MORE ABOUT Arduino

In the Sand Clock, every minute, two vibrator motors shake the sand to erase the time before writing the new time. To avoid the noise this causes, Elektor Labs thought of replacing the stylus and the sand by a small laser module (under 5V) and a sheet of phosphorescent self-adhesive paper: the result is a bright display with plenty of contrast, perfectly readable from afar, and perfectly silent.

This kit enables the rapid development of applications for fun, sound, useful or just pleasing. With conductive ink and other conductors of adhesive copper track. These components form switches and sensors which are controlled by a programmable board such as an Arduino. It can also make sounds. Five minutes after unpacking, thanks to the included accessories, you’re already having lots of fun.

Access to and control of IoT device data can happen via various methods, the best known of which is the asynchronous “big data” IoT approach. This article is about the lesser known synchronous “realtime” operation.

Take a 7-segment digit and make the colour of each segment freely programmable. A bright idea, but why the hell didn't anyone think of it before? Seven segment digits were patented as early as 1903. Only now we can freely program the colour of each segment individually and let it change instantly according to the parameters of our choice.  The 4 RGB-displays used in this RGB clock are available in the Elektor Store. The software uses the NeoPixel Arduino library.

Now available in the Elektor Store is Matthew Scarpino’s book Motors for Makers. From start to finish, you'll learn through practical examples, crystal-clear explanations, and photos. If you've ever salivated at what you could do with electric motors, stop salivating…and start making!

In the previous issue of Elektor we showed how easy it is to program the powerful ESP32 in the Arduino IDE. However, if you want to utilize the full functionality of this microcontroller with integrated WLAN and Bluetooth, you have to use the native ESP IoT Development Framework (IDF). Working with the various command line tools can be intimidating for beginners or developers without a Linux background, so this article aims to show you how it’s done.Ubuntu is the preferred operating system at Espressif, and the actions described in this article are intended to be performed under Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. If you use Windows instead, you can obtain more information at [2]. And if you are an Apple user, you should consult [3].

We are now offering you the opportunity to purchase the second edition of a book, focusing on the programming language Python 3 - one of the most popular languages around with the selling point of the speed of programming. This edition is aimed at people who want to interface PCs with hardware projects using graphical user interfaces. 

This new kit is a variant of Elektor’s earlier published sand clock. Instead of writing the time in a layer of sand, it uses a laser module to plot the time onto a piece of glow-in-the-dark sticker material. The original design of the sand clock was modified to fit a laser module running on 3 - 5 V. A switch allows starting the time writing sequence at will rather than at a preset interval. This upgrade-kit is nowavailable in your Elektor store.

Not long after the announcement by Intel that they would be withdrawing many of their embedded products, Sony have decided to enter the fray and will be showcasing an Arduino-compatible development board at the Tokyo Maker Faire. The board specification promises a multi-core ARM processor and built-in GPS/GLONASS capability...

The FreeSoC2 PSoC® 5LP Dev Board uses Cypress ARM processors and built-in configurable hardware to make a versatile system that can be used in the Arduino IDE or in the Cypress PSoC Creator environment (which offers many significant advantages). We take a quick look at the board to discover just some of the powerful features it has to offer. The FreeSoC2 PSoC® 5LP Dev Board is now available from the Elektor Store as part of a promotion.