A journal of hobbies
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 →
Originally, according to Wikipedia and other articles I’ve read wooden kitchen breadboards were used for electronics, which is where the term started. I’ve started using them too. I had a couple of accidents where they magic smoke was released from a couple of Arduino boards when an Arduino module was bumped and moved over a... Continue Reading →
I love the DS3231 RTC module and have used it in a couple of projects without a library using code based on Ralph Bacon’s example. It worked well, but I wanted to use the alarm and working out how to do that was a step too far for me. There doesn’t seem to be a... Continue Reading →
I recently recalled an interesting security key for a building car park at a block of units we stayed at a few years ago. It was a small block of units with maybe 10 - 20 units in the whole complex, probably built in the 1970s. Underneath was a carpark with a roller door to... Continue Reading →
One of the first computer games I played was Zork. It was back in 1981 and on a Dec 20 mainframe. I have a lot of happy memories of Zork so I was interested when Hackaday posted that MIT has released the original source code on Github. It wasn’t the puzzles that interested me back... Continue Reading →
When I was working on the Morse Code Decoder project I got unexpected results from the output of of the KY-037 audio module. The output was being monitored by an interrupt in the Arduino Nano. It was triggering far more than I expected. I wondered if it was triggering at the frequency of the audio... Continue Reading →
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