Arduino – Page 5 – SuperHouse Automation

Posted on December 31, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — 1 Comment

Arduino NYE Countdown Timer!

Any New Year’s party is incomplete without some sort of countdown to welcome in the new year! Although you could easily use an app on your phone, nothing beats the satisfaction of making your own! This is exactly what The Soldering Station has done using a seven segment display and an Arduino Uno.

The instructions are very thorough so you should have no trouble getting your countdown timer ready in time for the 31st of December! To get started checkout the following link. You can see the kit in action in the video below.

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Inspired to start work on this project? Are you working on a project you would like us to feature in this blog? The team at SuperHouse Automation would love to know! Tell us about it in the comments section below or on Facebook and Twitter.

Posted on December 23, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — Leave a comment

Robotic Drum Kit

Unlike flawed human drummers, this Arduino powered robotic drum kit never slows down or speeds up! Randofo from instructables has modified his entire drum kit so that it can be controlled over USB on his computer.

The drum kit has a one set of motor controlled drumsticks for each drum or cymbal. Each of these sets of drumsticks is controlled using an Arduino Uno and a motor shield. This is a very impressive project, but also a project that is certainly able to be completed by someone willing to put int the time and effort. The results definitely are fantastic! To find out more check out the following link.

When you use motors in your Arduino project you will almost certainly need a H-Bridge motor driver. A H-Bridge allows you to easily control the direction of your motors from within your code. The Freetronics Dual Channel H-Bridge Motor Driver Shield is a perfect solution to this problem, allowing you to drive two DC motors or a stepper motor. The Dual Channel H-Bridge Motor Driver Shield features PWM control, selectable current limits and a prototyping area to add your own parts. To find out more check out the Dual Channel H-Bridge Motor Driver Shield page.

Want to keep in the loop about the latest in home automation? Subscribing to SuperHouse Automation on YouTube is the best place to start!

Posted on December 22, 2016December 22, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — Leave a comment

MAC Addresses

A fundamental aspect of many home automation projects is the ability to connect an Arduino to the internet to allow easy control of inputs and outputs from anywhere in the world. A crucial part of achieving this connection is to set up a MAC address for your Ethernet connected Arduino. A MAC address is a unique identifying number that is needed in the data link layer of a TCP/IP network. To find out more about how to setup MAC addresses checkout the following link.

Want to keep in the loop about the latest in home automation? Subscribing to SuperHouse Automation on YouTube is the best place to start!

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — Leave a comment

Arduino Christmas Lights Controller

With Christmas fast approaching now is a great time to build a Christmas light controller and add some spectacular effects to your lighting display. Controlling LEDs is something that Arduino is particularly good at which makes it perfect for controlling Christmas lights. There are many potential projects and combination of colours and patterns that are possible. The following link gives some great tips on making your own lighting display.

Want to keep in the loop about the latest in home automation? Subscribing to SuperHouse Automation on YouTube is the best place to start!

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — Leave a comment

Build Your Own Scoreboard

Wouldn’t it be cool to build your own full sized outdoor scoreboard? This is exactly what joevpt has done. The scoreboard uses 24 DMD displays which are controlled by 6 Arduino boards. Impressively the scoreboard updates automatically from an iPhone app which is used to keep track of the scores at joevpt’s rugby club. If you want to read more about this project checkout this thread on the Freetronics forum.

If you are impressed by this project and want to build your own scoreboard, why not checkout the range of displays offered by Freetronics. They are simple to use, yet very bright for indoor and outdoor situations. Available in various colours, the 32 x 16 LED matrix can display text and graphics easily, and can be daisy-chained together for extended displays. For more information, find out more about the Freetronics Dot Matrix Displays here.

Want to keep in the loop about the latest in home automation? Subscribing to SuperHouse Automation on YouTube is the best place to start!

Inspired to start work on this project? Are you working on a project you would like us to feature in this blog? The team at SuperHouse Automation would love to know! Tell us about it in the comments section below or on Facebook and Twitter.

Posted on December 10, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — Leave a comment

Lightning Detector

Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to sense and track lighting strikes using Arduino? Typically lightning detectors are very expensive, however, runtimeprojects has developed a cheap system for detecting lighting using only an Arduino Uno and a few resistors. Impressively the circuit can detect lightning as far away as 20km! At a basic level this lightning detector works by detecting changes in electromagnetic radiation using a small antenna which picks up small fluctuations in the electromagnetic spectrum, particularly at around 7kHz. If you want to find out more about this impressive project checkout the following link.

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — Leave a comment

Arduino UV Meter

With warmer summer months approaching (at least for us Australians) it is becoming more important to be sunsmart. What better way to start being sunsmart than to build your own Arduino UV Meter! This UV meter uses an OLED display a ESP-1 WiFi module along with a number of sensor to provide the inputs and outputs.

If you want to find out more about this impressive project check out the instructable from funelab. The instructions are well explained and include instructions on how to 3D print a case which is perfectly designed for the keychain.

Posted on December 1, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — Leave a comment

What is Arduino?

If you have been following our Facebook or Twitter pages or reading our blog you have probably heard a lot about this wonderful thing called “Arduino”. Although most of you are probably well versed in what Arduino is, some of our readers may have no idea. For this weeks Skill Sunday we have put together a brief introduction about exactly what Arduino is and why you should be interested, you can find it here.

Just discovered what Arduino is and you would like to learn how to use it yourself? The team at SuperHouse Automation recommends the Freetronics Experimenter’s Kit for Arduino. The package includes a wide variety of parts, sensors and modules including: a servo motor, lights, buttons, switches, sound, sensors, breadboard, wires and more. Furthermore a Freetronics Eleven Arduino-compatible board is included to make this an extensive hobby experimenter, inventor and starter kit. The kit also includes a great project and instruction booklet, plus access to a supporting web page and software examples. To get started or for more information and to pre-order (just in time for Christmas), check out the product page.

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — Leave a comment

Gesture Controlled Smart Home

It is already possible to easily control devices in your house using an app on your phone, but what if you could turn on the lights or open the blinds with a simple movement of your hands? This is exactly what Joaquim has done using an MYO gesture control armband.

Joaquim has explained his project in great detail, but the results certainly have to been seen to be believed. To find out more check out the following link.

Fundamental to almost all home automation project is the ability to connect devices to Wifi. If you are wondering how to connect your Arduino to Wifi, why not checkout the Freetronics ESP-01 WiFi Module shield for Arduino. The shield has a socket that’s perfect for the ESP-01 module (a very common and cheap wifi module), and addresses all the needs of the ESP8266 including supplying the correct power and connections to your Arduino. Don’t fiddle with jumper wires or sub-standard power supplies – order your Freetronics ESP-01 WiFi Module Shield today! They’re in stock right now for only $14.

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Daniel de Waard — Leave a comment

Arduino Clock

If you are getting bored of your current clock why not have a shot at making your own? Barzok has put together a great tutorial explaining how you can use a number of small LED matrix to build your own professional looking clock. Although the time display looks fabulous, it is the Arduino and real time clock module found inside which are responsible for ensuring the correct time is displayed. If you like the look of this project check out the following link to find out more.

If you are looking for a real-time clock module to complete this project (or any other project which requires precise timing) checkout the Freetronics Maxim DS3232 real-time clock IC module.