All items in category Hobby & Modelling

Bright Flashing LED – traditional analogue...

May 20, 2019 by Bram Melse

Bright Flashing LED – traditional analogue...

A flashing LED? What is so special about that, you may well ask yourself. A microcontroller plus a handful of discrete parts, and Bob's your uncle – isn't it? Still, many readers love analogue electronics and so we present a variant that is built entirely from discrete parts and hopefully triggers your own experimentation!

Create a red-light district with darkroom in the backroom of your house

by Clemens Valens

Create a red-light district with darkroom in the backroom of your house

At a time of digital photo cameras sporting many millions of pixels and colours and incredibly powerful image processing software, it's hard to imagine that there are people around who spend hours in a darkroom dipping their fingers in poisonous chemicals to develop monochrome negatives and positives? Yet there are, as is proven by this project on Elektor Labs.

Build an Electronic Die without Dots

February 19, 2019

by Clemens Valens

Build an Electronic Die without Dots

Tired of counting the dots on dice? Then use this circuit instead. Its 7-segment display shows in an unambiguous way the value. Easy-to-build, based on an ATtiny2313 microcontroller and programmed in Bascom. Pressing the push-button will roll the die until the push-button is released. A random number from 1 to 6 will then be shown. A simple way to play quietly during the evenings when the children are in bed.

Build a digital music platform or use it for something else

January 1, 2019

by ClemensValens

Build a digital music platform or use it for something else

We start 2019 with an Elektor project that although almost five years old still is interesting for (music-making) microcontroller enthusiasts. Why? Because the J²B Synthesizer is a flexible open source and hardware platform with many features and possibilities that can easily be transformed in something other than a music synthesizer. It even comes with an enclosure.

Build a GPS tracker for ultra-endurance cyclists

December 11, 2018

by Clemens Valens

Build a GPS tracker for ultra-endurance cyclists

Ultra-endurance cycling races with distances of several thousands of kilometres are becoming more and more popular. During such races cyclists ride for at least 16 hours a day. Some of these races require validation by a GPS track but how to keep it up and running all the time? The purpose of this project is to build a very low-power, simple GPS tracker that can run unattended for days at a time on a single battery charge.

Review: The Velleman CS400 Metal Detector

November 28, 2018 by Thomas Scherer

Review: The Velleman CS400 Metal Detector

Velleman's CS400 is the flagship model in their range of four metal detectors. When I got the chance to try out, I didn’t think twice - after all, I live quite close to where there are the ruins of an old castle, an ideal hunting ground for buried treasure — or so I thought...

Build your own (fitness) tracker

November 27, 2018

by Clemens Valens

Build your own (fitness) tracker

OK, so the design of this fitness tracker isn't quite as sleek as that of commercial products, but unlike those gadgets with 3-digit price tags this one is highly customizable. Not only is it up to you to design a suitable enclosure (or not) for it, what you put inside is for you to decide too. The basic version comes with GPS and OLED display and it does track your movements.

Build a digital stompbox

October 9, 2018

by Clemens Valens

Build a digital stompbox

Basically a stompbox is nothing more than a wooden box with a microphone in it on which the musical performer stamps the rhythm with her or his foot to produce a sound similar to a bass drum. But today, in the connected-objects world, it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without an ESP32 or I2C-OLED display. Electronics engineers make musicians happy, 'cause they make them toys. You too can make a musician happy by building this toy.

FormBox: a desktop vacuum former

October 1, 2018 by Thomas Scherer

FormBox: a desktop vacuum former

Startup Mayku has designed a handy desktop vacuum former to form a plastic sheet around a 3D model. All you need is a sheet of thermoplastic material and a household vacuum cleaner to generate the negative pressure and draw the heated sheet around the 3D single-surface mould...

Build a clock/scoreboard/timer with XL digits

September 25, 2018

by Clemens Valens

Build a clock/scoreboard/timer with XL digits

If you ever need a large display to keep the score for games, or a counter for sports events, this is the thing to build. With its four tall (10-cm / 4 inch) 7-segment digits it can be read easily from afar. The project is based on LEDitron modules, i.e. 7-segment displays built from LED filaments as found in modern lamps. And sure, it doubles as a clock!

«
1
2
3
4
5
6
»