Thursday, 13 October 2016

Arduino EMI shield

So a while ago I answered a question on Arduino.SE with regards to a person wanting to shield there Arduino from EMI( Electromagnetic Interference) that was coming from some AC they were feeding into a shield on the Arduino, and thus they asked if it would be plausible to use a shield in between the Arduino and the other device to stop interference. Thus I brought out some points to help that person.

Some things I answered in it:

  • Using DC Ground
  • Using AC Earth/Ground
  • Isolating circuitry 
  • Extra, PCB layout

Tuesday, 28 June 2016

Sound sensor with Arduino, freeform


I was in need of a sound sensor board because I wanted to test some code that someone was experiencing issues with, so I scrounged around for some scrap parts and decided to make a free form circuit of the common sound sensor circuit, I used this as a base:
I made some modifications for the look of it, such as the ceramic caps and not the electrolytic ones.

The modification I made to the circuit was the addition of a comparator using the free half of the LM358. That is what the green trim pot is for at the top of the circuit.

I used enamel coated wire from a stripped transformer. The other parts were from various PCBs I have collected... Hackaday calls it Fracking.

 That seems to be about all the photos I took. But the idea is simple in that you take the wire and bend it around a cylindrical shape of your choice and arrange the curves to the way in which it best fits. 

I ran two lines straight down the centre to get Positive and Ground along the sides where the OP-AMP power pins are. Also I ran the output from the final stage down the side too. Any other connections were made however they best fitted into the arrangement.

Wednesday, 30 September 2015

General post on weather station

I have been busy with work and working on and off with the weather station. I have been working a bit on the FARS lately and have gone with plant pot basses with a 120mm diameter and made a 50mm hole in the centre for sensors and a 50mm PC fan I found/had lying around. I used 160mm 5mm thread bar by three, I used straws to hold each base at 10mm apart; each base is 20mm, 10mm is half way where the centre rim is, so it gives a nice overlap.

Friday, 31 July 2015

Weather Station - Anemometer

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So I have been working on the anemometer on and off for the last month as I have also been working on another project. I have also been working on the final design of the weather vane setup and slicing my thumb :) This will be part one of this part of the weather station, discussing mainly the anemometer.

The basic build

Tuesday, 7 July 2015

Weather Station - General Update

A general update of the weather station. The anemometer is coming along nicely, except for changes in final design and construction which I keep making. I am working on a build post for that, which should be up soon.

I received components I ordered the other day so that I can start getting some basic data.

I have a BMP180, DHT22, and 2 RFM12Bs, pictured below for fun:

I have so far tested the DHT22 with the library from Adafruit, it worked well.
I have yet to have some time to test the other stuff and also to find a suitable library for the RFM12 module which doesn't have a heap load of stuff added in. I also have to make level shifters for the two transceivers.

I got these through a local distributor for SparkFun Electronics who had reasonable prices, which is better than paying the import costs and overseas postage.