A journal of hobbies
If there was only one type of electronics project I was allowed to work on, I think it would be clocks. I've made a few and I regularly get the urge to make more. I've been thinking about making one using an ESP32 and LCD display that synchronises with internet time servers.. That's how this... Continue Reading →
Back on 3 October 2023 I wrote about the issues I was having building a notifier that would send alerts to our house whenever the mailbox flap opened or someone entered our driveway. Building a smart mailbox: Challenges and unsolved issues. After 2 and a half years and more tinkering I have made some progress.... Continue Reading →
I recently came across a discussion on Reddit about MT6701 working modes, where someone referenced my earlier posts on using a magnetic sensor as a rotary encoder. That prompted me to look more closely at the different MT6701 modules currently available and how suitable they are as drop-in replacements for mechanical encoders. What's the point... Continue Reading →
I've been working on a SI4732 radio for nearly two months and it's finally finished. The SI4732-A10 is a cheap little IC that contains almost everything needed for an LW, AM, FM, and SW radio. It is controlled through an I²C interface. There are lots of radios out there based on this design, including the... Continue Reading →
The first thing most of us do when learning Arduino try a blink sketch. In my quest to learn how to use cheap LCDs, I thought I’d do the same. In this case a simple animation blinking an eye. The plan was to make it display a couple of images; a closeup of an eye... Continue Reading →
I've been thinking if there is an easy way to make a simple and cheap control knob to replace those cheap quadrature rotary encoders in Arduino projects without the need to change the Arduino code or at least very minimal changes. This would only work if the angle sensor could produce a quadrature output like... Continue Reading →
I've been experimenting with angle sensor modules to use them as a replacement for those cheap rotary encoders. I like those cheap rotary encoders, but I'm looking for something better where the knob turns smoothly and it doesn't wear out. The cheap encoders wear fairly quickly and then contact bounce can become a problem. Also,... Continue Reading →
When I was contemplating building a weather station, the part that I thought would be the most straightforward was measuring temperature. As reality often doesn't match expectations, this has not been the case. I am using a couple of DHT22 temperature and humidity sensors. One for indoor and another for outdoors. I found this Random... Continue Reading →
I have a soft spot for rotary encoders. They are so simple, yet work so well as an interface. I have mostly used the cheap mechanical quadrature rotary encoders that are sold on modules. However, there are a couple of projects that I'm interested in where these are not ideal. The first is the tuning... Continue Reading →
I've had an interest in detecting lightning for many years. I remember reading an article about Benjamin Franklins lightning experiments back in the 80's or early 90's. I thought the article was in an issue of Electronics Australia, but I have not been able to locate it. Ben Franklin is fairly well known for flying... Continue Reading →
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