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My site full of arduino knowledge

Info on all arduino boards, many libraries, products and projects.

http://www.duinoaday.co.uk

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Arduino 1.0 is on the horizon, eventually.

Some new stuff happening:

Official arduino store – Will make sure that people know if their board is genuine or not but probably take away business from distributors.

Arduino ethernet board -  Pics were posted about this all the way back in December 2006 so it has been a long time coming (almost 4 years!)

Arduino USB vendor ID -  So it appears as an arduino on your computer rather than just a virtual USB serial port.

New non-FTDI chip – So no drivers are required. Will allow re-programming to make it appear as a HID device.

Update to the Mega with an ATmega2560 – Apparently having issues with getting all the program space to work currently (haven’t people already sorted this?)

Via the Arduino Blog

Arduino User Map

This has been around for a while now but I forgot to post it on here.

Arduino user map, make sure you add yourself if you have not already done so.

Please also add local hackspaces/electronics stores etc.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=106367500863692290311.00048bf511125d88d5

More Arduino Icons

I have another icon I thought I would link today.

First is one from ‘A1′ in Germany who kindly posted it on the arduino forums.

I then did a little bit of photoshop magic to make it slightly cleaner and higher res. He has distributed this as ‘use as you like’ but non-commercial use.

Click for larger: 1024×768

If I get any more interesting logos turn up then I will make sure I post them here.

Mowcius

Arduino Icon Base

Well I have now had 2 people request the base that I used for my logo on my website so I thought I would post it up.

Here is a nice high(ish) res version to play with:

Use it as you like

I can’t remember what font I used though but I know it wasn’t the ‘original’ font as the ‘A’ wasn’t the same. I just used what looked right for the logo…

Mowcius

Help needed with mammoth task!

I have eventually started properly filling the projects page on the Duinoaday site but I need your help to fill it up.

(Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the form to submit links)

Please take a few seconds each time you see an arduino project to submit the link if it is not already on that page.

I have started to fill up the page from the links on hackaday, after that I will search the arduino forums but there will still inevitably be some I have missed.

If you can think of any project links now then please submit a link but I am still currently adding them manually so it may be a short time before the links are added.

Thanks in advance to anyone who helps me out here.

It will help everyone out when it is full of links!

Mowcius

SMD LED Scrounging

I am always up for a bit of component scrounging off circuit boards from dead products.

I more recently had a try at taking some SMD LEDs off a number of scrap boards I have.

The trick when taking them off is not to try and force them. I used a sodering iron (with literally no tip – I need a new tip) and managed ok but tried to force a few and messed them up.

I then cut a slot in some stripboard and soldered the LEDs to it. As everone says, when soldering SMD: put solder on one side, place component in position on solder, melt solder to hold on one side, then solder the other side. A bit of trial and error can still get you a good haul off a few broken boards.

I got a few more off than shown in the picture including some more 2 colour ones (a pain to de-solder). I’m not sure what I shal use them for yet but it was a good learning experience.

Any tips or stories of personal success?

Lots of LED Matrices. What to do with them?

I have a load of these 8×8 32mm LED matrices (20). Impulse buy, I dunno…

Now the problem. What to do with them all of them?

Any ideas welcome. LED matrix buttons have been considered and that might be one thing, but I have 20!

Anyone want some LED matrix buttons?

Bus Pirate Cases!

Ok, so I would like to claim that I thought of these all by myself as I had them on my list to do before any others had been made. Unfortunately that is probably not true but no problem. I am friendly

No doubt everyone thought about them at pretty much the same time!

Anyway I eventually got round to cutting some today. The delay was mainly because although I knew people wanted cases for them, I did not (and still do not) have one myself.

Without further ado, here are the pics:

The bus pirate V2 case is not my design. I simply took it off thinguniverse to see what it was like.

The V3 case is my own design and, for that reason, is currently wrong! The cable holes are not quite big enough and the USB hole is also about 0.5-1.0mm too small on each side for most USB cables.

The cases were cut out of dark blue 3mm acrylic and the top piece being cut out of dark blue transparent acrylic. I think that all on acrylic type would have looked better but this was spare.

Anyway, as a first go, it did not go too bad. Still looks cool!

Mowcius

Green Arduino USB covers!

When large sheets of acrylic are cut into laser cutter sizes, there are strips about 90x600mm long left over.

I used a nice transparent green piece to create a few funky green arduino covers!

I have 3 available and I will decide at a future time what I will do with them.

I am looking at a few pieces of acrylic in other colours such as transparent red and transparent blue among others so we will have to see what comes out of them.

Mowcius