theTransistor Forums - All Forums

Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show: Episode 03

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:51:17 -0700

paintball team communications

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:06:14 -0700

This is purely brainstorming, I don't know if it'd ever come to fruition. (though I really hope it does!)

I want to make a system that I can use when paintballing to allow to communicate certain things to teammates, like if someone is moving/staying still, if someone has been tagged, or whatever. But be able to display this by some kindof system inside the goggles. Also, personal info such as a compass, game time, maybe even a ball-counter to display rounds shot / rounds remaining.

EDIT: Oooh and it'd be cool to set up an infrared system to detect friends from foes. If you're pointing at your teammate, an alarm goes off or whatever. Ha. Cool.

The biggest thing that's concerned me is getting each individual system to communicate with each other. Does anyone know of some kind of radio devices I could use to do that with? bluetooth is already way too out of the picture, because I'm covering a rather large distance. I have looked around a bit, but haven't been able to find much. Maybe I don't know what I need to be looking for though.

Holy snap! There's a hackerspace in provo!!

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:06:42 -0700

Cool!! Glad to hear it. My name is Riley, I live in Orem. Hi.

Not sure what to say about myself, I just figured out what Arduinos were the other day, I'm waiting for my first kit to arrive. I love electronics, computers, robotics. Studying Mechatronics at UVU, gonna be moving onto electrical engineering in January. Yep, that's pretty much it.

Hello, everyone

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:35:07 -0700

Hi there everyone,
My name is Abraham Barker. I go by the screen name angryScientist on a couple other forums so I might as well keep it up on this one. I live down here in Sanpete, for the moment anyway.

It seem I have always been interested in electronics. My grand mother used to work at Tektronix up in Portland as did my father. My father helped me get interested in electronics at a young age. I got my Technician class Amateur Radio license when I was twelve. I latter upgraded to General class but have since let the license expire, I'm not really a big talker anyway.

My Grandfather was an English professor up at Portland state and he is the one who got me interested in Nikola Tesla. I recently purchased the Colorado Springs Notes, fascinating, but that is a story for another time perhaps.

My mother took an electronics course down here at Snow when I was growing up. She never got into it that much so I inherited all her books and things. That's what I "feed" myself on through my teenage years.

I have been looking for a group like this one for a while now. Few are the people down here that know much about electronics and they are far between and or getting older.

I am in a bit of a dilemma. My friends dad died a couple of years ago. He had worked at a electronics place up north and was kind of a "pack rat." Anyway he collected quite a mass of components and his son gave a bunch of what he did not throw away to me.

The problem is I need to move out of the place I am living in very soon. Don't want to store all this stuff nor can I ever use as much as much as I have. I need to get rid of boxes and boxes of electronic components. If that sound interesting please let me know.

Here is a general idea;
Hundreds of UVEPROM's, RAM, ADC's, High Voltage Darlington arrays(ULN2803), opamps, analog multiplexers, voltage regulators, DTMF generators/receivers, bus latches, decoders, etc.....
Boxes and boxes of resistors some MIL spec., capacitors(electrolytic, polyester, tantalum, etc...), connectors, cables, switches, transformers(wall wort's, audio, power, etc...)

I have no transportation at the moment so if you can help me out I'm sure I could do you some good.

gmc2000 introducing

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 05:20:06 -0700

Hi all,

A short introduction, i'm gmc and I'm from The Netherlands, Europe (The Hague to be a bit more precise).

I am the founder of revspace, the hackerspace in my city. Recently I started Signal, the hackerspaces.org radio stream, together with fish_ and astera. For the rest I'm into pinball, computers, security, and such subjects.

I've taken up the idea to cruise around the US, starting in Seattle, then down to LA, Las Vegas, up a bit and to the east to New York and then
Miami. Mode of transport: car.

The goal is to visit as many hackerspaces as possible on the way.

The Transistor seems to be one of the few hackerspaces in between Vegas and and the more crowded general area of Iowa/Wisconsin.

I hope I'll be welcome at your space, and perhaps someone can suggest a place where i could sleep for a day or two (i'm on a shoestring budget though).

Vanilla Queen - Ice Under Pressure

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:19:57 -0700

Because some things just need to be shared.

