ATtiny44 drop-in replacement for Ikea Dioder's stock PIC controller

March 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Ikea Dioder is an LED light sold at the big blue and yellow building that lets you mix your own colors using a simple button and wheel controller. [Marco Di Feo] looked at all of the other projects out there that alter the controller and figured out that the IC can be directly replaced with an ATtiny44 microcontroller. With that chip soldered onto the board he added IR control so that he can change colors using his universal remote control (translated).

[Marco] removed the potentiometer normally responsible for selecting the color. This frees up one pin on the microcontroller which he then uses to receive signals from a TSOP1736 IR receiver. The video after the break shows the device, which illuminates the back of his home entertainment center, reacting to commands from his remote control.

Of course this can be done without the chip swap as the PIC 16F684 that comes with it can be reprogrammed in place. But [Marco] didn’t have a PICkit or other programmer on hand. [Read more…]

Filed Under: led hacks, Microcontrollers Tagged With: , , , , ,

Workout timer has its own fight bell

March 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This workout timer turned out great. We think [Douglas] managed to end up with a professional look and a full range of features even though he was doing a lot of learning along the way.

He wanted a clock that was capable of counting up or down to time different segments of his workout. In order to be really useful it needed to have a remote control and a way to signal when time had run out. He grabbed an Arduino and started prototyping with an LED marquee at first, but after adding a second Arduino to deal with the display scanning issues he finally switched over to these LED segment displays.

The timer includes an IR receiver so that it can be controlled with a handheld remote. The large red bell to the side has a heck of a ding and is used to signal the start and end of timing. Perhaps the driver for that bell could be incorporated into the home automation project from Wednesday. Once the hardware decisions were finalized [Douglas] set out to build an enclosure that he could be proud of (mission accomplished!). Don’t miss the video after the break where he walks through all various aspects of the user interface. [Read more…]

Filed Under: clock hacks Tagged With: , , , , ,

WAV playback with an ATmega32

February 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Vinod Stanur] just finished another hobby project by building a WAV audio player using a microcontroller. He had started development a while back using a PIC microcontroller. But the chip he was using didn’t have enough SRAM to allocate as a playback buffer. When he got his hands on an ATmega32 his mind turned back to the project and he saw it through to the end.

He takes advantage of what he learned on several earlier builds. He’s using a TV remote as input, just like his Snake game did. Storage is provided by an MMC card, a trick he perfected with this voice recorder project. Instead of using a FAT library, he uses his own code to read the linked-list (File Allocation Table) for sector addresses, then he parses the WAV header and processes the file accordingly.

Playback uses two 512 byte buffers. One is feeding the output while the other is being populated from the memory card. When the output buffer is exhausted the two are swapped and the process continues. You’ll find [Vinod’s] demo of the project after the break.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Microcontrollers Tagged With: , , , , ,

Hexbug code rewrite makes it a walking line-follower

February 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You know you’ve got a good hardware platform if you can easily repurpose it with a code rewrite. And that’s what [Eric] continues to do with these little Hexbugs. This time around he’s bent the IR emitter and receiver downward to use as a reflectance sensor. This gives it the ability to follow a dark line on a light surface.

He originally patched an MSP430 into the $25 RC toy. The IR pair was intended for obstacle avoidance, which we saw in a recent links post. This hack does a great job of repurposing the avoidance system. Since the add-on hardware is mounted on a motorized turret, the single sensor pair can sweep back and forth to find the line it will follow. In one way this is better than most line followers which use multiple sensors mounted to the body. But the drawback is that this results in slower travel and won’t be winning any contests. Don’t miss the demo clip after the break.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: toy hacks Tagged With: , , , ,

Flexible web interface makes the universal remote nearly perfect

February 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Fall Deaf] built an Arduino based universal remote control system. It uses a shield which has both an IR receiver and transmitter. This gives it the tools to learn codes from your existing remotes and play them back in order to control the devices. This functionality is really nothing new, but we think the user interface he developed for the system is absolutely fantastic!

Software is web-based. You can simply point a remote at the Arduino and push a button. The receiver will store the code which can later be assigned to a virtual button. The image above shows the channel-up option being created; it will be added to the list once confirmed. From there any web enabled device – smart phone, tablet, netbook, etc – can be used as the remote for the system. The only feature we think is missing is the ability to alter the layout of the buttons, with larger areas for the most frequently used commands.

After the break you can see a demonstration of this system, as well as the one extra feature we haven’t touched on yet. [Fall Deaf] included a Piezo element in the hardware design which lets him knock on his coffee table to use the remote if a smart-device isn’t close at hand.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: home entertainment hacks Tagged With: , , , , ,
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