Electronics on Strings And Tines

LED Macro Pad

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Macro Pads are great for running programs or performing other actions at the touch of a button. They sell some on Amazon, but from the reviews I didn’t get the impression that I could do a lot of customizing, particularly on Linux, which is where I wanted to use one. So I made one with a Teensy microcontroller, 6 buttons and a rotary encoder to control the volume. You can get a copy of the code in my GitHub repo.

Command Center

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction
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Being a parent of teenagers means there are a lot of activities to coordinate. I always wanted an interactive calendar to hang on the wall so my wife and I could have a real time view of what activities were happening on any particular day. I had looked online for pre-built options, but they were way too expensive. So I decided to make my own!

Info Orbs

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As soon as I saw this Info Orbs kit by Brett.tech, I wanted to get it. Not only does it look cool, but you get to put it together. Also, you can code just about anything you want to add to the display. Powered by a ESP32 microcontroller, it displays the weather, stock info, and a clock in a couple of styles. So far I have made a couple of custom clocks, but am looking forward to digging into the code to make other data displays.

Alexa Lamp

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I had this Alexa smart speaker (first gen I think) that would no longer work. I thought it would make a cool lamp, so I gutted it and added a LED lamp inside. I softened the light coming out a bit by adding some difusser I got from taking apart an old TV over the grid portion of the lamp. I also added rubber feet to keep it raised a bit, which casts a glow under the lamp. It’s not going to light up the whole room, but it acts as a nice accent piece.

Binary Clock

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Binary clocks have always been fascinating to me. They display the time accurately, but you have to do a bit of mental math to determine the time. I had an Arduino and some LEDs laying around, as well as this box with a cute cat on the lid that I got at a thrift shop. So I rolled up my sleeves and got to work!

The finished product, showing 9:17 as the time

Cigar Box Clock

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Ok this is a quick one. I took a a cigar box and added a clock mechanism. That’s it.

The finished product

Another angle

Zoom Mute Button

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Zoom became the way to communicate with coworkers during the COVID pandemic in 2020. It quickly became apparent that there needed to be a way to mute yourself easily without having to navigate to the app and click the Mute button. Since this feature has a keyboard shortcut, it was easy to create a button to do this. I used a Digispark microcontroller. It’s very small and only a couple of bucks, so it was perfect for this. I added a red LED to indicate when Mute was enabled. As a bonus feature, holding the button down will drop from the meeting. You can see the code in my GitHub repo.