MachineGrid

Taking Apart the ATV-360 EyePiece [Head Mounted Display]

As promised, after taking apart the ATV-360 Spy Video here, this is a follow-up on taking apart the Head Mounted Display[HUD]. The HUD has some very interesting DIY parts and ideas which you can try out. Maybe a cool wearable. The details on all the parts used are at the end of the post and comments are open for discussion.

The HUD consists of a frame which sits in the same way …

16 Comments | Posted in » Hackable Toys, Tutorials, hacks

Hacking the Hannah Montana Photocube – Almost!

Things with LCDs are very interesting. I found a Hannah Montana Digital Photocube on sale and decided to look what’s inside it. Good for a day of hacking :)

First a description:
Storage capacity: 8 M bit (Up to 70 photos) Resolution: 128×128 dpi
Display: 1.5-inch color LCD
Supported File Format: JPG (JPEG),BMP, GIF, PNG, & TIF
Power: 2 xAAA batteries (not included)
USB Ports: Mini-USB 1.1 interface

Searching around the net produced a lot of work done by …

10 Comments | Posted in » Hackable Toys, Tutorials, hacks

Taking Apart the Spy Video ATV-360

I finally took apart the Spy Video which I got for a very good deal. I wanted to see if it would serve as a good platform for a robot and if the drive system could be upgraded. The most difficult part was taking apart the wheel hubs. The interesting part in the hubs design is that a better motor can be attached to it. The following sequence shows me taking the vehicle apart. Might come in …

4 Comments | Posted in » Hackable Toys, Robots, Tutorials, hacks

Just got my Spy Gear Spy Video ATV-360

Just got my spy video ATV-360 from Spy Gear. My local Target had this on sale for $28 and it was too good to resist. So much so that I bough two of them – with one as a standby for parts.

The ATV comes with the following features:

-A skid steer design for easy maneuverability.
-A …

3 Comments | Posted in » Hackable Toys, Robots

Did not find the page you were looking for?

Hi there, I had to clean up the site since it was getting messy and it was based on a very old version of Mambo. MachineGrid is now based on WordPress – Similar to Mambo, but I needed a change.

Anyway, in case you were linked here from other sites to certain parts of the old site, you may find new links below.
I put up the few informative pages which used to receive a lot of traffic, the …

No Comments | Posted in » New Site, News

A Simple Serial Parser Using A State Machine

This note illustrates how to decode or parse incoming serial data with an example. Transmitting one byte serially to a microcontroller is simple.The easiest way to do this is to interrupt the controller when a byte arrives on the receive pin. There is no need to parse or separate data as whatever comes in, is assigned to a variable. But what if there is more than one byte that needs to be received.How would you go about separating all the bytes and …

No Comments | Posted in » Tutorials

Soldering Your Accelerometer – The ADXL202E

I finally get my hands on Analog Devices’ accelerometer- the ADXL202E. It’s small,very small.
See what I mean!

However there’s this problem, I usually work on PDIP packages and SMDs do give me a scare,not because I’ve never soldered them,but because I do not have the necessary equipment for it. So I decide to do my thing , and also take a little inspiration from Sparkfun’s Breakout board.

My first step was to find a thinner tip …

2 Comments | Posted in » Tutorials

Programming the SRV-1 Robot Wirelessly

The Surveyor SRV-1 robots( the Philips LPC2378 version) have the ability to be programmed remotely via Maxstream Zigbee radios.
The usual way to program the Surveyor SRV-1 is via the lpc21isp utility by issuing the command:
lpc21isp.exe -hex srv1.hex com1 115200 14746
.
To program the robot wirelessly, follow the steps:
1. Download the flash utility from here.
2. You get the following splash screen after unzipping the files and running the exe.
Keep the robot switched off….

No Comments | Posted in » Microcontrollers, Robots, Tutorials

Accelerometers for your Robot[The ADXL202 and the MEMSIC 2125]

You’ve seen robots run on two wheels ,walk on two legs and balance just like us humans.I bet you’ve wondered whats in them that makes them “not tip over.

The device that enables this is a tiny teeny IMEM [aMicro Electro-Mechanical System] which can measure anything between ±1g to ±20g [some of the high g accelerometers measure ±20g to ±250g ]

The sensors:
…

No Comments | Posted in » Tutorials

PIC16484A Temperature Controller

Ever needed to measure temperature and display it? This project details measuring temperature using a temperature sensor ,an ADC and a Microcontroller PIC16f84a with schematics,codes and illustrations. You can also get the following kit, although not based on the pic, which would make your life easier for your future projects.

This project was done fairly long ago, so please excuse the quality of the pictures.

Overview
The Temperature control module was …

See larger image Arduino Duemilanove Starter Kit () New From: $44.95 In Stock

21 Comments | Posted in » Microcontrollers, Tutorials