Graphical Component Tester

I've got this amazing tool for a while, I never really talked about it, so I think it's time. It's a component tester, relatively cheap, but quite surprising in terms of capabilities. It works on transistors, LEDs, inductors, capacitors, resistors, diodes, among a few others. It can detect the component and present it in a graphical way, providing its basic properties. For instance, it can give you LCR meter readings, distinguish between BJT and MOSFET transistors, NPN or PNP transistors, detect their gain and threshold voltage, and measure a diode's forward voltage. It's quite useful actually, although it typically comes just as a PCB with an LCD, which makes it a bit unpractical to use. And for that reason, I decided to design a 3D printed case for it and the 9V battery that powers it. In case you're interested in one, you can get the tester or the 3D printed case here.

eLab Hackerspace PCB Rulers

Having a PCB ruler in the hackerspace has always been an interest at our hackerspace, but we never actuallly designed one, until now. PCBWay has kindly offered to make some of our PCB rulers. There are quite a lot of PCB rulers out there, but I always thought they could look better, so I designed my own, and thus something that is both useful but equally beautiful. And since eLab hackerspace logo is black and white, it only made sense to use a supper cool matte black soldermask with white silkscreen. As for the copper layers, nothing looks better than gold on black! In case you want to get one, I'm selling them here on Tindie.

 

GearBest Decaker Micro Laser Engraver Review

A few months ago I was given this DECAKER Micro Laser Engraver by GearBest to make a review and I have finally had some time to do it, so here it is. Starting with a few basic information, this engraver has a 1W laser head and the engraving area it's only about 38x38 mm, but enough for a laser engraving amateur like me, at least for now.

That said, it won't work on metal, ceramics, stone or reflective materials, but it'll do just fine in wood, plastic, paper and leather. The engraver comes mostly assembled and is almost ready to use, which is certainly an advantage.

Lisbon Maker Faire 2015

Now this post is long overdue! And, since this year's Maker Faire will be in June, I think it's time to revisit last year's event. It took place on the 18th, 19th and 20th of September and it surpassed all expectations, welcoming over 14000 visitors!

This was the second edition of the event and many things were improved since the first one, most noticeably the dropping of the "Mini" adjective from its name, being this second one a full scale Maker Faire.

Ion Thruster

One of the cool projects I've worked on this summer was this Ionic Thruster. After seeing the original idea on Make Magazine by Alexander Reifsnyder, I was amazed to see it work so I decided to build my own version!

To make use of the tools I had available I decided to build the entire structure using 3D printing. This way not only would be a more simple build but it would also be easily replicable. I already did a full article about this project on eLab Hackerspace's blog, but I'm going to summarize it here anyway.

Restoring the Full Capacity of an SD Card

During my projects with single board computers with embedded Linux like the Raspberry Pi, the Beaglebone Black, pcDuino or the Cubieboard, often happens when I need to use and reuse SD cards to install Operating Systems into the boards. However, if later you want to use that same card as a normal storage unit, you might be surprised when you find out that a few MB or even GB are missing and worst, a simple formatting just won't fix the problem.

This happens because the card was formatted to be used with a Linux partition and Windows simply doesn't know how to deal with that. Fortunately there's a tool for that.

3D Printed DNA Lamp

A few months ago I was browsing online through some 3D models for 3D printing and I noticed there was some DNA strands that caught my attention. They looked nice, however they were not really ready for 3D printing, at least for most printers. Still, I was moving them around on the browser and I realized they created an amazing upwards and downwards effect when rotating them. I thought, if it looked that nice on my computer screen, it must be even more hypnotizing if it actually existed. Then this thought came to my mind: what if I would print a DNA strand, and put it over a rotating platform and make it a lamp? And thus, the idea for this project was born.

It was a good time to have this idea because, coincidently there was 3D printing contest happening on Instructables with some really nice prizes, so I thought about entering the contest with this project. Since I published a fully detailed tutorial of the entire project on Instructables, I won't get into details here. The files are available for download at My Mini Factory. If you're not into DIY you can just get one on Tindie.

MSP430 BSL Rocket EMF Detector

A few months ago I received the MSP430-BSL Rocket from Texas Instruments Europe, as a prize for a Facebook contest. The Rocket is a low-cost programmer for MSP430 devices but since it has its own microcontroller, I thought it would be fun to use it for another application: an EMF detector! By the way if you need a TI launchpad, I'm selling a few of mine on Tindie.

Since it has a rocket shape, I had the idea to build a custom flame shaped PCB for the output LEDs, which I could plug through the 2x5 pins BSL connector.

Power over Ethernet Adapter

This was probably the simplest and yet one of the most successful projects I ever made. A Power over Ethernet or PoE Adapter, which allows the usage of Ethernet cable to transmit not only data but power as well for the network equipments.

There are 2 pairs of wires that are not used on UTP cables for communication on 10/100Mbps networks. So these adapters will allow you to use those wires for power transmission.

SRAM Memories

A Static Random Access Memory, best known as SRAM, is a type of memory that keeps the data stored as long as it's powered, therefore considered a volatile memory. Unlike the DRAM memories, the SRAM doesn't need to be periodically refreshed, which allows for higher access speeds, however they're usually more expensive, consume more power, take up more space and heat more than the DRAM alternative.

Here I'll explain how I designed a small 32 bit SRAM memory (8 rows of 4 bits) for academic purposes. The goal was to design the memory cells and the necessary circuits to its operation, and then to implement the respective layout. The complete circuit was needed to be able to simulate the read and write cycles, while analysing the results.

