Category Archives: Sensors

M’Day: Low Power Motion Sensor Arduino Night Light…

Posted on May 13, 2012 by krazatchu

A few years back I made a motion sensitive night light as a Mother’s day gift and while it worked pretty well it really chewed out the batteries.  And as with all devices that eat batteries it eventually fell out … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino, AVR, Battery, DIY, Electronics, Embedded, LEDs, Low power, Sensors | 1 Comment

LocoMotion: MMA8453 with Interrupts…

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Socialhardware

In the previous post about the MMA8453_N0m1 library we talked about how to get the stream of raw XYZ data back from the accelerometer.  In this post we will be getting into some of the more advanced features of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino, Embedded, How to, Motion Control, Sensors | 4 Comments

The Sound of Switchmode

Posted on March 5, 2012 by krazatchu

If you’ve ever wondered what different switch mode power supplies would sound like if used to drive a speaker, here is an untested circuit you might try.  Using a zener clamped piezoelectric transducer as a contact microphone to push/pull the … Continue reading →

Posted in Electronics, Off The Wall, Sensors | Leave a comment

Hackaday: WindPOV project…

Posted on March 2, 2012 by krazatchu

My WindPOV project was featured on Hackaday: http://hackaday.com/2012/03/02/wind-powered-pov-weather-station/ It displays the temperature and humidity on the wing tip by way of persistence of vision. The idea of using our Contiki enabled 802.15.4 board has been tossed around a bit, this … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino, AVR, Contiki, DIY, Electronics, LEDs, Mechanical, Sensors | Leave a comment

6DOF Arduino: Compass & Accelerometer

Posted on February 27, 2012 by krazatchu

This Arduino library is a mixed bag containing a number of functions to facilitate rapid sensor integration between a three axis compass and a three axis accelerometer.  Where speed is required, function math is 8.8 fixed point, while non-performance functions … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino, Electronics, Embedded, How to, Motion Control, Sensors | 38 Comments

Shake, Rattle & Roll: The MMA8453Q & Arduino

Posted on February 12, 2012 by Socialhardware

So we finally finished putting the polish on our latest Arduino library designed for use with the MMA8453Q Accelerometer and its siblings the MMA8451 and MMA8452.  This library gets you going with the basics on this accelerometer and it also … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino, AVR, Electronics, How to, Sensors | 43 Comments

How to: LED as a Light Sensor

Posted on January 29, 2012 by krazatchu

LEDs LEDs LEDs, is there anything they can’t do?  Besides adding that special crunchiness to smooth peanut butter, they also make awesome light level sensors.  Here’s one way to do it that doesn’t require an analog input, just connect the … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino, AVR, Electronics, Embedded, How to, LEDs, Sensors | 1 Comment

ADC Battery Voltage: Divide, Match and Measure…

Posted on January 28, 2012 by krazatchu

While the stock Arduino isn’t particularly well geared to running from a battery source, there are times it will be useful to know the status of our battery voltage. Using the circuit on the left as well as a bit … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino, AVR, Battery, Electronics, Embedded, Low power, Sensors | 6 Comments

Inline Assembly: A Fast Quadrature Decoder…

Posted on December 21, 2011 by krazatchu

Inline assembly is a great tool to have in your programming arsenal. It gets things done as fast as a kitten chasing a hummingbird, yet retains the usability and portability of C code. This bit will decode a quadrature input … Continue reading →

Posted in ASM, AVR, Embedded, Encoder, Motion Control, Sensors | 4 Comments

Capturing: Fuji S2000HD IR Codes…

Posted on November 30, 2011 by krazatchu

Sometimes all the searching in the world won’t find you what your looking for.  This being the case with the shutter IR trigger codes for the Fuji S2000HD digital camera.  The Fuji S2000HD utilizes the well documented NEC IR protocol. … Continue reading →

Posted in Arduino, Electronics, Embedded, How to, Infra Red, Sensors | Leave a comment