This is a page for some of my projects...
This is a weekend project that I made recently. Many of us have some junk cd or dvd writers lying around. These have many stepper motors and hidden CNC mechanics inside. I used 2 of them for this project as X and Y axes. Two EasyDriver modules are controlling each axis by the help of a tiny Arduino Nano. The controller script is GRBL which is well known for the purpose. There is a GRBL library for Arduino. A g-code interpreter is also used to create g-code and control the CNC manually or automatic from a file. This is a multi-tool device. A pen can be mounted to plot on a surface, a laser can be mounted to engrave something (logo, writing, shape etc) on surfaces such as paper, cardboard, leather, plastic or even thin aluminum sheet. Even one can use small high speed motors with drill bits to scratch similar things on a surface. I did not make a third axis but a Z azis can be added to the CNC to raise and lower the head. A floppy disk motor and mechanism must be used for the purpose instead of a cd or dvd driver because it is smaller and easier to mount on the moving head... |
---|
I recently ordered a Lidar Lite from Sparkfun... This is a very capable distance measurement device, a laser rangefinder in a very compact form and is also relatively cost effective... Pulsed Light company first carried out a successful Kickstarter campaign last year and now the device is commercially available... Link to manufacturer: http://pulsedlight3d.com/ After playing a little, I managed to get this tiny device working... the setup can be seen in the right picture... I placed the Lidar on a pan-tilt driven by an Arduino and sent distance measurement to PC on which the output is visualised by a Processing sketch... Actually I made this DIY Lidar Scanner to make some sort of use about it for my robot projects... However I am still trying to find a way to implement 3d virtualization out of it... If I can manage to make an 3D virtual image out of this Kinect like depth map, I will be pleased... Still short of ideas... Arduino sketch: LidarScanner.ino Processing sketch: Plot_LidarScanner.pde
|
---|
Touch Sensitive Robotic Skin
Having a lot of background on DIY resistive sensors, I decided to make a different approach to creating touch sensitive robotic skin... The skin pad you see on right pics shows a pad 20cmx20cm 8bit matrix with 8x8=64 junction points controlled with 8 analog and 8 digital pins on Arduino... I made this matrix inspired with the work of Markus and another study here and here ... Check the right pics for the materials and construction... As you can see the final skin is very thin and flexible... Can be placed on any part of the robot... Around arms, legs or chest... It can be constructed at any size... The Arduino code for reading the sensor is written by me using a software 12bit ADC for increased sensitivity... I am trying to find a way for visualising the output on Processing.... I will post future improvements.... Arduino code is : Robotic_Skin.ino |
Telescope Mods For Astrophotography
|
|
My Konus Maksutov telescope has a hand held controller for slewing and moving on RA and Dec axes. The controller was powered with AA batteries which is not supplying sufficient power and had round connectors which came loose easily. It also has a short cable for working near the telescope. This setup was not acceptable for astrophotography. I first added a power jack for the controller to use a 1amp power adapter and a 10mt long flat 6pin cable extension to use remotely. This 6pin cable and RJ45 jack which can snap securely has 6 pins and lighter. Only 4 pins are needed to control the telescope motors. The extra 2 pins are used to add a motorized focuser. I used a very slow and powerful gearmotor for the purpose. The motor is added to the telescope body using the side screws and some bent metal to act as a tensioning spring for the o-ring connected to focusing knob. The springed switch which I added to the hand controller can make very sharp focusing remotely. |
I have some Neurosky ThinkGear modules at hand and decided to make a project with this mighty module... I also own a Brainwave set and a Mindflex headset from Mettel... These devices can read your brain data as Alpha ,theta,etc waves and communicate with some apps on pc and android to play with controlling on screen icons on monitor... All these devices are using ThinkGear module to read brain wave data and use some algorithms to calculate attention and meditation values meaning concentration and relaxation of mind... I decided to implement a project with my ThinkGear modules to physically move an object with my mind... Mainly, controlling the fan speed of a motor... What I did is taking an old hair dryer and using only the DC motor trying to control fan speed by the use of a logic mosfet driven from a PWM pin of Arduino... By the help of this hardware I managed to float a pingpong ball from the air blown from the haie dryer... When I concentate and increase my attention values, the fan speed is increased proportionally and can control the fan speed thus raising the ball into air... For the purpose I hacked a Mindflex headset (the procedure can be found on internet) to send my brain data via bluetooth to Arduino... Arduino sketch receives that brain data over soft serial and after some calculations sends it as PWM to the mosfet which in turn drives the motor fan at proportional speed... Arduino sketch: ArduinoBrainControl.ino