NST Spark Gap Tesla Coil

I remember being attracted by lightning ever since I was a little kid. It always fascinated me staring through a dark and rainy window, during a thunderstorm, watching lightning strike down, lighting up the entire sky while listening to the deafening and imposing sound of thunder. It was quite a show directly from nature, but for me it was more than entertainment, it brought along questions with it, waking up that curious side of me, leading me through my first steps into science: What exactly is it? How does it work? Why does it happen?

How great would it be if you could control that and make it happen anytime you want? So, a few years ago, I learned about Tesla Coils, an air core electrical resonant transformer, invented by Nikola Tesla at the end of the XIX century, able to generate high voltages at high frequencies, resulting in electrical discharges just like small lightning. From that moment I knew I had to build my own Tesla Coil.

Lisbon Mini Maker Faire

Last weekend, on the 19th 20th and 21st of September, I had the amazing opportunity to be part of the first Portuguese Maker Faire. It took place in "Pavilhão do Conhecimento" or in english, the Pavilion of Knowledge, in Lisbon and it was visited by over 9000 people, making it mini only in name.

Maker Faire is the greatest show and tell in the world! Originally created by Make magazine, is an event to celebrate arts, crafts, engineering and science projects associated with the Do It Yourself (DIY) movement where the main focus is the sharing of knowledge, experiences and ideas.

Node School Event

Recently I was convinced by a friend of mine to go to a Node School Event that he was helping organize. I was always curious about node.js and I've seen pretty interesting applications developed in this platform (and in fairly small amounts of time) so I decided to give it a try.

The event took place on August the 2nd in Faro, Portugal, and it was organized by a local community group called Geek Sessions. They usually organize talks about networking and technology in general. This time they prepared a Node School Event where we were able to learn the basics.

New Hardware

I usually don't participate in random internet contests, we all now how annoying they might be and you're lucky if you don't get yourself a new subscription to spam. However I recently tried my luck at a Facebook contest from Texas Instruments Europe, it seemed simple enough and since it's from TI, I knew I could trust it. So imagine my surprise when I found out that I was actually one of the winners!

The prize was an MSP430 BSL Rocket from Olimex, which is basically a programmer for MSP430 microcontrollers with a rocket shaped PCB, a collaboration between TI and Olimex. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to try it yet, but I'm counting on using it soon.

So, thank you TI Europe for this prize, I'll make good use of it!

XBee Regulated Adapter Board

Some time ago I came across a project during my Master's Degree that required the use of XBee modules. They are basically 2.4GHz radio modules that make use of the standard IEEE 802.15.4, they are useful for creating low power wireless networks, however their transmission rate is a bit limited.

The thing is that they are quite easy to use and configure but from a prototyping point of view, they are a bit annoying because they don't fit into the breadboard pinout, they have a pin spacing (pitch) of 2mm, instead of the usual 2,54mm, which means you need an adapter. Of course this is not a problem, you can find a lot of them in many stores, cheap too.

TDS210 Oscilloscope on LabVIEW over GPIB (IEEE-488)

During my studies, I've done a lot of interesting works, like the calculations for electromagnetic fields on my last post for example, and this is another one. For my Industrial Instrumentation class, I came across this work that had to be done using LabVIEW. The goal was to build a virtual interface for a real instrument that would communicate over GPIB interface (IEEE-488) and that could be used to control and read values remotely.

The work was to be done in groups of 2 and we had the opportunity to choose what instrument we would use. The choice was basically between a TDS210 Oscilloscope and a random multimeter which I don't remember the brand and model anymore.

Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) in High Voltage Power Lines

Have you ever wondered about the electromagnetic field around a high voltage power line? Well I have, quite often actually, but I never really found much information about it, at least online. Fortunately, I had to do a work about it, during my academic studies in 2012, it just asked for the EMF values for a constant height but I thought I should make it more interesting by varying the height and making the results a bit more dimensional.

The problem basically gave me the parameters of a specific transmission line and asked for the electromagnetic values at a constant height of 1.8 meters from ground (approximately the height of a person's head), considering that the person could move on the X axis of a transverse section of the power line.

Lamp Starter Blinking Lights

This is probably the most simple "project" I've ever tried, it's actually more like a small experiment than a project itself. I wanted an easy way to make light bulbs blink but I didn't want to waste a lot of time making a circuit and I wanted to use whatever I had laying around. So I decided to try a little trick:

I had plenty of fluorescent lamp starters and I thought, if this is a thermal switch, it should give me the blinking random effect that I wanted.

Laboratory ATX Power Supply Unit

Now this is a more recent project that I did back in 2012. As I started getting to work on electronics along came the need to have a decent power supply for my experiences, instead of always using different, cheap and weak power adapters. Since I had a few power supply units from old computers laying around, I thought I should modify one to fit my needs. They have a few different voltages available and can be quite powerful.

This was the final result. I wanted it to have a cool high-tech look so I painted the case all black and put some green LEDs inside.

Light Switch ON/OFF LED Indicator

When I was first learning electronics I was faced with a little problem. I wanted to have some kind of indicator to tell me if a certain light on a remote location would be ON or OFF. Sure, there are light switches with LED or neon indicators but none of them actually had one for the ON position and another for the OFF position.

I didn't know much yet so I went to talk with a teacher about it. He gave me this circuit for me to try: