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A netbook is not a laptop substitute!

November 04 2009

A while ago my 15.4" laptop (Celeron 1.5GHz, fairly basic machine) died after a number of years of faithful service. I'd been wanting a netbook for a while and it seemed some were getting to the point of being fast enough to do everything a laptop can do, but in… read more

Practical Arduino: done

October 18 2009

Originally posted on Practical Arduino Or at least it's done as far as Hugh and I can influence it, anyway. It's all in Apress' hands now: don't let us down, please! I don't think I'm emotionally quite ready to do a de-brief post about the experience yet but I can… read more

Car engine datalogger project update

September 27 2009

Originally posted on Practical Arduino The final project of the book is turning out to be epic. It's taken me far longer than I expected, and I've hit quite a few snags along the way. I've also had to make quite a few compromises because if I implemented everything I… read more

Water flow gauge project update

September 13 2009

Originally posted on Practical Arduino I "finished" the first draft of the water flow gauge project quite a while ago but I was never really satisfied with it. It's quite an important project in the book because it's used to demonstrate some critical concepts such as interrupts, but as a… read more

Oscilloscope hardware all done

August 29 2009

Originally posted on Practical Arduino The hardware came together quite nicely, but the software side of this project is giving me a surprising amount of trouble. The pic below shows it connected to the serial data line on an RFID shield mounted on a Mega: Hardware works just fine, but… read more

Crazy multi-processor ARM-based Arduino system

August 19 2009

Originally posted on Practical Arduino This is so freaking awesome I don't even know where to start. I want to tell you about ten different things at once and they're all trying to crowd through the door at the same time and getting jammed together! An email to the Arduino… read more

Surface mount soldering with garden tools

August 14 2009

Originally posted on PracticalArduino I bet this is a tip you never expected to see! My essential tools for surface-mount soldering include tweezers and ... a garden fork? A couple of weeks ago I came across a little how-to on MakeZine about making a pointer weight for SMD soldering. I… read more

Arduino 0017 is out

August 11 2009

Originally posted on Practical Arduino A few minutes ago Arduino 0017 was officially released, so fire up your browser and start downloading! You can grab it for Windows, Linux, and MacOS from arduino.cc/en/Main/Software I've been using the beta for a little while and it has some very nice improvements over… read more

Video of Geek My Ride talk at LUV up already

August 07 2009

Ben Balbo brought his video magic along to the LUV meeting and the vid is up already! Incredibly fast. read more

What would you do with 20mm accuracy GPS?

August 06 2009

On Tuesday night I did a talk at LUV on Geek My Ride (see the post on Practical Arduino for more information if that takes your fancy) but probably the most interesting thing about the night was catching up with Hamish Taylor again and hearing about his crazy-accurate GPS project… read more

Outcome of The Shearing

August 03 2009

A little while ago I blogged about a friend who has contracted cancer and my decision to shave my head to raise funds for cancer research. Well, brace yourself. Last Friday afternoon at IVT we ended the regular Tech Talk with a shearing session out in the rec room. The… read more

Water flow gauge and wierd bug when adding floats

July 25 2009

Original posted on Practical Arduino I've just finished off what was meant to be one of the simplest projects in the book, and from an electrical point of view it is: there are exactly 2 parts required other than an Arduino and basic stuff like wire / headers, and one… read more

Review of AVR prototyping board from ProtoStack

July 23 2009

Originally posted on Practical Arduino I got a very interesting board from ProtoStack last week, and as a bit of an experiment I did a quick review on video. This is probably about the last time people will see me with hair. A friend was diagnosed with cancer recently and… read more

Raising money for cancer research

July 13 2009

A little while ago a close family friend was diagnosed with cancer in his lungs and kidneys. Not a great thing to be told while still recovering from open heart surgery! He's since been going through a nasty series of chemotherapy treatments that have really knocked him around, and it's… read more

Arduino talking to car engine management system

June 18 2009

Originally posted on Practical Arduino Just made a big step forward in the Car Engine Datalogger project with an ELM327 interface chip connected to the second serial port on an Arduino Mega: I can now issue data requests from the Mega and read the return value back from the engine… read more