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Sunday, January 20, 2013

Teardown of one of my first electronics projects: a PSU


This have been for about ten years a loyal companion in my electronics projects. And greater than that the fact that it was itself one of my first projects. After that time it still works like a charm.However I thought it was time to replace it with a PSU providing more functionality such as constant current and digital displays.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Thursday, July 26, 2012

The Polystyrene Cutter

Having been refered to in this post, a very important tool for easy cutting of the bare polystyrene boards was custom built because of saving some money.

While these can be found on the market, good models with adjustable heat may cost over 30 euros. By analysing the kind of hardware I would need, I found that it wouldn't be such a big problem because I already had most of the stuff in my electronics scrap containers.

The only thing I didn't had laying around was the support for the hot wire, which I had to buy. I just used a metal support with a wooden holder for a conventional saw, which proved to serve the purpose just fine:


Thursday, June 28, 2012

Letting it hover...

While the building phase can be an enjoyable experience, grabbing the sticks, putting the chopper on the ground, and gently increasing the thrust until that custom build apparatus starts to appear light on its stands is where the real fun begins. Would we ignore the noise of the struggling motors, and this styrofoam-shielded quadcopter would seem like a magical object for which gravity would be opening an exception everytime we wanted to. There is no magic, just technology, but still there is a sense of victory in tricking gravity in a brute force manner. Not in a magnificent scale as Howard Hughes H-4 Hercules, or lighter than air as Bartolomeu de Gusmão's flying bird, but still admirable for mimicking birds in the size and ability to fly (in a cumbersome way however), and for hovering like few of these animals can.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Multicopter Madness


R/C airplane modelling exists for several decades, but with late improvements and reduced cost in microelectronics, energy storage, and RF communications, products in this domain have suffered a significant improvement in quality and innovation.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Sensing the Heart Beat



Among the most basic forms of biometric data we may collect from ourselves is the heart beat.Wether to control our body response to sports activities, keep track of our health or to observe involuntary response to external interaction, this is one of the important parameters that is collected by physicians, and specialists of a multitude of health-related areas. What I am describing in this post is just the implementation of one of simplest forms of obtaining a waveform that represents the heart beat of an individual.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

New layout

After way too much time with the same layout, finally and in sync with Blogger restructuring and connection to Google+, I present you with a bit of a nicer look, which is at least is clearer for reading. Stay tuned, as some new posts are on the pipe, with updates on various topics, such as:
  • Geiger Counter - full schematics and firmware source code will soon be posted;
  • Time Lapse Photography - some new scenes of nature at its best will soon be made available.