solution to address these opportunities – covering all aspects from the chip level and board level right through to the firmware,
explain Lee Chee Ee, Head of Product Development at Bridgetek.
About Zerynth
Zerynth supplies the tools needed to develop IoT solutions. It simplifies the IoT development process by providing an easy and efficient way to program the most popular 32-bit microcontrollers in Python and connect them to cloud infrastructure, with the highest levels security. The company is headquartered in New York, with an R&D facility in Pisa, Italy, plus support from a global sales team. It is helping thousands of developers around the world to develop new IoT products and Industry 4.0 applications, with reduced costs and improved time-to-market. For more information go to https://www.zerynth.com
About Riverdi
Established in 2012, Riverdi brings high-quality customizable display solutions to the global market. Since its inception, the company has kept one dream in sight, to become the leading intelligent display manufacturer. With hundreds of thousands of displays sold all over the world, this dream is fast becoming a reality. For more information go to https://riverdi.com
About Bridgetek
Founded in 2016, Bridgetek supplies highly advanced ICs and board level products to meet the exacting demands of a constantly evolving global technology landscape. The company’s Embedded Video Engine (EVE) graphic controller ICs each integrate display, audio and touch functionality onto a single chip, thereby dramatically reducing in the time period and bill-of-materials costs associated with developing next generation Human Machine Interface (HMI) systems. These are complemented by its highly-differentiated, speed-optimized microcontroller units (MCUs) with augmented connectivity features.
For more information go to www.brtchip.com
OWON multi-function waveform generator, working as arbitrary waveform generator, and function generator 2 in 1 provides stable, accurate, and pure DDS signal sources. Its user-friendly UI, together with keyboard layout brings brand-new user experience into the current market.
The Owon AG1011 function generator is for sale at ~195€ (excluding VAT) from various distributors online.
David Johnson-Davies shared another nice tiny project. This time is a two digit thermometer based on ATtiny84 and DS12B20 1-Wire temperature sensor.
It uses a DS12B20 1-Wire temperature sensor, and an ATtiny84 to drive the display and read the sensor. It’s just over 25mm square; about the size of a British 50 pence piece.
The two-digit thermometer is designed so it could be put in a waterproof case outside the window, to show the outside temperature in all weathers. To conserve power the thermometer flashes the temperature every 24 seconds, and then goes to sleep, and it achieves a battery life of about a year with a CR2032 button cell.
The thermometer can display temperatures between -19°C and 99°C. To display temperatures between -10°C and -19°C the left-hand display is used to display “-1”. Outside this range it displays ‘Lo’ for temperatures below -19°C or ‘Hi’ for temperatures above 99°C. If you live in a part of the world where temperatures regularly reach below -19°C you could change it to light the decimal points to indicate negative temperatures.
Two-Digit Thermometer using ATtiny84 and a DS12B20 – [Link]
OWON P4603 Linear DC power supply newly launched with small body, lighter weight, easier to carry. Single channel, competitive unit price. With high resolution 1mV/1mA, 3.7 inch large TFT LCD display, 180W maximum output power. Low ripple and noise can meet the requirement for high accuracy testing. It can save up to 5 sets of parameters for easy recall. It can be used in mobile / laptop repair, PCB / Motor testing and battery charging. With Over voltage protection, Over current protection, over temperature protection and short circuit protection.
The OWON P4603 power supply is available for sale on owontechnology.eu for ~150€ (excluding VAT).
2 channel DSO with 100 MHz bandwidth, 1 GSa/s sample rate, 40 MSa memory depth and VGA interface and 20.3 cm touchdisplay with a resolution of 800 x 600 pixel.
The new XDS n-in-1 digital storage oscilloscop of Owon offers reliably measurement technology for a really good price. The colorful 8″ (20.3 cm) TFT LCD panel with the resolution of 800 × 600 allows an excellent readability of the wave, especially in regards to high data volume or many waves covered reciprocally.
The special features of the XDS series are a multitouch surface (from the XDS3102A) and a high vertical resolution up to 14 bits. The -plus variants are equipped with a 3¾ digit multimeter and a 25 – 50 MHz waveform generator. The XDS series offers a bandwidth of 60 – 300 MHz, a sample rate of 1 – 2 GSa/s in dual channel and a memory depth of 40 MSa per channel.
Delivery including 2 probes, multimeter probes (optional) a USB cable, PC software, a power adapter and a user manual.
The Owon XDS3102 is for sale for ~500€ (excluding VAT), from various distributors online.
Displaying a custom image or graphic on a LCD display is a very useful task as displays are now a premium way of providing feedback to users on any project. With this functionality, we can build projects that display our own logo, or display images that help users better understand a particular task the project is performing, providing an all-round improved User Experience (UX) for your Arduino or ESP8266 based project. Today’s tutorial will focus on how you can display graphics on most Arduino compatible displays.
The procedure described in this tutorial works with all color displays supported by Adafruit’s GFX library and also works for displays supported by the TFTLCD library from Adafruit with little modification. Some of the displays on which this procedure works include:
Display Custom Bitmap graphics on an Arduino Touch Screen and other Arduino compatible Displays – [Link]
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