Cars hacked through wireless tire sensors

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:19:26 -0700

"The tire pressure monitors built into modern cars have been shown to be insecure by researchers from Rutgers University and the University of South Carolina. The wireless sensors, compulsory in new automobiles in the US since 2008, can be used to track vehicles or feed bad data to the electronic control units (ECU), causing them to malfunction."

[Via Ars Technica]

Red Green

Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:52:43 -0700

So, I've never heard of the Red Green Show, and Deven thinks this is some kind of grievous offense.

Thoughts?

Trent's Intro (finally)

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 15:15:17 -0700

My name is Trent Robertson and I've been coming to the Transistor for a few weeks now. But I kept putting off getting on the forums....

Anyways, I'm a 20 year old kid who mostly plays video games. I also attend UVU as a Computer Science Major (just started a year ago) and sometimes perform in plays an musicals (currently Annie Get Your Gun @ the Scera Shell Outdoor Theater). Oh, and my newest hobby is to dumpster dive and scrap metal.

~Trent

Arduino Kits

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 10:57:06 -0700

Will the arduino kits be available to buy tonight, August 7, 2010? And will there be a pc or laptop to program them to see if they work?

Thanks

James

Makerbot?

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:38:14 -0700

Who's Cupcake is that in the pictures in the Aug 2nd front-page post?

I want to poke it with a stick, and see how well it performs.

I'm paying for my 3D printer on the installment plan, and am almost happy with the results, pics&details @ http://protovision.com.

Bill

Exploding Components

Sun, 01 Aug 2010 07:45:30 -0700

... in HD.

Handsome Men's Club

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:11:08 -0700

Arduino, Robotic Arm, Mouse :D

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:49:59 -0700

[Via HackADay]

[Source] [Authors Site - Circuits At Home]

The Chipophone

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:54:44 -0700

[via Make]

Sweet!

[Click here for build log]

Utah Open Source Conference in October

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:46:33 -0700

Hey, all.

I'm a relative noob with DIY hardware hacking. I've only been to one Make:Provo and yeah... anyway.

So, every year the Utah Open Source Conference comes around and I attend because it's so dang inexpensive for the quality of the discussions and info.

One thing that is _very_ under-represented is Open Source hardware and hardware projects.

I just wanted to let you guys know about the opportunity to go do a presentation. It could be a good marketing opportunity for TT. It will look good on your resume and it could be a ton of fun!

I'm not associated in any way with the conference, other than I presented last year and have submitted a proposal to present again this year.

If you're at all inclined, I think it'd be cool to see more hardware at the conference whether it was Arduino (& clones) or MakerBot, or... anything else.

Here's the link: http://2010.utosc.com/pages/home/

Presentation proposal deadline was extended to Aug 1st regardless of what it says on the site.

-JT

Group Project : MAME Cabinet

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:05:34 -0700

Use this thread to post all questions, suggestions, pictures, etc regarding the build of the MAME cabinet. If you are not familiar with the general information, please visit theTransistor Blog.

Warehouse Robots

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:37:06 -0700

Sweet

paniclater - Ryan

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:27:40 -0700

Hi, my name is Ryan -- I just bought an arduino starter kit--I have experience with Max/MSP and I am interested in building some interactive musical toys. Are the saturday nights open to the public/what is the best way to get started and active in the community?

Arduino Motor Shaft Position Sensor Options

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:01:45 -0700

Hey everyone, I'm working on getting a digitally controlled motor setup for the Arduino working, and have made a good deal of progress on the H-Bridge end of things (I'll post more on that once the design is finalized).

What I'm not sure of is the position sensor I'll need for this setup to work. I need a position sensor that can rotate continuously, and gives a fairly accurate reading. I also need it to take no more than one analog pin on the Arduino.

I've looked into continuous rotary potentiometers, which can be fairly pricey, and generally have rather inaccurate signals without a fair bit of filtering beforehand. I know rotary encoders are much cleaner and usually more accurate, but they can be expensive as well. I'm not sure if there are any encoders I can get to work using only one analog pin (and presumably some kind of counting chip or other interpreter chip). I've seen mention of using a two-axis hall effect sensor, but I don't know much about that either.

My question to you all is this: Are continuous rotary potentiometers the best position sensors available, or is there something better out there that will use only one analog input pin?