|
|
---|
My DIY timelapse rig... As a DIYer I made a micoprocessor based Timelapse rig which has a linear motion and panning at the same time... fully customizable setup with 1 steps precision... time interval and speed adjustable with forward and reverse... I wrote the software running on Arduino and the hardware is almost in every DIYer's bin... You need: - Arduino UNO - Motor shield.. I used this one: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-motor-shield/o... - 2 small stepper motors... I used the paper driver mechanisms from scrap inkjet printers... - a tripod head (optional, you can fit something to hold the camera) - a small trigger circuit using an optocoupler... this isolates your camera from other electronics thus protecting it.. - curtain rail and 2 steel rods to strenghten it... - 1 mt threaded rod - some buttons and pot for setting panel The construction may differ for anyone who builds this. the Arduino program has explanations about parameters and these can be changed according to the steppers used... Arduino sketch: TimeLapseRig.ino
|
|
A simple airflow sensor for meteorology stations implemented with a 3pin dc fan and Arduino. I made this project for measuring wind speed. 3pin fans has a signal pin connected to internal hall sensor to detect rpm. As you can see on the Fritzing diagram only signal and gnd pins are connected. Some fans signal once per revolution whereas some send 2 signals per revolution. The fan I used in my project sends one signal per revolution. I used the internal interrupt0 (connected to D2 pin) of the Arduino to detect the rpm signal. Later I converted this rpm data to linear velocity using the formula velocity=(2*pi/60)*rpm*radius and grab linear speed value. I simply watch wind speed data on monitor but you can easily add an 16x2 lcd to see the data. The Arduino sketch: FanRPM.ino
|
---|
This is my Doppler Radar project implemented with HB100 microwave sensor, Arduino Nano and Nokia 5110 LCD. Sensor works on 10.5GHZ and outputs a weak frequency difference signal when movement is detected and the signal is proportional to the speed of movement. I made an op-amp board to amplify the signal. Wonderful work of 3zuli at GitHub helped me a lot. I made the board with standard iron transfer and chemical etching process. Later I prepared another module with matching dimensions for the Arduno Nano and connections for Nokia5110 LCD which is more or less in matching dimensions. I wrote the program such that when a movement is detected (i.e if movement is faster than 1 km/hr) the backlight 4 leds of the LCD lits up indicating the detection. Also the speed of movement is shown on LCD with big numbers. If you carry the module with you, then it shows your speed. I think of many possibilities of using this sensor in robotics. |
---|
I made this mobile test platform for experimental purposes. I wanted to build a small robot for testing environmental mapping, maze solving, object chasing and some artificial intelligence ( Q-Learning and Artificial Neural Network) applications. With its compact size this small robot came out to be quite agile and smooth movements. She has 2 small high-torque metal gearmotors with tank threads, powered with a DIY 2S LiOn battery I made from 2 Nokia Phone batteries and Arduino Nano brain. The motor driver is a L293D IC and she has various sensors to navigate. A HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor for detecting obstacles, 3 tiny Sharp IR sensors for collision sensing. The front IR sensor checks for gaps in front (to detect ground under the robot) and the 2 back sensors act as non-contact bumpers to detect obstacles at the back of the robot. With the aid of these sensors ArduPet can navigate around freely without colliding anything. This config can be used as environmental mapping and maze solving. Actually I am planning to add a Pixy camera for object following and the small pan servo is for that purpose. However until now I could not get Pixy camera working properly to track a colored object. Still working on that feature. As of now the robot can freely navigate on its own using a proportional driving algorithm (speedy when area is unblocked and slower when approaching obstruction) without colling anything and falling down from edges. Current navigation software: ArduPet.ino
|
---|
Recently I got a new module from Kickstarter which is called BigBuddyTalker... This module is a voice synthesizer which can speak more than 1000 words from text. I have made a web clock in the past with NODEMCU V3 esp dev module which connects to internet and grab current time from global NTP servers to display the time. Mainly a web clock just like the time displayed on your PC and smartphone. This time I added talking ability to my web clock to "say" the time on demand. This is a cool project and most of all it can be helpful to people with vision disabilities. The system is based on the esp dev board to connect to internet and grab current time to display on a 128x64 oled display but with the help of BigBuddyTalker module it can also "say" the time whenever person pushes a button. The audio amp and speaker is optional and can be replaced with earphones for private hearing... TalkingWebClock sketch: |
---|
please e-mail to me at dhepguler@hotmail.com