Tag Archives: DIY

DIY NAS

via Dangerous Prototypes

NAS-BOX

A DIY NAS project from Peter Scargill:

So I’ve had a fair experience of these systems. Well, this blog entry isn’t about expensive NAS systems. It’s about a cheap one… really cheap that is – and DIY.
How cheap? Well, about £12 depending on what you have handy. For this price you need a handy 2.5” hard drive, a FriendlyArm NEO or NEO2 and of course the 1-Bay NAS Kit for NanoPi. Beware that the front panels for NEO and NEO2 are SLIGHTLY different – i.e. the Ethernet connection position varies slightly so these are not cross-compatible without a spot of filing which is why I’m showing you the stock photo!
Anyway… so I plugged my trusty 100GB 2.5” hard drive into the board (well, it was free and was sitting doing nothing), plugged the NEO2 into the board, downloaded the ROM and.. well, that was it really – turned on the power (you need a 12v power supply) and waited. Sure enough the unit appears on my network.

More details at Scargill’s Tech blog.

Multipurpose ESP8266 keychain

via hardware – Hackaday

One of the best feature of the ESP8266 is it’s ability to self-host a web server, allowing for fairly complicated user interactions. The dEEbugger by [S-March] is a nifty little ESP8266 based device with a plethora of features in a small package.

The USB-powered device has a web user interface that enables it to be used as a low bandwidth oscilloscope, I2C terminal, or UART terminal. As an scope, you may connect to it via your tablet and then use it as a remote voltage monitor. There is a peak detection feature which is a nice touch and gives the entire project a premium feel.

The serial terminal on an ESP8266 is not something new yet it is helpful in disconnecting the console window from the bench. The I2C terminal is where the device really shines as it can scan for connected devices on the connected bus. This bus pirate like feature is useful for beginners as the software can scan the registers addresses of the devices as well.

[S-March] has made the schematic in PDF format as well as the entire code for the project available on GitHub so go right ahead and make it your own. We have had an ESP8266 based VT Terminal device in the past and merging the two would make for an excellent maker tool.

Thanks for the tip [René Arts]


Filed under: hardware

TB timer – Timed camera cable release

via Dangerous Prototypes

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Steve Smith has published a new build:

It’s taken some research but I have built a prototype with my trusty ARDX Arduino Uno kit
Currently, the device changes mode with a press of the mode button which will later be incorporated in a suitable rotary encoder. I modified the prototype’s rotary encoder to remove the detents and therefore, have continuous motion rather than be stepped. When stepped, the value hops by two at a time. The ‘B’ and ‘T’ modes both operate as expected and at the moment, the rotary encoder changes a value in ‘TB’ mode and is displayed on the OLED display. the outputs are opto-isolated so will appear as switches to the camera. Although I’ll be using the cable release with a Canon DSLR, it should be very easy to make it work with other DSLR makes.

Project info at projectavr.com.

3D POV display

via Dangerous Prototypes

pics-F87MI9MJ26F2M38-600

Gelstronic shared detailed instructions of how to build this 3D POV display, project instructables here:

In my project i use a spinning helix of LED strips. There are a total of 144 LEDs that can displays 17280 voxels with 16 colors. The voxels are arranged circularly in 12 levels. The LEDs are controlled by only one microcontroller. Because i have used the APA102 LEDs i need no additional drivers or transistors. So the electronic part is easier to build. Another advantage is the wireless electrical supply. You need no brushes and there is no friction loss.

Check out the video after the break.

Creating custom 3D printed LED bar graphs

via Dangerous Prototypes

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Glen Akins has a nice build log on his 3D printed LED bar graphs:

While building my zombie containment unit, I decided I wanted some LED displays or bar graphs to complement the containment status video running on the smaller secondary video monitor. Some other containment units used LED air pressure gauges from eBay. I wanted to achieve a similar look, but I also wanted my gauge to be software controllable so I could change the number of segments lit in response to events in the playback of the two videos. I decided it was time to build my own LED bar graphs.

More details at Glen’s blog.

Dynamic lights with CMOS integrated

via Dangerous Prototypes

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Nicu Florica @ Arduinotehniq writes:

Schematic was inspired by article from Tehnium anual magazine 1990, but my schematic have extra ligts “games”
A few time ago (3-4 years) I need a simple schematic for automatic dynamic games without microcontrollers, so I remenber my schematic… but I simplify my schematic as original but eliminate useless states

More details at Arduinotehniq blog.

Check out the video after the break.