Using Arduino

Arduino Battery

Arduino Battery

As many of you may know, this Lazy Old Geek loves Arduinos. Many of my projects are portable and need a battery source: http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Pedometer/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-Nokia-LCD-Sensors/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Ultrasonic-Tape-Measure/   All pricing was determined about early 2012. So, I’ve been using Adafruit 6 AA Battery holder $5.00 https://www.adafruit.com/products/248 with 6 AA rechargeable batteries. (See Picture) Another choice would …

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Solar Cell Tester

Arduino Solar Cell Tester

When I’m building Solar Shrubs and other solar-powered creations, I often scavenge cells from various off-the-shelf devices such as solar garden or security lights. But these cells are rarely labeled as to their voltage, current, and power output. So it’s off to my bread-boarding station. First, I put each cell under a lamp and connect it to my multimeter to get the volts. …

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SPI electronic device

Using an Arduino to Control or Test an SPI electronic device

There are many electronic devices that use the SPI  bus, or Serial Peripheral Interface bus, for communications (e.g. various sensors, LCD displays, digital potentiometers, D/A and A/D converters, wireless transmitters and receivers, audio volume controls).  The devices receive data serially from a microcontroller using a 3-wire set-up that includes a chip select signal (usually titled …

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