There is exciting news afoot in the world of the ESP32. This has long been microcontroller family of choice, but last month, someone found the internal test registers to receive raw spectrum data in the 2.4GHz range. And then built a spectrum analyzer around it. With WebUSB and firmware flashing right from the browser. Mindblowing,… Read More: Hacking a Cheap Department Store Drone »
Forewarning: Bit of a plug for PCBWay in here, but they deserve it. They’re a rad company, and I always like working with them. Premise: This project is a reasonably straightforward keyboard / Bluetooth project, that touches a few neat features, without getting too into the weeds. Really the idea is to do a simple… Read More: T9 »
As with most of my projects lately, I’m finding that I’m playing catch up with the documentation, so this is an old one. This project is a bit of a twofer, because it was the demo project for Stretch, my Kicad plugin. Did I say I have a backlog? Stretch was a pandemic project, initially… Read More: Jet »
As of next week, KiCad 9 should be about to release. One of the many exciting features, to me, is that it now includes a footprint generator that I contributed, for capacitive scrollwheels. It’s based on the Atmel (now Microchip) appnote AN294 Self-Capacitance Sensors. Interestingly, the image displayed in the appnote does not actually… Read More: Capacitive Scrollwheels in KiCad »
Simulation has always been the dream of PCB design. In most cases, it hasn’t been practical – Either in the domain of expensive or esoteric tools that are compute-cycle hungry and limited in scope. But we’re at a turning point. This is the process for current carrying / voltage potential simulations with KiCad and ElmerFEM.… Read More: Open-Source Thermal Simulation of PCBs »
This post is about three years late, but I’m catching up. Combat robots like Battlebots are seeing something of a revival right now. The ones on the Battlebots show are 250lbs, and cost tens of thousands of dollars – most of that in batteries. Much more accessibly, there are a bunch of regional competitions,… Read More: 1 Pound Combat Robot »
Tampermonkey, the successor to Greasemonkey, allows on-the-fly modifications to webpages. Things like adding buttons, or modifying text on a page. Facebook Marketplace is fast becoming the only viable used item listing in my area. Which is annoying – It’s inferior to Craigslist in any way, but the latter is clearly dying a slow death.… Read More: Adding a hide button to Facebook Marketplace with Tampermonkey »
Instead of a TV at home, I use a projector. It’s on my ceiling, with the buttons inaccessible. The remote for it also isn’t really working anymore. Problem. There’s nothing on the remote control’s PCB except for an obscure microcontroller (TTR013), IR LED and driving transistors, and some carbon contacts for the buttons. The intermittent… Read More: Very Remote Control »
I’m on a home improvement kick. When I walking my home, there’s a long, featureless hallway with kitchen at the end of it. I was using a tray on my kitchen counter to toss keys onto when I walked in the door. This takes up valuable kitchen counterspace, and being at the end of the… Read More: Key Storage »
Quite some time ago now, I wanted to make some of remote control car. And, also, eventually turn it into an autonomous sumobot or similar. This project was done a few years ago, but I’m writing it up now. In the interest of getting something into my hands that I can iterate on, I did… Read More: The Worst RC Car in the World »