Introduction For some time I have been planning to build a number of devices that make use of stepper motors. Since I have no experience in using stepper motors I had no idea what parts, what driver and controller circuits I would need to get them running. After extensive research …
Introduction I have seen many interesting modifications of (mostly) game controllers on the internet. They all have one thing common: they were specific to the controller in question. I wanted to design something that could be attached to any controller, regardless if it uses positive logic (button pressed = logic …
Introduction Although my “original” Spindicator itself was just a clone of this one, mine was well received by the geeks around the world! 🙂 A fellow diy tinkerer made an even better one with PWM control (very cool, indeed!). Recently, I was asked to do something similar for a custom XBOX 360 …
Finished unit mounted on the wall, in use. Introduction This project, like others before, has started out of need: our 30+ year old mechanical timer for the central heater of the house has finally given it up. It would have been faster and cheaper to get a replacement from the …
Introduction Towards the end of the ’80s, when I started out in electronics, one day I decided to make a special alarm clock: one, that, when the time comes, switches on some device in my room – be it a radio, TV or anything else. At the time microcontrollers were …
Introduction In the eighties most TV sets did not have the sleep function that is standard on today’s TVs. My grandfather was known to fall asleep about 5 minutes into watching any program on TV in the evening. Then, the TV would go on all night long. Those TVs in …
Introduction About a year ago we bought a new washing machine which seems to work nice, but it lacks a very important feature: it doesn’t notify me when the washing is done. I usually start a new load in the morning and, even though the programs usually finish in about an …
Introduction At the time of writing this article I cannot really recall why I started out on this project in the first place. Maybe, because some time ago I was experimenting with the built-in analogue-digital converters of some PIC micros and was thinking that they could be used easily to …
Introduction Now that I can take pictures of lightning I decided that I also want to be able to trigger my camera with sound. The design I came up with has the following features: If you like this project and would like to build it yourself all the necessary information …
