code, circuits, & construction
code and fabrication resources for physical computing and networking
Mike Kuniavsky and Tod Kurt of ThingM recommended these RFID readers from Son Micro. They’re some of the cheapest ones I;ve seen on the market, and relatively small.
Thanks to Anne Hong for sending the link.
Technorati Tags: electronics, networked objects, networks, RFID
Recently, I’d been trying to re-program some Atmega168’s for use in Arduino modules, and was having no luck using my AVRISP MkII programmer. All appeared to be working, but it kept failing. I even dug into the details of avrdude, and the programmer responded as if it was working but delivered no love.
Fortunately I had on hand a USBTinyISP from Adafruit. Even more fortunately, Limor Fried has written some nice instructions on the programmer and on installing and running avrdude to program with it. What’s nice is that she’s packaged the software well, so you can run it without too much hassle. The only thing I had to learn was how to point avrdude at her custom config file, by using the -C flag, like so:
./avrdude -C avrdude.conf -v -p m168 -e
(etc)
Even nicer, David Mellis is including support for this programmer in Arduino 0010, so that I can burn new bootloader firmware onto the chips using it without needing to touch the command line app.
Even nicer still: her programmer’s cheaper than the AVRISP mkII (of which I have blown up a few). I may blow this one up in time too, but I’ll be able to afford to replace it much easier.
Technorati Tags: atmel, electronics
Got an LED that you don’t know the ideal resistor value for? Here’s a handy calculator for it.
Thanks to Ramakrishnan Subramanian for the link.
Here’s another one, courtesy of James Tu.
Here’s a calculator for complex LED circuits, courtesy of Amit Pitaru.
Technorati Tags: electronics
Adafruit makes a variety of DIY electronics kits, including POV displays, AVR programmers, Arduino modules, and more. She also writes good tutorials on how to use them, including her intro to AVR programming
Technorati Tags: arduino, electronics, pcomp, physical computing
Caleb Clark sent a link to Silicon Solar’s small flexible solar panels. They come as a battery charger, and are quite convenient. Thanks to Caleb for the link.
Technorati Tags: electronics, environment, solar
CCD Direct sells everything you might need for computer vision: cameras, frame grabbers, cables, and more. They also have a nice search tool that lets you search by manufacturer, sensor, input, output, features (including rs-232, external trigger, megapixel, etc), and more.
Thanks to Sasha Harris-Cronin for the link
Technorati Tags: computer vision, video
BG Micro is another online electronics retailer. They carry kits, surplus parts, and retail parts.
Thanks to Andrew Milmoe for the link.
Technorati Tags: electronics
HB is an electronics reseller shipping parts from China. Pretty good prices on LEDs, Peltier modules, and more. Their shipping is not cheap, however.
Thanks to Todd Polenberg for the link.
Technorati Tags: electronics
Mettrix is an upstate NY company that does PCB fab and assembly. Their work is recommended by Todd Polenberg, and apparently they can do Ball grid array parts too.
Thanks to Todd Polenberg for the link.
Technorati Tags: CNC, electronics, PCB
MidiStroke is an application for OSX that allows you to trigger keystrokes an any application using MIDI messages. It can be used to automate various tasks using MIDI devices. Could be useful not only for musicians, but also for anyone looking to control an everyday application using a specialized physical interface: occupational therapists, VJs, designers working on large scale projects, graphic artists, and more.