A few of the things I have been up to
I was recently browsing eBay and a Walkman style cassette player popped up in the list. I was immediately interested as the player was a National Way RQ-WJ1 Cassette Player. These were made in the early 80's by National that later went on to become Panasonic. The asking price was AU$400.00 (about US$270.00). It was... Continue Reading →
I've noticed a lot of small storage items appearing in shops made of bamboo. I bought a pen holder and started wondering if these would make a good project case. I'm still considering that, but haven't thought of a suitable project for it. Maybe if it had a stand so that it sat at this... Continue Reading →
I recently built another clock. This time using a 16x2 LCD display with an I2C backpack. In know these displays are starting to look a bit dated, but I like them. I used a method of display large digits based on Ralph Bacon’s video #23 LCD BIG DIGITS for your Arduino using I2C - Easy!... Continue Reading →
2 combined clock and timer projects using the DFPlayer modules I've used the DFPlayer mp3 player in a number of projects now, not as a music player, rather just for playing brief announcements in a timer and clock projects. The DFRobot site lists applications and they all appear to be for announcements, so theoretically it... Continue Reading →
In recent post I've posted about Using Text to Speech online tools to create audio files for Arduino projects and Batch processing files with Audacity. I have a couple of projects that use speech alerts and one of those is a speaking clock. It announces the time at the press of a button, but more... Continue Reading →
In my last post Using Text to Speech online tools to create audio files for Arduino projects I had some info about online text to audio sites I have been using to create audio alert files for projects. The files produced by ttsmp3.com seemed to have a lower audio level than I expected. I found... Continue Reading →
I’ve made a couple of projects that play audio alerts using a dfplayer and MP3 files. One in a clock that plays announcements and the other a countdown timer. When I did those, I used onlinetonegenerator.com to convert text to speech. I liked the voices but it doesn’t have an option to save the audio... Continue Reading →
I love those simple cheap rotary encoders as used in the KY-040 modules as a method of getting user input with Arduino and ESP32 projects. The issue of bounce with them is significant and for years I’ve been looking a reliable method of dealing with it. I thought I had it figured out by either... Continue Reading →
Getting decent quality prototype breadboards for a reasonable cost is something that has eluded me for years. I think I have finally found a reliable source. Those advertised on eBay or at least the cheaper ones seem that I have previously purchased too often have poor metal connectors inside. It can be difficult to insert... Continue Reading →
I recently built a simple one button Arduino based IR remote control to mute our TV and Computer amp. I am quite happy with the results. The idea to use half a stress ball for the mute button I thought was inspired. The timber case built using with the aid of some jigs I made... Continue Reading →
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